As a child of the 70s and 80s steeped in the pop culture of the time, I could always be counted on to shout “GHOSTBUSTERS!” in response to the question, “Who you gonna call?” It never got old. At least not for my young teenaged self. And I’m sure many a black and brown person within 10 years of me in either direction could do the same.
We the kids of the post Civil-Rights era, had been taught to embrace a desegregated America and our parents tried to believe that we had overcome the police brutality that they had born witness to on fuzzy black-and-white TV screens and suffered through their own bodies. We grew up with Soul Train, proud Afros, and African-inspired names. Unencumbered by Jim Crow era policies and policing, we were destined for greatness. Our generation, and the generations to follow, would secure the bag and stake our claim to everything that our blood, sweat, tears, and taxes had earned us and our ancestors, too. It was a collective hope, of course. One that we all wanted to believe.
We knew that in our real world, there was no calling of Ghostbusters. But we tried to believe that, though racism still lived in hearts and lurked on street corners, if we handled our business we would surely thrive. And when an emergency came our way, as they sometimes will, we too would be caught by society’s safety net that was just one 911 call away. Like our fellow citizens, we had a backstop for the vagaries of life:
- if a wild animal had wandered too far from its natural habitat and put our lives or homes in danger
- if our teenaged child (an inexperienced driver) became disoriented or overwhelmed
- if our grandmother’s breath was shallow or our uncle seemed to have experienced an overdose
- if the celebration of our favorite sports team led to late partying and too much to drink
- if we had been threatened or felt like we were in danger
- if a loved one or a neighbor were experiencing a mental health emergency
We should call 911, right? I mean, who are you gonna call but the emergency system to help us with our emergency? Even at school we had been instructed on how to place the 911 call and what to say. Speak slowly and clearly into the phone. Give our name and full address. And then, when help arrived, open the door and trust them to help.
Surely this is what 32-year-old Isaiah Brown thought when he sought help to quell a domestic dispute happening with his brother. He called 911 and spoke to the dispatcher who would send the sheriff’s deputy to his Spotsylvania County, Virginia home. In speaking with the 911 dispatcher, he had been forthright; he explained to the person that his brother had a gun but he did not. He wanted help for his brother who was experiencing a crisis. But instead, within seconds of the arrival of the sheriff’s deputy, while Brown was still on the phone with 911, we was told by the deputy to drop the weapon that was by his head–that is, the cordless telephone he was on–and then the deputy shot him at least 10 times. As of this writing, Brown remains in very critical condition at the hospital.
The Muñoz family of Lancaster, Pennsylvania had initially resisted calling 911 as they sought help for their brother, Ricardo Munoz, who suffered with mental illness. They were reluctant to call 911 because of the recent police killing of 27-year-old Walter Wallace Jr. as he had a mental health crisis in Philadelphia just a few weeks before. But they were nevertheless compelled to seek help through that means on a weekend afternoon. Within an hour of that call, their 27-year-old brother was dead, shot by a police officer. The family’s worst fears had been realized.
Columbus, Ohio police were quick to release the bodycam footage documenting an officer’s killing of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant, who was allegedly in a fight with another teen or young woman in front of her foster home and armed with a knife. The reason: they believe it shows the “appropriate” use of deadly force in quelling the teen girl’s aggression toward another. But many of us are critical of this police officer’s use of deadly force against a teen girl. This scenario begs the question: do police officers have the will or the skill to deescalate crises when they are called to help?
For black and brown people, the answer seems almost always to be no.
Crises happen in all segments of society, whether domestic disputes, mental health emergencies, or fights. And in the case of three of the four instances I list above, the person for whom 911 had been called were purported to have been holding knives at the time they were shot and killed. In the minds of some, this would be reason enough to exonerate the police officer who used deadly force and dismiss the maiming or death of the person in question as an unfortunate tragedy. But if we are told to call 911 to seek help for a person in crisis or seemingly out of control, why is it that the black and brown people needing the help are so often maimed or killed?
I could write many more paragraphs documenting the numerous times police officers were called to address a white person’s crisis and managed to deescalate the situation and get that person the help they needed. Whether the help comprised counseling, psychiatric care, addiction treatment, or even police custody, these emergencies didn’t end in the death of the person who needed help. Or any of their loved ones or innocent bystanders. But when black and brown people call for help, we and our loved ones are seen as threats more than anything else. And so cell phones or even knives in the hands of hurting and scared black or brown people don’t trigger an impulse to help but to crush. Crush the threat. Silence the yelling.
Too many police officers who have sworn an oath to protect and serve and who are our country’s first line of defense in crisis intervention view the lives of black and brown people as not worth the effort needed to save us, perhaps from our own emergency. We are expendable. As long as undertrained police officers operate on their own biases, they will continue to compound the traumas that created our emergencies, and subject our brown and black bodies to more violence, including deadly violence. Whatever has brought us or our loved ones to the crisis for which 911 was called will now be used against us to justify ending our lives.
This is why so many call for defunding the police and putting those resources into crisis intervention services that would dispatch trained personnel who can deescalate emergencies and provide appropriate emergency care. This is why so many call for better screening and training of police officers. This is why so many call for the dismantling of the blue wall of silence that favors closing ranks around officers who traumatize black and brown communities with their overreliance on aggressive tactics and deadly force over transparency, accountability, and trust. This is why so many continue to proclaim that our black lives matter!
After all, if we can’t call 911, who are we gonna call?