Surrendering while Black
17th July 2017 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
A day after the one-year anniversary of the tragic police killing of 37-year-old Alton Sterling, a Black father of five whose only crime was thinking he had the right to sell his CDs outside of a Baton Rouge convenience store whose owner had given him permission, another Black man has been gunned down by police in Louisiana.
This time the victim was an unarmed, 27-year-old Black man who was reportedly lying on the ground with his hands behind his back when he was shot in the back four times by an Evangeline Parish sheriff’s deputy.
According to an attorney representing DeJuan Guillory’s girlfriend, 21-year-old Dequince Brown, the two were riding a four-wheeled ATV along a gravel road in Mamou, Louisiana when a deputy sheriff stopped them. Neither reportedly had identification. Attorney Joe Long said the situation became heated and physical before Guillory backed off. Long said the deputy ordered Guillory to lie on the ground with his weapon drawn on the unarmed man.
“Guillory was on the ground on his belly with his hands behind his back. The officer had a gun trained at Guillory’s back, maybe a foot or two from Guillory’s body,” Long said in a recent interview. “They were still arguing back and forth, but Guillory was on the ground as directed, his hands were behind his back. He was not resisting. All of a sudden, a shot rang out, and Brown knew that Guillory had been shot. She then jumped on the officer’s back to stop him from killing Guillory.”
After Brown jumped on Evangeline Parish Sheriff Deputy Paul LaFleur’s back, the deputy fired his weapon three more times into Guillory’s body.
Brown was arrested and charged with attempted first-degree murder of a police officer.
Since his tragic death on July 6, a haunting photo of Guillory sitting with presumably two of his kids, both boys clad in Halloween costumes, has been making the rounds on social media.
It is hard to imagine anyone, even a trigger-happy cop, mistaking the young father for a menace to society or some cold-blooded killer hell-bent on killing cops.
Every day we hear the narrative about cops being hate-crime victims and being targeted for murder and violence by Black and Brown men. We hear about how dangerous a job law enforcement is and how much cops worry about making it home safe and unharmed to their families.
What we don’t hear much about from mainstream media is how dangerous it is for men, women and children of color to even cross paths with law enforcement officers or live in a police state where cops are more committed to patrolling and controlling communities of color than protecting and serving those who live there.
We also don’t hear very often about how dangerous it is to be Black or Brown in the United States where it is a crime to be anything but white. Anything you do — from Driving While Black, Shopping While Black, Jogging While Black, Dreaming While Black, Playing While Black to Partying While Black, Laughing While Black, Simply Being Black and Surrendering While Black — can land you in the emergency room or morgue.
It doesn’t matter that you don’t have a gun, have never been convicted of committing a crime, have never had a brush with the law, follow the rules, are honest and hard-working and do whatever a law enforcement officer instructs you to do.
You are still viewed as a threat to authorities and an enemy of the state.
Before his death, DeJuan Guillory reportedly begged Deputy Paul Lafleur not to shoot him, pleading “Please don’t shoot me — I have three kids.”
None of that mattered to the deputy, who did not hesitate to exterminate DeJuan Guillory at close range.
Apparently, the deputy did not see Guillory as human or someone endowed with certain inalienable rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All Deputy LaFleur saw was the Boogeyman, Bigger Thomas, O.J. Simpson, Nat Turner, Django and Bad, Bad Leroy Brown all rolled up into one menacing killer.
Elected officials and law enforcement leaders who are serious about doing everything in their power to ensure that cops make it home safely every day to their loved ones should be on the front lines of the movement for police reforms. They should do everything in their power to ensure that the importance of respecting all human lives is conveyed to officers and make sure that law enforcement officers are intimately familial with the inner workings of the U.S. Constitution and their sworn oath to protect and serve all segments of the population. Last year’s shootings of law enforcement officers in Dallas, Texas and Baton Rouge, La. should serve as a cautionary tale about what can happen when segments of the population lose all faith in the legal system to mete out justice to those who violate the human, civil and constitutional rights of individuals. As a nation, we must choose to either hold law enforcement officers to the same standards assigned to everyone else or risk slipping even further into darkness and chaos.
Since the shooting, LaFleur has been placed on administrative leave while the Louisiana State Police investigates the fatal shooting.
About 200 people gathered recently in Ville Platte, Louisiana to protest the shooting, demanding justice for DeJuan Guillory and all victims of unconstitutional policing and deadly force.
Given its dismal track record with regard to investigating office-involved shootings of Black and Brown people, it is understandable that very few people expect the state’s top law enforcement agency to give the Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office anything but a rubber stamp. Most justice advocates also expect very little in the way of racial justice or even transparency from Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Despite living in a Red State and in a nation led by President Donald Trump and his wealthy and powerful allies, it is imperative that justice advocates and everyday people stand up to unconstitutional policing and racial injustice and make it clear to the powers that be that we are mad as hell and not going to take it any more.
It is also imperative that we stay woke and stay ready so that we don’t have to get ready when incidents like the DeJuan Guillory shooting take place.
We owe that to DeJuan, his kids and to ourselves.
Lest we get weary, complacent or distracted, let us remind ourselves that our Beloved Ancestors and those yet to come are watching us and depending on us to carry on this long and winding struggle for justice, liberation and recognition as free and equal human beings in this society. We can’t afford to let them or ourselves down.
All power to the people.
This article originally published in the July 17, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
