We live in a nation without accountability

I remember feeling heartbreak over the death of 8-year-old Fanta Bility, who was killed last August when three Sharon Hill police officers fired toward a car whose occupants they wrongly believed were involved in a nearby shootout.

Behind the car they fired upon, a crowd of people was leaving a high school football game. Fanta and her family — Black immigrants from Guinea — were among them. The officers fired 25 rounds, allegedly striking four people, including Fanta and her 12-year-old sister, Mamasu. While the others suffered minor injuries, Fanta died in her mother’s arms.

Then, even after the evidence showed that the fatal shot was fired from one of the officers’ weapons, two teens involved in the aforementioned shootout were charged with first-degree murder in Fanta’s death. The community was rightly outraged, and the murder charges against the teens were dropped, though both were still charged with aggravated assault for their actions. The officers were subsequently charged with manslaughter and reckless endangerment. They were also fired from their jobs.

Perhaps, if the former officers accepted responsibility for their reckless and deadly actions, the story would only involve another Black person unjustly dying at the hands of police. But lawyers for Devon Smith, Brian Devaney, and Sean Dolan say the ex-officers are not responsible for Fanta’s death. Instead, their defense is that they are somehow being victimized because activists have brought political pressure to bear. Their lawyers say they’ve been targeted, not because of their alleged crimes, but “because of their profession.”

I am once again heartbroken. I am also angry. Unfortunately, I am not surprised.

We live in an era where more than 400 members of law enforcement can respond to a school shooting, stand around for more than an hour while a gunman massacres 19 children and two teachers, and then pretend they don’t know who was in charge.

We live during a time when a mob can storm the U.S. Capitol, seek to harm the vice president, cause five deaths and injure 140 police officers, and according to congressional testimony, have Donald Trump claim they did nothing wrong.

In today’s America, laws are selectively enforced, responsibility is rarely embraced, and justice is dispensed unevenly. The irony is that this lack of accountability — this emerging sense of lawlessness — is often embraced by the very people who have constantly preached personal responsibility.

“In today’s America, laws are selectively enforced, responsibility is rarely embraced, and justice is dispensed unevenly.”

Donald Trump, the de facto leader of America’s right wing, always planned to say he won the election whether or not it was true, according to leaked audio of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. To do so, he had to blame someone, so he pointed to the electorate in mostly Black cities, and claimed that the election was stolen. One would think that the white evangelical Christian base that supports Trump so fervently would take offense to such dishonesty. After all, their faith is based on the same Bible I read — the one that says in the book of Exodus, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”

But that’s the problem. America’s right wing do not see Black people as their neighbors. They see us as their enemies, as a growing opposition group to be feared, contained, and stripped of any gains we’ve made during our four centuries in this country. That’s why so many on the right can call on African Americans to exercise “personal responsibility,” while at the same time doing the opposite in their own lives.

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The ex-police officers whose bullets allegedly killed an 8-year-old Black child last August are examples of that truth. The carelessness with which they fired their weapons into a crowd showed a disdain for the community and a delusional belief in their own infallibility. But accidentally killing a child is one thing. Blaming the community that stood up against your actions is another.

Former Sharon Hill police officers Devon Smith, Brian Devaney, and Sean Dolan are not facing manslaughter charges because activists took to the streets and brought political pressure to bear. They are facing manslaughter charges because they fired toward a crowd of mostly Black people and allegedly killed a little girl.

That’s not an indictment of their profession. It is an indictment against them.