why i think it might have been an accident

he just had no reason to shoot him. none. really really really none. he was no threat, he was not at all going to go anywhere, he would never have gotten any gun out of his pocket out in time, he was totally outnumbered. there was no reason at all for any weapons to be out that night.

sometimes, shootings are nonsensical, sometimes killings are senseless. but this one was not so much as senseless as unexplainable. he had no reason to do it.

and that’s why i have a hard time believing the fact that he really intended to shoot him. i don’t buy his weapon confusion story. i think the truth is something far more basic. i think he meant to pull his gun, and thought he’d be a bigshot by using his gun as a tool of intimidation, and happened not to ahve the safety on, and cocked it as if to scare folks, and pulled the trigger and shot him. i think he never should have been sent out there with a firearm. i think he was stupid as fuck. but i just….i don’t know where to find any reason to believe that he knew what he was doing that night when he killed him.

i think he needs to pay for what he did, and i think he was a murderer. i think what he committed was murderous, but was it murder? i don’t think so.

i’ve had so many conversations with people about the case, and i can almost tell you whether or not you think it was an accident based on your politics. the line is as clean as that. it’s not split: like that those who saw the video think it was murder, and those who never saw the video think it was pure accident. how you interpret what happened is a matter of lived experience and perspective, your pre-existing opinion of cops in general.

i think this, this theory, is a very unpopular view among my peers. but i am trying to have some conviction about my beliefs, and i know that in my work, no matter who signs my checks, all i have is my personal integrity. honesty is the only thing i owe readers, i am only credible because people trust my voice. so. so when i have an unpopular view…i must rely on a commitment to some higher kind of integirty, above all else. even when my personal view conflicts with the tone of the sentiments from the community who i write for. i wish it were more heroic, this Honesty i live in service of. but it’s just that i fear endangering my credibility by lying about my opinions and beliefs.

i work for a political outlet with readers who want this cop dead, whose handles are “DEATH BY FIRING SQUAD FOR __,” who hate cops unequivocally. and i think i was one of those sorts before, till i did some reporting, and interviews, and started to come to think of cops as a group of professionals where every day they are confronted with their personal racial paranoia and deeply embedded cultural beliefs about good and bad and who is suspect and who is trustworthy. and they probably don’t get any of the tools they might need to make sense of that tangled world in a productive way. they probably get diversity trainings, but they probably don’t have real conversations about race–or ya know, maybe they do. i don’t know. but they’re a professional class like any other, it’s just that they so happen to carry guns and the power to use them. does that fact alone make all cops criminal? (i do think it lets them get away with so much, when they do act outside the law). but i’ve started thinking of cops as people, too. as flawed and vulnerable human beings. i think it’s an unpopular view, this.

he wrote a letter, which has been all but spat upon by people i work with and trust and respect. i was not surprised by their reactions, but felt nervous, because my first reaction, which i shared on twitter, was that i was moved by his note. i thought it odd he addressed it to the public, and not to the family privately, that seemed really unnecessary. but the words themselves were…moving. real. sincere-seeming.

but i think we cannot demand any better of cops, that they see policed communities are fully human, if we don’t start trying to think of cops as human beings as well. though, i tend to believe people, i believe people’s stories, especially if those stories help me understand them better, whether or not the stories themselves are truth. today i think i lost ten bucks to a woman today because of that trait of mine. that was stupid–my empathy can end up being gullibility. i hope my empathy for other people doesn’t turn into a liability, something i need to overcompensate for by thinking the worst of others always. i hope it is something that serves me well in life, in my work, in my relationships. we’ll see.

Filed under: the trial

learning how to write about the people i love

yesterday morning i was scrubbing the inside of a refrigerator, in a state of perfect happiness. my auntie margie was at the sink washing the shelving, my auntie doris was examining the expiration dates on sauces, dipping her finger in to taste the myriad bottles of unlabeled liquids, and my auntie janet was chirping away about how the first thing she did during her vacation was to do the very same thing in her home, to unload and wash the entire inside of her own fridge. sticky teriyaki sauce was flicked into my face, and damp towels were moving fast around the room, auntie janet was chiding my aunties for refusing to pause their work so they could recycle the bottles they were throwing out.

