Seventeen-year-old Kadarius Smith just wanted to get home. He was near his home in Leland, Mississippi, when police were called. When he started running, the police cruiser followed — running over him.
This ended the high school junior’s plans to graduate and move to Georgia with his sister. His loved ones were left with an incomplete story, and a body with tire marks on the back.
“The idea that the police officer purposely ran over the alleged victim is a complete absurdity,” insists Leland’s city attorney. But is it?
How many fatal incidents, from patrol cars and gunshots to Tasers and “non-lethal” restraints, must there be until supposed “accidents” are acknowledged as systemic executions? The impact of policing is consistently deadly.
And knowing the system’s nature, so are its intentions.
Police have killed about 300 people this year so far. Not too far from where Smith was killed, last year, a police car “accidentally” ran over Dexter Wade. His unclaimed body was buried behind a jail where it lay for months while his mother searched for him. Since 2016, over 200 others have been found buried in that Mississippi field, without their families being notified.
Honoring these deaths means refusing to accept that these “accidents” are inevitable. The police system may promote the assumption that cops deserve the benefit of the doubt. But they aren’t entitled to our trust.