Two grand jurors, one vision of justice

We were two of the lucky ones: Our names were plucked from an old-fashioned ticket machine with a handle — the kind that picks out the winner at a county fair — to sit on a New York State grand jury, giving up 10 days of our lives to be a part of the justice system.

We became jurors Number Four and Five, sitting next to each other in the front row. We come from very different backgrounds, yet were put into a room to listen and deliberate on a myriad of alleged crimes.

We are 25 years apart in age. One grew up in the New Jersey suburbs and moved to New York City, raising a family only blocks from the courthouse. The other grew up in Harlem, went to Frederick Douglass Academy High School and then SUNY Oswego, moving back to a (gentrifying) Harlem after graduating in 2013.

You might expect — especially given the terrible shootings of the past weeks — that our differences would have been pronounced in the jury room. They were not.

We noticed several things over the course of the two weeks: We were constantly voting the same way; many times we asked the same questions; and many times, we made similar off-handed remarks to each other.

And it’s our belief that, while the media and some others claim otherwise, the racial divide in this country is not as severe as it may appear to be. Tensions are high, but the rhetoric and actions of a few should not speak for the country as a whole.

We believe that, in order to address the difficult issues of today, we need to understand that the sole purpose of defining races was to separate people. The racial divide will always exist as long as people are classified in a facile way as black or white and aren’t given the opportunity to truly speak as individuals.

The assistant district attorneys who presented their cases to us represented a mix of races. The police officers — whether detectives, uniformed or undercover — were of every ethnicity and skin color. The accused, too. In a number of cases we had no idea of the ethnic or racial background of people in question.

We didn’t have any cases that rose to the level of those being scrutinized in the media today. But if we had, we would have held police officers to the same standard as civilians when facing penalty by the law.

We believe accidental killings, such as that of Eric Garner, should come with jail time. Overuse of force and assault should be penalized by law and not just result in being fired.

If these cases did come before us, we believe that we would have listened intently to the evidence and performed our duty fairly and without any bias.

That said, we understand how officers put their lives on the line every day — in all kinds of communities, and especially those that are the most violent. So we can’t say how they should or should not react in certain situations.

Sometimes their fears are warranted. But the overuse of force needs to be clearly defined and reviewed.

The past few weeks have been difficult for the nation. It feels as though we’ve drifted further apart, often along racial and ethnic lines. The rhetoric that we have heard from some would be leaders has enhanced this divide which we must bridge.

In our place inside the jury room, there was a bridge that immediately existed and race held no sway for us, as all the crimes were looked at with the same vigor, horror and dismay.

It never mattered. Not one time. We just did our job: listening, asking and voting whether to indict. Our leaders, and all of us, need to find ways to work together so we can all live the way we did during those 10 days.

What we learned sitting alongside each other