As many of my constituents, I just sat speechless, as the verdict in the Sean Bell case was read - not guilty on all charges. It was beyond belief, it seemed almost instantly my phones began ringing with call after call from community leaders, clergy, and ordinary citizens expressing their shock over the verdict.
After more than a year of adding our voices to vigils, protests, and exchanges in every conceivable venue, it seems at that one point in time they fell on a tin can releasing nothing but a hollow sound.
The longer I sat I was overcome by feelings that raced in and out of me which ranged from compassion, to sorrow, to a renewed grief for the family of Sean Bell. Everything left me, the posture of my State Senate seat, the logical process that I have followed most of my life, the analytical skill set of a community advocate, leaving my most basic instinct “Mother.”
In the greatest city in the world, we have senseless death after senseless death. I don’t know if we have become desensitized by the so-called Murder Clock being rolled back every year to zero or are we just jaded by the “business as usual” feeling we have. This sentiment has seemed to allow so many things that are non-beneficial to our communities to proceed unchecked and almost never challenged.
The world’s communities from our very own U.S.A. to Africa, China to Japan, London to Sydney and to all points in between, are watching us through the lens we have painted as the vanguards of what is morally appropriate. I have drafted a letter, which has been sent to the U.S. Department of Justice calling for a complete investigation into this matter.
Shirley L. Huntley is the State Senator representing the 10th District.
