Korryn Gaines was shot by a police officer, Korryn Gaines is dead. Really, that’s the best way to sum this up. What hurts is that, so far, she’s the closest any person has been to filming their own demise by police. What hurts even more is that she died with her five-year-old son in her arms; a son who was also shot, but luckily not killed. The mourning of her death was almost immediate, with an outpouring of grief and support being shown on Twitter and Instagram. Along with my own grief, something else happened; I became numb. I didn’t feel surprised, I didn’t feel shocked, nothing. I felt, that after all this time, my feelings simply adjusted to it. Then my anger resurfaced when I found out what she was wanted for. It was traffic violations. The police came, in riot gear, to arrest a woman for not appearing in court for traffic violations.
Prior to any of this happening, Gaines led, what appeared to be a normal life; that’s the vibe I got from her Instagram page. It’s rather eerie to look at, especially the final two posts that she put up. The first, of these final two, is a video that shows her talking to her son just moments before police entered her apartment; the second shows an officer in battle gear at her open door. These are the last moments of someone who was later shot and killed by the police. Interestingly, when I went back to take a screenshot of it, it was deleted off of her page. Thankfully I found a captured video on the GS3 Inc. Instagram page.
This case has stirred up controversy, as Gaines was allegedly pointing a weapon at the officers when they fired. The police would consider this an open and shut case, but those in the black community have a beautiful tendency to examine things beyond face value. One observation made is that the officer at the door is within visible line of sight, yet never calls out for Gaines to put her weapon down, or takes a defensive stance. Another video of her alleged guilt is a video of her loading a shotgun; a video that proved to have been shot before the shooting, not during. People are now putting her mental health into question, saying that she was too mentally disturbed, but that didn’t seem to hinder the chances of living for James Holmes, Dylann Roof, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and Robert Dear, the latter of which actually killed a cop. The one excuse, used to exonerate white mass murderers of being directly responsible for their crimes, is now being used to demonize a 23-year-old black woman, who in no way, in the videos she provided, seemed to pose a threat.
Now, once again, we’re told what happened from the point of view of the survivor while the deceased lies defenseless. If a single black woman can warrant an officer in full SWAT gear, then God help someone who looks even more intimidating to them than that. Hopefully her son heals quickly and can find some kind of closure in this tragedy.
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