IF ONLY FREDDIE GRAY WAS A POLICE CAR

Of course cop cars matter!

So do the lives of police officers!

And guess what? Freddie Gray’s life mattered!

While I’m making my rounds of citing who and what matters, allow me to state what should be obvious: Black lives matter.

Are you mad because I ended that last sentence with bold characters, and didn’t do the same for “cop car”?

If so — goodbye. You’re reading the wrong blog. We discuss larger issues here.

Cop cars are on my mind this morning because the acquittal of Baltimore police officer Edward Nero for the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody makes me think about a friend of Gray’s — 19-year-old Allen Bullock.

In response to Gray’s controversial death, Bullock smashed the windshield of a Baltimore police car.

Bullock’s subsequent arrest shouldn’t have surprised anyone since you can’t destroy a police car and expect the prosecuting attorney to give you a high-five.

Bullock’s sentencing didn’t surprise me: 12-year prison sentence, with 11 years and six months of that term being suspended; five years of probation; 400 hours of community service; mandatory GED pursuit.

I wasn’t even surprised about the judge-ordered written letter of apology Bullock had to write to the Baltimore Police Department.

But here’s a relatively surprising realization: it’s possible that no one from the Baltimore Police Department will serve jail time for placing Freddie Gray in a police van without securing him, and driving through city streets with Gray bouncing around the cargo area as if the cops were merging the games of pinball and Mortal Kombat.

Officer Nero’s legal team was able to convince the court that although a team of officers were physically capable of subduing Gray, applying handcuffs and placing him in a truck, the same officers could not sufficiently overpower Gray to secure him to the truck, nor should Nero be held responsible for the deadly result: Gray’s severed spine.

And that takeaway brings me back to the Bullock case, where I’ve painfully concluded that Freddy Gray would have to do perform a surprising act of his own in order for his family to see justice: transform his post-mortem state into a police car.

After all, cop cars matter …
…

song currently stuck in my head: “brown sugar” – akasha