and it was wonderful to work alongside my aunties. even when i was asked to crawl inside two cavernous refrigerators. with them i am the tall one, the young one, and that’s reason enough for them to send me scurrying up and down the stairs and reaching down behind the stove and cabinets to retrieve long forgotten items. the morning went by fast because i spent so much of it marveling at my aunties, who are unstoppable. after over a month of nonstop cooking, the kitchen was a mess, and we had gathered to make a dent in the cleanup.

it was just a few of us yesterday morning. and there was so much cleaning to be done. we started at noon and finished in a few hours. the stove, the sink, boxes of dirty dishes, two refrigerators, tables, the floor, the hallway, the sewing room floor. auntie margie, who lives on the ground floor apartment, took over the lead. auntie doris became her deputy, and the rest of us filled in as worker bees.

i don’t remember there being many moments of silence, but they will fill the air with chatter about nothing in particular. naturally, my aunties spend a lot of time talking about food. the correct preparation of it, the best places to eat it, the best prices and at what times and from which proprieters to buy it. yesterday, my auntie margie was so happy to find a bag of blocks of chocolate in the refrigerator. “ah! give that to me. i’m going to teach maria to make good brownies,” she said with a devious cackle. maria is another one of my aunties, a fine cook in her own right, who just happens to be my auntie margie’s daughter in law. it was a touchy and uncharacteristically frank comment, especially in my family where there are few bad cooks and every meal is a gourmet affair and the biggest flaw for a woman is to be an inadequate cook, so even gentle ribbing like that is kind of surprising to hear. (no one’s tried eloping, or dropping out of college, or having a kid out of wedlock yet.)

but when i’m with my aunties i can overlook their flaws–their outdated ideas about relationships and propriety, an unquestioning commitment to binary gender norms, their total disdain for recycling and understandable love of styrofoam–because i feel nothing but love for them. they disappoint me sometimes, yes, they say things that i’d never let my mother get away with. one of my aunties still refers to mixed race folks as “half and half,” like the coffee creamer, no matter a person’s racial makeup. i’ll wince but have never challenged them–a responsibility of mine that i shirk regularly. but i’m incapable of feeling anything besides reverence for my aunties. it is all love, all acceptance, all adoration.

my aunties are quick, sharp, sturdy women. together my auntie margie and auntie doris are decisive and fast. they wash quickly, move methodically, are organized and swift. they work hard. they never complain, but neither do they celebrate or give praise often. at the end of yesterday, my auntie margie said repeatedly, “i am so happy! i am so happy! this kitchen is clean,” and it surprised me as the first real demonstrative statement i’d heard her make in probably ever. my aunties don’t ask a lot of questions, or really wonder aloud why they work so hard, they just do. they work and work and work tirelessly. and their devotion to the family is something amazing to see, because we are all beneficiaries of their unwavering selflessness. and they are in their 70s. they are strong among strong.

i know stories i’m attracted to are filled with human characters, people with demons and rough edges. and that’s why every time i consider writing about my aunties, i usually give up. i’m afraid that everything i want to say about them won’t make for intriguing prose. who wants to read endless loving tributes? i guess that was what i was really thinking about when i was inside that refrigerator yesterday. but my determination to get something down about my aunties forced me to accept that they are imperfect. they are human, even if i love them as goddesses and superhuman beings.

–

perfect happiness, elsewhere: wednesday night of my first LA trip to cover the trial. i had a car–partly because i still had my license then–and i was pulling out of appu’s union headquarters, where i’d parked my car while we went to her coworker’s place in silverlake. they were trying to start a bimonthly tradition, the week before the organizers had cooked for a handful of staff, and that week it was the researchers’ turn. we had a vegan feast, sweet potato enchiladas, kale, a jicama and pear salad, the best peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes. appu’s coworker lived in the kind of darling apartment that only exists in tv–this vaguely mediterranean inspired complex that had a courtyard, kind of like melrose place but sweeter, and with no swimming pool (and therefore, probably not nearly as many stabbings and miscarriages and adultery as the show). her apartment was too small for all of us, so we took the food outside and ate on her porch, by candlelight, the city lights scattered below, silhouettes of palm trees in the distance. a perfect LA night. really good people, delicious food, that goddamn gorgeous weather.

and i was driving back to koreatown, where i was staying that week. and i had the windows down, and the freeways were moving fast that night, and it felt like freedom. it felt like home, but also change. possibility, another chapter.

Filed under: aunties, los angeles, the trial, aunties, los angeles