Sean Bell

I tried. I tried so hard to read several newspaper articles in order to pin down the truth. That way I could remain unbiased. I dont know if the testimony summaries I read confirmed what I believed or if my vision was too clouded still. I remembered the morning that his face was on the cover of the newspaper. I remember why I cried. It was just as my conciousness was waking up. I cried for his fiance, who lost the love of her life before one of the biggest days of her life. For the rest of the family. I tried to decide what really mattered. I tried to put myself in the place of the officers, to decide what I would have done. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. But then I wondered, what was it that made two officers feel so much more threatened than the others that they had to pull the trigger so many more times than everyone else. I wondered if I had a gun, would I remember whether or not I pulled the trigger, emptied bullets into a human being. I wondered if I was afraid and was anouncing to a "dangerous man", how loud would I scream to make sure he knew I was an officer. My answer, loud as hell. Everyone on the block would know I was legit. No eyewitness would have a doubt. If someone was "chasing" me with a car my ass would be too busy running to shoot. And I wouldn't turn my body on autopilot, I would know what was goin on. More questions, how many crime scenes are messed over, was this one taken care of so sloppily because of its nature or is that the routine procedure. How could they not find any sort of recklessness in this case? Why aren't reasons, detailed explanations, given in cases like this? Why aren't we rioting? Why aren't I rioting? What do I do know? My heart will break the day my little brothers are pulled over by the police. Don't they see that its things like this that make us streotype, hate, and fear them. I hate them for the way the treated me once. They make me nervous with their presence. What am I to do?