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Requiem for Devin Brown, Political Football
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5390 Reads
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 He was a car thief suspect, somebody's baby boy, a kid gone wrong, a dangerous felon, a simple joyrider, another black teenager killed by The Man.
In death, Devin Brown has proved to be many more things than he might have been in the life that preceded his shooting last week.
As his family laid him to rest in a lavish, deeply mourned funeral paid for by Snoop Dogg and Steve Harvey, it was clear Devin Brown had become one thing his mother, his family and friends and the officers of the LAPD had never planned nor intended for him to be: a symbol ...
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To some, he's the latest symptom of the LAPD's penchant for violence. To others, a sad illustration of the department's inability to mend fences with L.A.'s communities of color.
To some, he's a stupid kid who should have been home in bed, to others, he's a reason to talk about riots again.
To those with a callous, absolutist view of the way he died, he's nothin' but a perp. Cathy Seipp writes: I'm getting impatient with the media's kneejerk description of that 13-year-old joyrider shot dead by Los Angeles police last week as "unarmed." How, exactly, is a thief at the wheel of a potential deadly piece of machinery, who ignores police commands to stop and then apparently tries to run them over, ever "unarmed?"
To put this in perspective, there are about 30,000 gun-related deaths annually in the U.S., most of them (about 60%) suicides, compared to around 42,000 fatal car accidents. So you are more likely to be killed by an "unarmed" driver than by someone with a gun -- far more likely, in fact, if that someone is a person other than yourself, feeling depressed. (Of course, a car accident can be your own fault -- especially if you're the sort who enjoys speeding along in an SUV, feeling invulnerable because, you know, it's so big, and how can anything bad happen to a tank with coffee cup holders?) Sure it's sad when a 13-year-old dies. But it would have been a lot sadder if the police hadn't stopped this one before he killed or maimed unlucky drivers or pedestrians who got in his way. To those with a need for an emotional trigger to yank in order to sway the public will, Devin Brown is a cause for paranoia.
But the Devin Brown case refuses to be clear-cut, despite the efforts of L.A.'s religious leaders, angered residents, mass newsmedia and law-and-order hawks to frogmarch it into one category or another.
As many times as they try to pin down what happened and who's really to blame - LAPD crime, senseless tragedy, "good" shooting, "bad" shooting, flashpoint for racial tension, lesson to parents etc. etc. - another explanation pops up.
As a father, I can say only this with any conviction: Nobody should ever have to bury their child.
And as horribly wrong and defiant of labels as Devin Brown's death is, nor should anyone have to see this city destroy itself a third time over this turn of fate, or any other.
We're smarter than that. We can work this out.
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| Posted by: mack_reed on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 11:19 PM
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