The high profile police-involved killings of Black people have helped bring light to incidents and issues that never garnered the same amount of media attention; this is the one thing we can be thankful for.
The case of 30-year-old Terrance Bridges is one example of a black man shot and killed by a white police officer that never received the attention he deserved.
According to Vice, Bridges was shot and killed in May 2019 by Kansas City, Missouri police officer Dylan Pifer, who was never indicted by a grand jury for the killing. Even worse, he was allowed to return to the force just nine days after the incident.
Six months after Bridges’ death, Pifer found himself involved in another incident, according to police records obtained by VICE. Fortunately, this time the result of his actions was not death, but assault. Pifer was accused of aggressively handcuffing a 15-year-old Black teenager, restraining him while his partner Sergeant Matthew Neal slammed the young boy’s face into the ground, which required him to get six stitches on his forehead.
Dashcam footage captured the incident, and according to the outlet, the teenage boy can be heard saying, “I can’t breathe.” The unidentified teenager and his mother have since filed a complaint against the officers involved, citing the excessive use of force at the time of his arrest. But somehow the police chief intervened, ordering the criticism against his officer be dropped. There is now no record of the incident appearing in Pifer’s personnel file.
The family hired attorney Tom Porto to represent them in the action; he presented evidence of the incident to the county prosecutor’s office. An investigation into criminal charges was launched, but as a result, only officer Neal was charged with felony assault.
Neal is represented by Sean McCauley, the union lawyer, and says his client will not plead guilty to the charges. He plans to “mount a vigorous defense” for Neal, who is currently suspended pending an internal disciplinary process.
Kanas City is riddled with police-involved shootings that have taken the lives of six Black men in the past three years, and there has been little consequence for the officers’ actions. The death of Bridges is included in that number.
Pifer was responding to a domestic violence call after Bridges’ neighbor called 911 and told them Bridges was armed. Upon arrival, Pifer claims he saw Bridges pull his hands out of the pocket of his hooded shirt, “as if presenting a weapon.” Pifer shot him once in the chest. Bridges was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead. There was no gun.
“They didn’t even give him a chance. They didn’t tell him to freeze or nothing,” said Rotonya McGee, who drove that night from Chicago to Kansas City when she heard about her son. “They gave no commands for him to do. He just took his life.”
Bridges’ mother described her son as a family man, saying he loved to cook, dance, and tell jokes. His plans to move to Chicago with his girlfriend will never happen, “Thanks to Kansas City Police Department.”
“I’ll never see my son again,” McGee said. “They just broke my heart so bad.”
According to Vice, over 1,000 people have been killed by law enforcement in the United States over the past year, Kansas City has one of the highest rates of police killings in America, but until last year, none of its officers had been criminally charged with killing or using excessive force on civilians.
This is America.
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