Column: Questions, like tears, fall after Stephon Clark's death

Rochelle Riley | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Al Sharpton attacks Trump at funeral for Stephon Clark Sharpton gave the eulogy for Clark, 22, to the overflowing Bayside of South Sacramento Church as he held tightly to Stephon's distraught brother, Stevante, who frequently grabbed the microphone.

I can hear the gunshots in my sleep.

They sound like the gunshots from the last time.

And the time before that.

And the time before that.

Sharp pops whose noise belies their power. Quick pops that snatch the life from another innocent black man.

I can still see the cell phone video of 50-year-old Walter Scott from three Aprils ago, running away from a white South Carolina police officer who then inexplicably shoots him in the back, shoots him down like a dog.

I can still see the cell phone video of Alton Sterling from July 2016, on the ground with two white officers on top of him, officers who shoot him three times in the chest as he lay, then three times in the back as he dies.

I don’t have to list them all. We know their names. We hear their names every time there is another one.

But this time, the lynchings aren’t watched solely by racist crowds carrying lemonade and fans, celebrating as if they are at picnics. This time, the audiences are Americans and people all over the world.

Where is Ida B. Wells when you need her? The 19th century civil rights activist, newspaper editor and anti-lynching crusader is surely looking down in horror right now at how things have not gotten better, just different.

Benjamin Crump: After Stephon Clark's death, shock and mourning in communities across the nation

The officer in the Scott case got 20 years in prison.

The officers who killed Sterling in Baton Rouge were not charged, although further discipline may be coming.

Walter Scott was murdered. Alton Sterling was killed under questionable circumstances. (After an autopsy revealed he had “cocaine, methamphetamine, hydrocodone, a marijuana ingredient, caffeine, nicotine and alcohol in his blood,” questions were raised about what he understood of the officers’ yelling.)

Now the name Stephon Clark is etched into the imaginary wall of names of innocent black men killed while standing or running or sitting in a car.

He was buried Thursday amid numerous questions that we can ask all day long in the Sacramento police shooting that has sparked national outrage and inspired again the need to remind people that Black Lives Matter:

Why did the police department send a helicopter in response to a report of vandalism?

Why did officers shoot 20 times within milliseconds of asking Clark to raise his hands?

Why did officers, after the shooting, mute the equipment that exists to let us see what they’re doing?

Why did it take so long for officers to call for medical help?

I’m sick and damn tired of asking questions when the only question that matters is:

Why do so many departments hire officers who are afraid of black men?

Actually, here are three more questions from Clopher Watson IV, an 11-year-old sixth-grader at East Middle School in Farmington Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit:

— “How are police officers getting trained?”

— “Why do they stereotype? I know some police officers stereotype a lot and target them down.”

— “Why do they shoot so fast? When I looked at the video, and they said he got shot 20 times… I don’t see why that was necessary.”

My question here is: Why should a precocious, charming, 11-year-old who really wants to be a basketball player, but whose backup plan is to be an engineer, have to think about such things? And why should he have to think about what he would do in similar circumstances?

Clopher said he isn’t afraid of the police. Not really.

“To be honest, I don’t have fear that they would ask me questions,” he said. “But if I saw them coming to me, running, I would have fear. I would not run away. I would just put my hands up and just stop. But hopefully that would be enough for them not to shoot me. If not, then I don’t know what else to do.”

It's time for us to think about the young black boys watching these modern-day lynchings. It's time to put ourselves in their shoes.

I hope the tears I felt as Clopher told me of his fear become tears across America. I hope people stop thinking of all black men as bad entities, rather than young boys growing up scared.

It’s time to stop asking questions after the fact, after another innocent black man has been shot, choked, over-handled and left dead by overzealous officers who claim to fear for their lives. It’s time to make it an actual crime to kill innocent boys and men out of misunderstandings, misconceptions or a hidden bias that black men have known too well for centuries.

I hope officers across the country think of Clopher and other young boys who deserve better than to wonder whether holding their hands up is enough..

I hope they care about this young man, whom I don’t want hearing gunshots in his sleep.

It's time to stop.

Just stop.

Enough.

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Rochelle Riley is a columnist for the Detroit Free Press and author of The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery. Follow her on Twitter: @rochelleriley.