NATIONAL NEWS NETWORK SPECIAL REPORT

Host: The police department has instituted a curfew for the Underhill neighborhood, effective from midnight to six a.m., beginning tonight. We’re here with prominent activist and community organizer Sam Childs to discuss the effects of such crowd control measures. Mr. Childs?

Childs: Policing against nothing. It will only inflame tensions that might otherwise dissipate. This could’ve been all over by now, if the police weren’t trying to escalate.

Host: It’s their duty to keep the peace.

Childs: They broke the peace to begin with! They were the instigators at every level in this.

Host: The officer-involved shooting of thirteen-year-old Shae Tatum brought citizens into the streets last night.

Childs: Police are the aggressors. This is racism and police brutality 101. It’s a cycle.

Host: Isn’t it possible that increased policing and curfews could prevent such shootings?

Childs: Only if you believe in taking away people’s freedom for their own protection. Those restrictions would never fly in a white community.

Host: Riots aren’t happening in white communities.

Childs: Unarmed white children aren’t being shot by police, either.

Host: So, it all comes down to race?

Childs: Racism leads to bias. Bias leads a so-called “good” cop to see a criminal in a black child. Fear causes him to pull the trigger too soon, without a moment of pause for the benefit of the doubt. He sees a black face and he has no doubt.

Host: You weren’t there. You can’t assume that moment of pause didn’t happen, or what went through the officer’s mind.

Childs: An unarmed child died! You really want to stand by the claim that Henderson displayed good judgment?

Host: I didn’t—

Childs: He made a deadly mistake, due to bias. And here come all his defenders to say it wasn’t a mistake?

Host: Police officers make split-second decisions—

Childs: To say a thirteen-year-old girl should have known better than to be running down the street wearing headphones? That she deserved to lose her life because she was tall for her age?

Host: No one’s saying—

Childs: Absolutely, you are. Every argument about trusting a cop’s best judgment, or an officer’s need and right to protect himself, is built on the premise that something about what happened last night was not wrong. A thirteen-year-old girl. Unarmed.

Host: And the curfew…?

Childs: (Shrugs) Let’s not forget that Shae Tatum was shot around five p.m. If the police want to protect the citizens of Underhill, maybe they should think about decreasing their presence, not militarizing it. If they want to prevent wrongful shootings, maybe they should think twice about making it harder for people to legally walk the streets.

JENNICA

When Noodle comes around, sometimes it’s like the sun is shining for the first time in forever. I turn my face into him and everything is warm. When he comes around other times, it’s like the sun will never shine again.

How many times do I have to say no before he hears me?