Casey Goodson, Jr. fell onto his kitchen floor, his house keys dangling in the front door lock. He'd just been fatally shot by a county sheriff’s deputy in Columbus, Ohio. He was black. He was twenty-three. He was home.
When the report flashed across the evening news on December 4, I leaped from my chair and fled the room. I didn’t want to feel the urge to vomit again. I didn’t want to collapse onto my knees again. I didn’t want to scream.
I fled and forgot. But the words and images gnawed on me until this morning when my stupor broke. In the past week, I'd become a stranger, a woman devoid of compassion. I was shocked by the unwillingness to sink into my despair and work through to the other side. Shocked by the ease of slipping into numbness.
How often? How many? Stop counting.
This was the first time Casey Goodson, Jr. was killed by the police.
I will remember him.
When the report flashed across the evening news on December 4, I leaped from my chair and fled the room. I didn’t want to feel the urge to vomit again. I didn’t want to collapse onto my knees again. I didn’t want to scream.
I fled and forgot. But the words and images gnawed on me until this morning when my stupor broke. In the past week, I'd become a stranger, a woman devoid of compassion. I was shocked by the unwillingness to sink into my despair and work through to the other side. Shocked by the ease of slipping into numbness.
How often? How many? Stop counting.
This was the first time Casey Goodson, Jr. was killed by the police.
I will remember him.
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