If, tomorrow, a Norman Police Department officer flashes his lights to pull you over, don't stop.
Don't stop, that is, until you have driven (slowly) somewhere you are sure has video surveillance.
That way, you'll have proof if some out-of-control police officer shoots you 13 times in the back.
That said, I have just signed my death notice. I am, as Hunter S. Thompson once quipped about any radical who dared run for political office as a drug-using reformer, waiting for the bullet.
I have kicked the junkyard dog. I have tried (several times now) to raise public ire against the only individuals in this town who (at any moment) might have the right to kill me.
And kill me they could, if I escape from Alan J. Couch Detention Center, allegedly rob a convenience store with a pocket knife, steal a pickup, lead police on a high-speed chase, jump out of the truck and run.
The Norman police could shoot me in the back 13 times.
They shouldn't...
But they could... under the precedent set forth by Cleveland County District Attorney Tim Kuykendall Oct. 17 when he announced the DA's office had deemed Norman police officer Chad Vincent's actions of Sept. 26 acceptable.
The early morning of Sept. 26 was when 17-year-old Richard Lee Sanchez died.
Officer Vincent emptied his clip (15 rounds) and hit Sanchez 13 times from behind.
And then the system worked in Vincent's favor, declaring his force reasonable and his career back on track.
But, before I continue, I need to put forth a few disclaimers:
I don't hate the Norman Police Department. I don't think their officers are inherently evil fascists. I just think they could be better than they have been.
Of course, I have high standards. Pardon me, but I do. Just ask anyone who knows me well. I don't put up with crap. And I think shooting a 17-year-old 13 times in the back (only to escape any culpability whatsoever) falls under that category.
The reason I have such high standards for my hometown police department? I don't want to die (at their hands or at the hands of others).
I want my police department to protect me, my family and the greater community as a whole. I want to feel safe in Norman, and I want to know that police officers are safe, rational, responsible, respectable people.
I know Public Information Officer Jennifer Newell, and I like her. In high school, Sgt. Keesee sometimes cruised the halls, and he always seemed to have his head on straight.
I have conversed with Sgt. Foster and Sgt. Isaac while I was a reporter for another newspaper, and they both handled every crime scene or emergency call to which I responded quite well and sensitively, when the occasion called for it.
My beef, therefore, is that I have only had a few direct encounters with (or needs for) Johnny Law in my 21 years, and I know of too many stories with bad endings for my own taste.
But the death of Richard Sanchez is by far the worst -- exacerbated by the fact that, 10 years from now, the official record will say that everything unfolded normally that morning, and Officer Vincent acted appropriately.
Meanwhile, I don't care that Richard Sanchez had broken several laws. I don't care that he was a troubled kid. I don't care that he might have posed some sort of threat to anybody sitting in the truck stop he apparently was running toward when he was shot.
I don't care if you're a racist who says, "We have enough of them Hispanics, anyway."
I don't care about your ridiculous arguments.
The bottom line is that a police officer should not unload his entire magazine into the back of someone who is not posing a very immediate threat to others.
In the case of Sanchez, one shot to the knee could have stopped him, two rounds in the leg could have stopped him, seven bullets in the thigh would have stopped him...
But 13 shots (several above the waist) is unnecessary, no ifs, ands or buts.
And screw you if you think otherwise.
Pretend you just watched "Face Off" and hold up your hands like you're Nicholas Cage. Now squeeze the imaginary trigger 15 times. Count out loud: One! Two! Three!...
And tell me if you don't want to vomit by the time you get to 10.
Hopefully, as my mom suggested, Officer Vincent does feel sick about what happened. Hopefully, he is a good police officer who just got caught up in the moment and made a bad decision. We all live and learn. I am going to college. Learning is what I do for a living.
But when you start a job where they assign you a gun and the responsibility to enforce society's rules, the wiggle room for making bad decisions is extremely limited.
As a Daily reader who posted on our Web site pointed out, when I make an error, my subject doesn't agree with my verb. But when a police officer makes an error, someone dies.
At that point, feet need to be held to the fire. Chief Phil Cotten and Kuykendall need to value their responsibility to Norman above the reputation of the police force.
Don't cover it up. Don't shove it in a closet. Don't tell a Norman newspaper that radio tapes of that evening don't exist owing to equipment malfunction. Don't treat the public like they're stupid, and don't exploit them even if you think they are.
Instead, explain to me personally why I am wrong in believing Richard Sanchez was killed -- gunned down to end a crime spree, yes, but gunned down gruesomely.
The sad fact is that you can't. No one can, without accepting the fact that Sanchez did not need to be shot 13 times. He had a small knife, not a gun, and don't think for a minute you can convince the public that Officer Vincent correctly misbelieved that Sanchez did have one.
There are too many other stories I could tell about the Norman police to incite public unrest: narcotics squads breaking down doors and tackling women just out of the shower; failures of dispatchers to send police to my parents' house when we called four times to inform them teenagers were driving a Jeep through ours and our neighbors' lawns at 3 a.m. (We were told the next day that we needed to "request an officer be sent to the scene.")
I don't care about that anymore. I care about inciting a different type of unrest -- the kind where people remember they got hosed by the Norman Aristocracy once before so that, next time, when it's their kid, only two shots are fired; no one is killed unnecessarily; and (if someone is) the DA grows a pair and says, "Wait a minute. I won't tolerate this sort of behavior in my town or in my county."
That's what I want.
And if I get shot for this column tomorrow, I will want it then.
hello there & you too
