Transparency paramount after police killings
Ibelieve in prayer. Wholly, and without equivocation. I’ve seen it work. For my family. For others. For me. When my daughter was in first grade, she accidentally spilled most of a cup of hot cocoa on her chest. She bent over in pain, trapping much of the hot liquid in her abdomen. Third-degree burns (words you never want to hear), the doctors said.
She spent 10 days in the hospital burn unit — a place you never want to go, ever. Ten days of cleansing the wound. Of grafts. Of pain. For all of those days, our church prayed. Our family prayed. Our friends prayed. Her friends prayed. Teachers prayed.
She left the hospital. Prayers answered. Upon arriving at home, she couldn’t walk. Too much pain. Just a few days later, though, she walked into church. Prayers answered.
She already swam competitively, though we didn’t know when she would swim again. If she’d swim again. If she’d feel comfortable in a swimsuit, comfortable revealing the scars on her abdomen.
One day during a follow-up doctor visit, she looked at me. “Don’t worry, Daddy, I’ll wear a two-piece.” Prayers answered (I think.)
She became a state champion. Prayers answered.
Prayers are for healing. Prayers are for strength. Prayers are for discernment. Prayers for restoration.
Stephen Clay Perkins’ family should not have to pray for truth. For transparency.
His friends should not have to pray for truth. For accountability.
His city should not have to pray for truth. For action.
We should not have to pray for any of it. Not anymore. Not after George Floyd. Not after Breonna Taylor. Not after Tyre Nichols. And so many more. Too many more. (E.J. Bradford’s family is still praying.)
Not after so many lives taken by police. So many Black lives.
We should not have to pray for the release of the bodycam footage revealing another angle of what happened early Friday morning Sept. 29 when Perkins was killed by police in the front yard of his home in Decatur, Ala., about 26 miles southwest of Huntsville. Shot and killed over a dispute with a tow truck driver who had come to repossess — rightly or wrongly, as his family attests — Perkins’ truck. A tow driver. A truck. All for a life.
The angles we’ve seen, shot by neighbors’ security cams, don’t show us much, but what we hear is horrifying — 18 shots fired in rapid succession, less than a beat after an officer yelled for Perkins to drop the gun. 18.
We know what police say: That Perkins, some time after 1:30 a.m., turned the gun toward the officer “causing the officer to fire.” 18 times.
What does the video say? Let us all see for ourselves. That should not have to be our prayer. Not anymore.
Emotions are understandably raw in Decatur, the River City it’s called. Recently, hundreds gathered at city hall there to pray. To pray through their pain.
Not everyone believes in prayer, I know and respect. Prayer will not please everyone. For some, it’s not enough. On Tuesday, a Decatur city councilman called for the still-unnamed officer who killed Perkins to be fired, and for Police Chief Todd Pinion to lose his job, too.
The department “failed,” the councilman said.
Alabama’s state bodycam law, like those in so many other states, is toothless. Any citizen can ask for footage, but the authorities overseeing the investigation don’t have to turn it over to the public. When they don’t, they must only tell us why.
The usual reply is wrapped in the jargon of an “ongoing investigation.”
Duh. All the more reason it should be released. All the more reason its truth — as horrific as it almost certainly is — should be revealed. (Or, at minimum, shown to the family.)
Because we should no longer have to pray for truth and transparency.
Not anymore.