“Before the public makes a martyr out of Charleena Lyles, consider the facts that were released in the interest of full transparency.”
Seattle is the scene of the latest controversial police shooting to sweep the social media activists. Two white police officers have fallen under severe scrutiny in the shooting death of a pregnant black woman. While bold headlines asserted that the incident was a simple case of a woman calling police for help then being viciously gunned down by racist white men because she had a knife to defend her family against intruders, further details have emerged contradicting those notions. Recordings of the encounter also tell a bit of a different story, although a little hazy.
Police officers in Seattle responded to a burglary call they received from Charleena Lyles, who was known to law enforcement. She had previously been charged with threatening a police officer after brandishing a pair of shears and had a police safety caution on her name. Transcripts of the encounter that ended with the shooting have been released, in addition to 24-hour video surveillance from her apartment hallway.
She claimed that someone broke into her apartment and items were missing after she returned home and found her door open. The surveillance showed that no one had entered the apartment and a burglary didn’t take place. In the released audio, police officers can be heard interacting with the woman for a few minutes in a civilized manner that sounds like standard procedure. Things went bad quickly as the officers can be heard frantically instructing the woman to back up before they opened fire.
Outrage quickly spread as the shooting was reported, and Monday morning quarterbacks began their same old spiel about oppression and violence at the hands of white male police officers.
Never mind that this woman had a history of threatening police officers.
Never mind she reported a fake crime as surveillance showed that no one had entered the apartment and a burglary had not taken place.
Never mind that she was greeted by officers who spoke to her respectfully despite being fully aware of her record.
Never mind that she brandished two kitchen knives in the faces of law enforcement in front of her children.
Never mind that she said, “Get ready, mother f*****s!”
No, none of that matters. All that matters is skin color. Look past all of the facts and rewrite the incident to fall in line with damaging rhetoric.
Reports also indicated that the police officers who responded to the call had non-lethal options at their disposal. Transcripts of the incident show that one officer did tell the other to use a taser, to which he replied that he didn’t have one. They continued instructing the armed woman to back up before they opened fire.
Before the public makes a martyr out of Charleena Lyles, consider the facts that were released in the interest of full transparency. Any loss of life is a tragedy in itself. To what extent do activists expect police officers to endanger themselves in the interest of avoiding negative headlines?
The family of Charleena Lyles has blasted law enforcement for their actions, citing untreated mental illness. Having that knowledge, I have to ponder why her family failed to intervene in her life—especially in the interest of her children—rather than blame the justice system for “failing” Lyles?
