SayHerName: Female black lives matter too
NEW YORK — Four months after Eric Garner died during an altercation with police on Staten Island, officers in Cleveland found themselves struggling to subdue a 37-year-old with a history of mental illness.
As in Garner’s case, the person was black, unarmed and soon dead. As in Garner’s case, the death was declared a homicide.
Tanisha Anderson became one of more than two dozen black females who have died in custody or confrontations with law enforcement since 2000, but whose names never caught fire in the call for police reform as “Black Lives Matter” marchers called out the names of black males: Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray. Anderson’s name remains largely unknown. She was killed just nine days before Rice, the 12-year-old shot by Cleveland police while playing with a toy gun.
Now, relatives of the women are trying to make sure their names are not forgotten, and they have joined forces with some of the same activists who marched in protests demanding justice for slain men. This time, they are demanding justice for slain women in a movement called SayHerName.
“If all black lives matter, women should be raised up as well,” said Karl Kumodzi, 23, who attended a New York rally last month, one of dozens held across the country. Kumodzi noted that it was women who launched the “Black Lives Matter” movement.
Activists say there are several reasons black female deaths are not widely known. There are far fewer of them than those involving men and boys. In addition, videos implicating police in female deaths have not surfaced as they did in the cases of Garner, Rice and Walter Scott in North Charleston, S.C., in April.
Protesters worry that if Americans are not aware of female victims, the abuses against them will be allowed to continue.
Like cases involving men and boys, most of the females’ deaths have been mired in controversy, with police saying they felt threatened and witnesses alleging officers overreacted. Most of the women were unarmed, many had histories of mental illness, and some had previous run-ins with police. Some, though, were just unlucky. They include:
Alberta Spruill, 57, who died of a heart attack when New York police acting on bad information broke down the door of her apartment on May 16, 2003, and threw a concussion grenade inside.
Tarika Wilson, 26, who was shot dead on Jan. 4, 2008, in her Lima, Ohio, home by police searching for her boyfriend.
Wilson’s family received a $2.5 million wrongful-death settlement. In Spruill’s case, the city settled a wrongful-death lawsuit for $1.6 million. Police apologized.
Even in cases involving women with histories of violence or crime, activists say there is no excuse for failing to call attention to their deaths.
“The numbers are not as high, so it’s easy for them to be swept under the rug,” said Natasha Duncan, whose sister, Shantel Davis, was shot to death by a New York police detective on June 14, 2012, after the stolen car she was driving crashed. “The movement needs to make sure they are not forgotten.”