I’ve been blessed with parents who have loved me, and have spent close to three decades sacrificing of themselves to provide for me and my younger brothers. My mother, Sheila, will always be the love of my life, the person I spend the most time trying to make proud. My father, Mark, has forever been my role model of what it means to be a journalist, an advocate for diversity, a Christian, and a man. Above my desk hangs an email he sent me in 2013, during what was for me a moment of frustration: “A journalist’s commitment is to the truth.… We have no control over how people choose to handle the truth!”
I could not imagine having a more supportive family, both immediate and extended. You all are the rock on which I stand, and have provided the grounding of love, faith, and perseverance in which I’m planted.
I could never properly articulate what the love and support of my friends has meant to me during these last two years. This list is far from complete: Clinton Yates, Freeman Thompson, Travis Waldron, Sam McCullough, Aaron Edwards, John Ketchum, Gerrick Kennedy, Eric Burse, Dexter Mullins, Sarah Hoye, Corey Dade, Swati Sharma, Ashley Lutz, John Gruber, Kirsten Gassman, Adrian Walker, Joe Ragazzo, Amanda Lucci, Tom Suddes, Colin Jackson, Teddy Cahill, Mike Young, Chris Call, Cory Haik, Martine Powers, Julian Benbow, Sarah Cavender, Bartees Cox, Juan Diasgranados, and the 2012 LA Times Metpro class.
Danielle: thank you for being my partner in taking over the world. Never stop being you.
Every reporter is a team project, compiled and constructed by the editors, colleagues, and competition he or she encounters along the way.
I owe my love for journalism to Natalie Sekicky—my first boss, editor, and debate sparring partner. I’ll always thank Marcia Jaffe for teaching a loudmouthed high school boy that, sometimes, it is okay to shut up and listen.
Much of this book leans on reporting and writing I’ve done while at the Washington Post. I’ll be forever indebted to editors there who believed in and bet on me: Kevin Merida, Tracy Grant, Steven Ginsberg, Terence Samuel, Marcia Davis, Vanessa Williams, Lori Montgomery, David Fallis, Scott Wilson, Cameron Barr, and Marty Baron.
Kimberly Kindy and Kimbriell Kelly are the two older sisters I never knew I wanted but without whom I would be lost. Julie Tate, Jen Jenkins, and Steven Rich: so much of my journalism these last two years would have been impossible without you.
To the journalists whose work makes me better, and whom I am privileged to consider friends: Brittany Noble-Jones, Matt Pearce, Yamiche Alcindor, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Errin Whack (and your husband, and Ginger), Joel Anderson, Adam Serwer, Jamelle Bouie, Darren Sands, Jelani Cobb, Greg Howard, Trymaine Lee, Jamilah Lamieux, Jamil Smith, Vann Newkirk, Clint Smith, Rembert Browne, Ryan Reilly.
This book is dedicated to three men, gone too soon, who helped mold me into who I am today. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to love and be loved by as many people as you were, and are.
About the Author
Wesley Lowery is a national reporter for the Washington Post who covers law enforcement and justice. He was the paper’s lead reporter in Ferguson, Missouri, and covering the Black Lives Matter protest movement, and was a member of the team awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for the Post’s coverage of police shootings. His reporting has previously appeared in the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
@WesleyLowery
JournalistWesleyLowery
Notes
Preface
Blessed Assurance: Lyrics as they were sung that day, from my memory. Hymn by Franny Crosby, 1873.
I wasn’t escaping Ferguson: A year later, St. Louis County charged Ryan Reilly and me with trespassing and interfering with a police officer in connection with our 2013 arrests. After months of negotiation, the county dropped the charges, and in exchange we agreed not to file a civil lawsuit.
several efforts by citizen journalists: Prior to the projects by the Washington Post and The Guardian, the website KilledbyPolice.net was the definitive count of those killed by police officers. In addition, Fatal Encounters (FatalEncounters.org), an effort led by a Nevada journalist, sought to collect information on several years of police killings.
federal investigators would later conclude: Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, United States Department of Justice, March 4, 2015.
one unarmed black person…990 of them in total: The Washington Post police shooting database, 2015.
Chapter One
had entered Ferguson Market & Liquor: Marc Fisher, Kimbriell Kelly, Kimberly Kindy, Amy Brittain, “In Three Minutes, Two Lives Collide and a Nation Divides over Ferguson Shooting,” Washington Post, December 6, 2014.
would later be cited: Ferguson Police chief Tom Jackson, in subsequent interviews with me and others, would say he regrets allowing Michael Brown’s body to sit out for so many hours after the shooting.
the same can be said for the violence in Ferguson: Adam Serwer, “Eighty Years of Fergusons,” Buzzfeed, August 25, 2014, www.buzzfeed.com/adamserwer/eighty-years-of-fergusons.
