"FN, this was nice. Now tell this to the *wife of Officer Omar J. Edwards, 25, a black officer was shot died by a white officer in NYC.Do you think she wants to "Sit down and have an honest, open conversation...guarantee equal rights, opportunity, and justice for all of our citizens". How do you think she will raise her children to "educate and teach them while they are young." ~DuchessDee~
I feel DuchessDee's frustration, who among us doesn't? Officer Omar Edward should be alive today, and if it wasn't for the color of his skin, he probably would be. It's frustrating, it's sad, and tomorrow it will happen again. The person might not die, but somewhere in A-murder-ca injustice will be done.
As sad and angry as this story makes me, it doesn't make me as angry as how I felt about that incident in yet another state that I wish would seriously consider secession from these divided states, Oklahoma. What that state trooper did to EMS driver, Maurice White, Jr (That's what you get for leaving Earth Wind & Fire) was beyond inexcusable. It smacked of racism and ignorance. And I can just imagine how many times this storm.., whoops, I mean state trooper had pulled this little stunt in the past. But White was lucky, he lived to star in a movie about it. Edwards was not.
Had Edwards not been shot and worse, lost his life; what he [the state trooper] did would have probably been worse than what Andrew Dunton, the man who shot Omar Edwards,did. Dunton made his decision in a split second. (This state trooper had ample time to think about his ignorance and how he was acting) In the split second that it takes to make a life and death decision, he made the wrong one thanks to a life time of false perceptions and stereotypes. Oh you will read about what a good neighbor he was, and how he loved his community blah blah blah. I am sure he did, but I am guessing that his community didn't exactly look like Omar Edward's community if you get my drift. Dunton pulled the trigger that killed Edwards because he probably didn't know any other people like him [Edwards] other than the ones who wore the uniform of his employer. People like Omar Edwards, to him, were all on the wrong side of the law. It's a shame, because, as we have tried to say on this blog countless times, all it would take is a willingness to be open and an effort to see other people as just people. So when he jumped out of that unmarked police car in East Harlem, there was no doubt in his mind that he was taking action against a law breaker who was preying on an innocent citizen. But tragically, he was wrong.
Edwards wasn't wearing a NYPD uniform, he was wearing his human one, and it cost him his life.