Written by Anonymous
As a member of this community, I’ve been watching public discourse online recently following the tragic death of Lloyd Gilmore. I’d like to emphasize that I do empathize with his family, and I hope God will comfort them in this difficult time in their lives.
But as I’ve been watching from the sidelines these past several weeks, I’ve seen some truly abhorrent rhetoric from people online – including multiple calls for the death of white people as well as calls for violence towards police officers in general. Most of these calls for violence came immediately after the incident. While I totally understand the calls for investigation, it has become increasingly clear to me over these past few weeks that it’s not going to matter what the investigation says happened.
People have already made up their minds and are so ideologically blind, in their opinion, the police are guilty of murder regardless of the evidence. So why did people jump to this conclusion? Well, there was one eyewitness account who claimed Lloyd Gilmore was beaten to death. That’s the initial claim – and it’s important to remember that in the context of this entire situation.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have his phone to record the incident, so there is no concrete evidence of this. Eyewitness testimony is powerful, but at the end of the day – that’s one person’s subjective interpretation of a person being handled roughly by the cops. The witness may or likely may not have had all of the relevant facts before painting this as a Rodney King beating. Since the incident, I’ve not been able to find the videos of this man making these claims. Is there anything to that?
Then came the first autopsy, which claimed there was no evidence he had been severely beaten. Immediately online, this autopsy was dismissed as a cover-up – despite the coroner himself wanting a second autopsy and cooperating with the family and their wishes to do so. I think this is where the narrative began to and will continue to shift.
In real time, we will see the narrative change from Lloyd Gilmore was beaten to death by the Sikeston police – to Lloyd Gilmore was going through a mental health crisis and the police are at fault for not following the proper protocols and procedures. At no point – despite the police report and in due time, the body camera footage – will anyone hold this man accountable who was disobeying, antagonizing, and ultimately assaulted the police (based on the police report).
Why would he be in such a mental state? The autopsy will likely provide more evidence to that question. Why the immediate condemnation of the police? It appears there’s virtually ZERO evidence the police beat Mr. Gilmore to death. If the second autopsy says there was no evidence he was beaten to death, will people believe that? Or is this second autopsy by another independent group also a cover-up? Why are we so quick to assume conspiracy theories regarding the cops?
Well, there’s a lot of misinformation about police and use of force. I would encourage anyone to look into Roland Fryer – an African American Harvard professor – and his research into police brutality. While it’s true police are more likely to use nonlethal use of force against minorities, there is actually ZERO discrepancy when it comes to lethal use of force from police on minorities compared to white people.
Many people at the town hall complained that they felt unsafe because the police seem to be in their neighborhoods more than others. As was pointed out – that’s where the majority of the crime is. The reality when it comes to murder in this country is the African American community, despite making up 13% of our population, commits over 50% of the murder convictions. The real statistic is even scarier when you consider it’s mostly young Black males (~7% of the population) and we’re only considering murder convictions. There’s a lot of gang violence that never leads to a conviction. We need leadership from the black community to condemn this cultural problem and not be afraid to voice their opinion and build bridges across racial lines.
I am in no way claiming police are not capable of doing wrong. If this investigation finds there was wrongdoing by the police, I am 100% in favor of those at fault being held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. I only felt the need to speak out because it seems to me many in our community are nearly to the point they’re ready to crucify the police involved with very little to no evidence.
I fear for our community and how people will react if they don’t like the verdict of the second autopsy and investigation. There have already been calls for violence, and unfortunately that’s why I’ve asked Gwyn to keep my opinion anonymous.
