Thousands of words have been written and
spoken on media since a jury found officer Yeronimo Janez not guilty of
manslaughter in the shooting of Philando Castile here in Minnesota.
While Mr. Castile may have used
marijuana before he was stopped, it is clear in retrospect that he did nothing
that would justify him losing his life in this incident. One of the jurors, interviewed by Minnesota
Public Radio, said "What happened to Philando is not OK to any of us.
Nobody felt good about any part of this.”[1]
Last week, a post showed up on my
Facebook page about Deputy Derek Geer of the Mesa County (Colorado) who was
killed in the line of duty after attempting to apprehend a teenage suspect reported
to have a gun by Tasing him. The youth
managed to get his gun out and fatally wound Deputy Geer.[2]
The Facebook post ended by saying “Do
the right thing always but never lose sight of the number one goal. Go home to your loved ones at the end of your
shift.”
So, is this where we are today? Do we need to decide who is more deserving to
live, the law enforcement officer who is doing his job best he can, or the
innocent (usually African American) man who is pulled over (for the umpteenth
time in the past several months) because he looks like a robbery suspect – that
is, he’s African American.
So that’s our assignment for today. Ponder the value of a human life, and whose
is “more valuable.”
An observation: If you finished that assignment in two or
three seconds, you have not thought hard enough.
I have gone on a silent retreat most
Novembers for the past 30 years. One of
the assignments we were given on one of those retreats was to take a scene from
scripture, read it carefully and slowly, and then sit back, close your eyes and
put yourself into that scene. I’ve done
it a couple of times, with remarkable results.
If you finished that assignment in
seconds, I would ask you to put yourself into a scene. Imagine yourself as Deputy Geer’s wife, Kate,
or one of his children, Ian or Macey. Or
imagine yourself as Philado Castile’s mother, Valerie Castile, or one of the grade school kids who asks "What happened to Mr. Phil?"
I suspect no one could complete the
assignment in seconds after doing this.
I know I’ll be pondering this issue for a long time – likely the rest of
my life.
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