16

 She was 16.

16.

A girl. Scared, got in a fight with her foster "sisters." A girl, scared, called the police. A girl, scared, grabbed a knife.

She was 16.

My daughter is 14. She has never been in a fight. She has never needed to grab a knife. But if she was --if she had-- would she have been shot to death by a cop in order to break up a fight? Is that what we do in this country? Or is that only what we reserve for Black kids?

If two teenagers are in a fight and we need to intervene, does one of them need to be shot? Killed? Eliminated?

Does "keeping the peace" mean killing whatever is making the noise?

She was Ma'Khia Bryant. A child who had a mom and an aunt, a child who was in the foster care system, a child who had already dealt with some tough shit, a child who loved to sing, a child who loved to cook, a child who called the police, a child who grabbed a knife.

She was kid. Scared. Angry. A volcano of emotions we adults can't even remember because 16 was so long ago and because we have tried a lifetime to forget what it felt like to be 16.

16.

She was not a threat to the cop. She was clearly fighting the women --the girls?-- in the yard. And when people are attacked --when we are attacked, when we are scared-- we attack, or we run away. That's fight or flight. That's our reptilian brain, our survival mechanism. But Ma'Khia Bryant didn't attack the cop. She went after the threat. Or so she thought.

And yet, the cop on the scene --he saw a 16 year old Black girl and decided in that moment that she was dangerous. That she was a scary Black woman. That she didn't deserve to live. The cop who was called by Ma'Khia Bryant simply pulled the trigger. 4 times. No de-escalation. No warning shot. No attempt to disarm. No attempt to recognize Ma'Khia Bryant  as a person worthy of anything other than a bullet. 

4 bullets.

And that cop walked away. Never in danger. Never harmed. Never intervened. Never de-escalated. Never really even tried.

A cop showed up, a cop drew his gun, a cop fired, a cop murdered a 16 year old girl.

And the trolls and the lawyers and the spokespersons will insist that she deserved to die. She had a knife. She was out of control. She should have followed orders.

And yet the adult on the scene, the adult with the actual deadly weapon, the adult is the one who pulled the trigger.

Who is the adult in the room?

Who's out of control now?

Ma'Khia Bryant was 16. She will not graduate from high school, even though she was on the honor roll. She will not go to prom, even though she loved music. She will not hug her mom or thank her foster mom or write a poem in her English class, even though she was a good kid and a good student. She was afraid, and for that, she died.

She was 16.