In Fairfax, Va., a different, no-less-scary police shooting
18 months ago John Geer was shot by police while standing at his front door with his hands raised
By Neil Macdonald
CBC News
Feb 18, 2015
White privilege didn’t protect John Geer.
That’s not to say he didn’t have it. As a middle-class kitchen designer living in the pleasant Washington suburb of Fairfax, Va., he had nothing whatsoever in common with the impoverished black men killed by police in Missouri and Brooklyn last year.
Those deaths triggered riots, marches and demonstrations across America, and interventions by the White House.
But Geer, pierced 18 months ago by a police bullet as he stood inside the screen door of his own home, his hands raised, begging not to be shot, simply disappeared into the emotional mixing bowl of American news and political priorities.
That should not have happened. The killing of John Geer is probably the clearest and most compelling example of what amounts to police impunity in recent American history.
He committed no crime the day he was killed. Even the officer who shot him acknowledges that. There was no struggle. The details are not murky.
But because no one was marching in the streets on behalf of John Geer, because he was absent from national headlines, the system was able to make his outrageous death go away by the simple expedient of doing nothing and refusing to discuss it.
Here are the facts:
In August 2013, Geer’s common law wife, who was breaking up with him and moving out, called police to report he was angrily throwing her possessions onto his front lawn.
Asked whether Geer had weapons, the woman answered yes, but they were legally owned and secured. No, he hadn’t been drinking.
The Rest…HERE
