Comedian Dave Chappelle once said, “White people look at Black men as shysters, that we are always up to no good.”
Officers Justin Schmidt and Ryan Kelly do not get to pile on more bogus justification for the killing of Thurman Blevins based on their paranoid delusions.
The officers believed they were being lured into an ambush by Blevins because he ran into an alley and “was not really trying to run away.” Their paranoid delusions were not grounded in reality – it is their fears that are run amok.
Their fear of Black men has them believing that they were not just chasing one Black man, but that there were a whole bunch of Black men in the alley in hiding, ready to execute them. And that Blevins was the shyster – up to no good trying to lure them into an ambush.
Many Whites believe the officers’ fear of being lured into an ambush is legitimate because they would process it the same way.
If Schmidt and Kelly chase a White man down an alley in Uptown Minneapolis, would they also fear a possible ambush?
Frank Erickson lives in Minneapolis.
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