This has been a violent week. Hundreds died in Iraq. Hundreds more died in Darfur. 32 were killed on the Virginia Tech campus. As such, you may not have heard. A
nother unarmed Blackman was shot in the back and killed by the police. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is looking into the shooting of two brothers by Fulton County police officers that left one dead and the other seriously injured outside a nightclub early Sunday. Neither of the brothers were armed.Fulton and state officers are looking for evidence and talking to people who witnessed the shooting of Roy Pettaway III, 27, and his brother, Ron Pettaway, 26. The incident happened on a sidewalk outside the Frozen Palace nightclub in south Fulton County. Shots were fired after the brothers allegedly got into an altercation with the two officers who arrived to break up a fight at the nightclub. I'm fairly certain that barroom fights don't carry a death penalty in America. Yet, one brother is dead and the other had a bullet removed by doctors in the emergency room.
The officers, each of whom has fewer than two years on the force, are on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. Their names have not been released.
Services will be held for Ron on Saturday at Liveoak Baptist Church, 2601 Flat Shoals Road, in College Park on what would have been his 27th birthday. The Rev. Markel Hutchins, a civil rights activist and Pettaway family spokesman, said there will be a march from the Frozen Palace to the church for the funeral. The funeral itself will be held on Saturday, April 21 at 10:00 am, on what would have been Ron's 27th birthday.
We encourage any villagers who live in the Atlanta area, or anywhere in Georgia, to attend the march. A special section in Liveoak's sanctuary will be set aside for families of other metro Atlantans allegedly victimized by police, Hutchins said. Hutchins and the victims' relatives have been vocal in their outrage over the shooting that they have described as nothing short of murder and a violation of the brothers' civil rights.
You can learn more about this situation from other AfroSpear bloggers here, here and here. Also, I see where the Pettaway family posted relevant news and video on the case.
I live in Cincinnati, OH. We had similar issues with our police department that came to a head in April 2001 when the 15th Black man was killed by the local police. The Cincinnati uprising made international news. The city is still dealing with the real and perceived problems in community-police relations.
I understand that DeKalb police had a dozen fatal shootings in 2006 and Atlanta officers shot an elderly woman to death during a botched police raid on her home. My hope is that folks will learn from the past and deal proactively with this situation in Fulton County before it blows up into a similiar situation.
Yesterday, activists asked the governor to get engaged in the issue.
It was a violent week. However, we cannot afford to let the shooting of unarmed Blackmen be swept under the rug. The African American Online Network, known as the AfroSpear, must ask the major newspapers and mass media, why they have not come out with editorials condemning this shooting. What justification can there be for not speaking out?