Baldwin wrote in 1963: James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (New York: Dell Press, 1963).
These “Peirce reports”: A collection of many of these reports are available in Neal Peirce’s Citistates: How Urban America Can Prosper in a Competitive World (Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press, 1994). Many of the more recent reports are also available at Citistates.com.
“I recall two poignant moments”: Comments from Johnson and Purcell provided by Neal Peirce.
“bums” who had “spread destruction”: McCulloch described Murray and Beasley as bums during a September 2001 press conference.
“Burn this motherfucker down!”: The reaction of Lezley McSpadden and Louis Head to the announcement that Darren Wilson would not be indicted was captured by various bystander and media videos.
Chapter Two
a St. Louis blogger: This accusation was leveled by Jim Hoft, known as the “Gateway Pundit,” in a tweet on October 11, 2014.
“I kept my eyes on the suspect”: From the sworn statement given by Officer Loehmann to the grand jury, released by the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office, December 1, 2015.
“weepy” and “distracted”: Human resources memo sent by Independence Police Department deputy chief Jim Polak on November 29, 2012.
break your body: The definitive writings on the perceived threats to the black body have been written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, most expansively in Between the World and Me (New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2015).
Zimmerman told the 911 operator: full transcript and audio of emergency dispatch tapes published by the Washington Post, May 20, 2012.
Trayvon was pronounced dead: Frances Robles, “A Look at What Happened the Night Trayvon Martin Died,” Miami Herald, April 2, 2012.
in a column: Pat Buchanan, “What If Zimmerman Walks Free?” Creators, May 22, 2012, www.creators.com/read/pat-buchanan/05/12/what-if-zimmerman-walks-free.
an essay on the protest movement: Patrisse Marie Cullors-Brignac, “We Didn’t Start a Movement. We Started a Network.” Medium, February 22, 2016, medium.com/@patrissemariecullorsbrignac/we-didn-t-start-a-movement-we-started-a-network-90f9b5717668.
Atop the list: Tanya Sichynsky, “These 10 Twitter Hashtags Changed the Way We Talk about Social Issues,” Washington Post, March 21, 2016.
“That’s the inconvenience of freedom”: Quote from December 11, 2014, press availability with Mayor Frank Jackson.
137 bullets: Mark Berman, “Six Cleveland Police Officers Fired for Fatal ‘137 Shots’ Car Chase in 2012,” Washington Post, January 26, 2016.
“Tamir’s mother, Samaria Rice”: Press release “Tamir Rice’s Family Mourns for Tamir After Non-Indictment of Officers” issued December 28, 2015.
Chapter Three
eighteen thousand police agencies: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “National Sources of Law Enforcement Data,” April 2016.
no comprehensive accurate national data: Details on the lack of manda
tory reporting and previous efforts to chronicle the number of police shootings is explored in my September 8, 2014, Washington Post piece, “How Many Police Shootings a Year? No One Knows.”
“Thousands Dead, Few Prosecuted”: Kimberly Kindy and Kimbriell Kelly, “Thousands Dead, Few Prosecuted,” Washington Post, April 11, 2015.
Chapter Four
In a survey conducted by the Balimore Police: Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, “Public Safety in the City of Baltimore: A Strategic Plan for Improvement,” report of the Baltimore Police Department, October 30, 2013.
“There is a touching earnestness”: Jay Caspian Kang, “Our Demand Is Simple: Stop Killing Us,” New York Times Magazine, May 4, 2015.
Chapter Five
Dunn declared: According to jailhouse recordings released by the Florida state’s attorney and included in the documentary 3½ Minutes, 10 Bullets.
Chapter Six
mental illness as a factor: Probed by me, and colleagues Kimberly Kindy and Keith Alexander, “Distraught People, Deadly Results,” Washington Post, June 30, 2015.
twenty-four unarmed black people: Explored by myself and colleagues Sandhya Somashekhar and Keith Alexander, “Black and Unarmed,” Washington Post, August 8, 2015.
Among the twenty-four black men: See “Black and Unarmed,” above.
6 out of the 248 cases: Washington Post fatal police shooting database, 2015.
Afterword
on pace to take more lives: Analysis by me and Kimberly Kindy, “Fatal Shootings by Police Are Up in the First Six months of 2016, Post Analysis Finds,” Washington Post, July 7, 2016.
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Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Wesley Lowery
Cover design by Mario J. Pulice
Cover photograph by Devin Allen
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Author photograph by Polly Irungu
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ISBN 978-0-316-31250-9
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They Can't Kill Us All Page 25