Lincoln Ware Talks With Chief Blackwell

75 Black Men And Boys Killed By Police

UPDATED: 3:00 p.m. ET, Feb. 16 -- Police shooting and killing Black males is all but a centuries-old American tradition among law enforcement in the U.S. But the fact that this apparent rite of police passage is still thriving in 2020 and only seems to be gaining momentum and not slowing should give any American citizen pause as an increasing number of Black people -- especially males both young and old -- continue to be added to a growing list of victims with what seems like a new shooting every week. MORE: Police Shootings And The Public Execution Of Black People Terrance Franklin was 22 years old and unarmed when he was fatally shot in a dark basement by Minneapolis SWAT officers who were responding to a burglary in May of 2013, according to the Star Tribune. In a lawsuit filed by Franklin’s father, Walter Louis Franklin, II, he alleged that his son had already surrendered with his hands in the air when he was shot. Officers and city officials, however, claim that Franklin was shot after trying to wrestle an M5 rifle from an officer. Two other officers were hit by gunfire, but they both survived. On Friday, six years after Franklin’s death, Minneapolis City Council reached a settlement with his family for $795,000. The details of the settlement have not been disclosed. https://twitter.com/WCCO/status/1228303066555977728 A 23-year-old man named Miles Hall, who suffered from mental illness, was fatally shot by Walnut Creek Police in San Francisco on June 2, 2019. His family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging that his civil rights were violated, according to a report from a San Francisco CBS affiliate. Hall’s family called for help the day he was killed as a precautionary measure because he was running through the neighborhood “behaving erratically,” while carrying a long pry bar that police considered to be a weapon. The police called Hall over when they arrived at the scene. The man ran towards the officers, but ordered him to stop, which he did momentarily before changing directions. His family said Hall was attempting to run “past” the officers. One of the officers fired several “bean bag” rounds at Hall as he approached them while running, but he did not stop running, according to the report. Other officers opened fire, fatally wounding him. Civil Rights attorney, John Burris, who is representing the family, said that the officers were equipped with tasers, but did not use them. Some of the officers on the scene have done crisis intervention training, and a specialist was notified that Hall was involved in a crisis. However, the safety measures were not adhered to. The family says they reached out to Walnut Creek Police on numerous occasions in the event that they needed help with Hall, the end result would not be fatal. The killing was captured via video footage, which was edited and later released by police on social media. https://twitter.com/kron4news/status/1172383435316318210 Most recently, an unarmed driver was handcuffed and placed in a police car before an officer shot him to death on the night of Jan. 27 in Prince George's County, Maryland, Fox DC reported. The man has been identified by his family as William Green. More than 18 hours later, the Prince George's County Police Department had still not fully briefed the media, prompting questions from Green's family about potential false narratives being spread about the victim in an effort to protect the officer who killed him. Still shots from videos claim to show Green not being aggressive, contradicting police reports. It was unclear how old Green was at the time of his killing. https://twitter.com/TraceeWilkins/status/1222227596932452352?s=20 Prior to that, police in Cobb County, Georgia shot and killed a teenager on Jan. 16 who they said was identified as a "murder suspect." When cops went to serve a warrant to Samuel David Mallard at his home, the 19-year-old reportedly fled before officers stopped he vehicle and "Issued verbal command," according to a press release from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). What came next, though, was unclear -- except for the part where four police officers all fired shots at Mallard, who local news outlets said vaguely "did not cooperate" with law enforcement. Conveniently, the GBI also announced that "a gun was found in Mallard’s vehicle," although there were no reports that alleged gun ever posed a threat to the lives of the officers involved. Some of the other victims' names include, but certainly aren't limited to, Tamir Rice; Botham Shem Jean; E.J. Bradford; and Michael Brown. But two of the most recent names that can tragically be included in this deadly equation are Michael Dean, a 28-year-old father who police shot in the head on Dec. 3, 2019, and Jamee Johnson, a 22-year-old HBCU student who police shot to death after a questionable traffic stop on Dec. 14, 2019. One of the most distressing parts of this seemingly nonstop string of police killings of Black people is the fact that more times than not, the officer involved in the shooting can hide behind the claim that they feared for their lives -- even if the victim was shot in the back, as has become the case for so many deadly episodes involving law enforcement. In a handful of those cases -- such as Antwon Rose, a 13-year-old boy killed in Pittsburgh, and Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old killed in Sacramento, both of whom were unarmed -- the officers either avoided being criminally charged altogether or were acquitted despite damning evidence that the cops' lives were not threatened and there was no cause for them to resort to lethal force or any violence for that matter. Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who has been retained in so many of these cases, described the above scenarios in his new book, "Open Season," as the "genocide" of Black people. As NewsOne continues covering these shootings that so often go ignored by mainstream media, the below running list (in no certain order) of Black men and boys who have been shot and killed by police under suspicious circumstances can serve as a tragic reminder of the dangers Black and brown citizens face upon being born into a world of hate that has branded them as suspects since birth.