Chance was killed by officers in his front yard while helping a friend. He was completely unrelated to the investigation that officers were on and so was his friend that officers were after. The police killed Chance while undercover in unmarked cars, luring he and his friend out of the house with a decoy looking to purchase liquor. Chance’s death was the death of another unarmed innocent black boy.
“They end up shooting and killing my son in his front yard, they didn’t know nothing about him…he just happened to be there”.
There is a serious problem in our country when the same incidences of violence by the state continuously happen over and over again. Last year I wrote about the tragic loss of Chance Gittens, a young boy wrongfully killed by state officials in his front yard during their investigation in pursuit of another case for which he was completely unrelated to the suspect. Throughout officials handling of the investigation there were a series of flaws.
Current actions of state violence that occurred recently in the case of Botham Jean brings me to the unfortunate conclusion that citizens in this country are not even safe in their own homes. There have been multiple instances where citizens are killed in their neighborhoods, front yards, back yards and even while standing in their living rooms. All of these deaths are completely unnecessary and should be absolutely avoidable for well trained state officials whose primary focus is to protect and serve citizens and not to kill. We deserve to have officers that are capable of analyzing the potential danger of a situation, trained to deescalate potentially dangerous situations and in the rare cases of immediate danger officers should be brave enough to take the risk of losing their own life over the possibility of killing someone who is completely innocent. In addition to deserving brave selfless officers, we should have a government that properly and effectively punishes officials who wrongfully kill citizens due to their lack of adequate ability to properly assess and respond in high stress situations. We should have a government that places its ultimate priority in the value that every single citizen has in this country regardless of their skin color or their background. We should have a government that effectively deters and monitors the behavior of bad cops who unjustly kill by swiftly punishing them for the wrongful death of citizens, innocent people being killed should not be swept under the rug so easily.
It’s extremely tragic that these types of wrongful deaths continually happen in America, most dramatically effecting Black men and boys. The genocidal rate at which young black men are lost at the hands of the state is a cause for national concern and the fact that this keeps happening with no proper consequence or protocol being put in place to deter these types of incidents its off putting to say the least. As we allow it to continue the incidences of wrongful death are becoming more and more outrageous. It’s offensive seeing our government stand by when innocent people are being killed on their front lawns and in their homes as if we are in an era of state sanctioned violence. Violence sanctioned by the state allows for error to occur without consequence and below we look at the plethora of errors that occurred in the case of 17 year old Chance Gittens whose life was lost to in a senseless shooting by police.
“They end up shooting and killing my son in his front yard, they didn’t know nothing about him…he just happened to be there”.
“I saw a muzzle flash but now I know it was mine” -Officer Miller
This is what Officer Miller, responsible for murdering Chance Gittins, said in court in response to why officers decided to shoot at the boys. They thought that they were being shot at by one of the boys, however while bullet casings were found all over the yard, in nearby buildings, neighbors homes and even on the floor of resident’s in bathrooms every single bullet that was found belonged to officers. How was it that a flash came from anywhere else? The muzzle flash that was responsible for the shoot out belonged to the gun of the first shooters, officers, not the boys that they were after. It was found that no one shot any weapons except for the police and Chance was shot within 20 seconds. For a well trained officer to mistake that a shot did come out of his gun is absolutely ridiculous and for this type of testimony to be acceptable would be laughable had it not resulted in the loss of a young boy’s life.
Chance was literally in the wrong place at the wrong time, helping his friend, Dejonte, cary out bottles of liquor for a girl that he’d met on Facebook asking to purchase from him. Chance didn’t know the girl but he was happy to meet her and her friends outside of his apartment, they carried out 5 bottles of liquor, one extra on top of what the girls had purchased from Dejonte for $100. Little did Dejonte know that the girl he’d been talking to on Facebook had been police attempting to bait him out of his apartment in connection to a homicide investigation. While there was no physical evidence to connect Dejonte to the homicide case, none of his prints could be found on any of the items associated with the investigation, officers believed that the young boy was one of three people who’d been involved in a car prowl that led to the death of a retired officer’s son. They were looking for a group of three, two of which the officers knew were girls because they’d had their pictures and prints, but the third they suspected was a young boy. While they didn’t have any prints or pictures of Dejonte to connect him to the girls, they baited him asking to purchase liquor and to meet him outside at night for the exchange.
When the boys exited the home rather than the officers announcing themselves, in their unmarked cars they began to shoot in what looked more like a gang drive by than a police investigation. Some may argue that they thought the liquor bottles were guns but they knew that at least one boy would exit the home with multiple bottles. While Dejonte immediately fell to the floor, Chance, who was completely unconnected to the investigation, ran for his life. Officers pursued him, shooting him three times in the back before he fell to the ground breaking one bottle underneath his body with the other two safely held in each hand. His body was taken to the hospital under the title of a 25 year old homicide suspect, this label completely failed to identify the 17 year old innocent boy.
There Was No Gun on Chance
All he had on his person were liquor bottles. In the 20 seconds that he had after exiting the home he had no time to drop the liquor bottles, draw, point and shoot a weapon. While a gun had later been produced and said to have been recovered at the scene the gun did not have any of Chance’s prints. While officers tried to pin this gun to Chance there were no bullets recovered from the scene that matched to that gun and no photos taken of the crime scene. In addition to that officers said that Chance drew, pointed and shot the gun with his right hand. However, Chance was tightly holding bottles in both hands, so securely that neither broke when he was shot and had Chance been shooting a gun it would not have been without his dominant hand and he was left handed. In addition to this, an eye witness testimony stated that they saw officers move a pistol from the bottom of the driveway near Chance’s body.
“From the very beginning they knew that boy didn’t have no weapon but they had to say something to criminalize him to make it look like they were just doing their job” -Alexis, Chance’s mother
The obvious fabrications by officers in the case was evident in the inconsistencies in their testimonies. Based on the way that the case and the unfortunate death was being handled it was obvious that officers were trying to cover their tracks rather than uncover the issues that led to Chance’s wrongful death. The officers involved in the investigation made several errors in their conduct from the those who were selected to be involved in the investigation, to the lack of probable cause for Dejonte’s involvement. The sheriff’s internal investigation found flaws including but not limited to:
- Officers should have had lights and sirens when they arrived
- Officers should have been talking on a recorded line with instead of a private line
- Officers should have had marked cars
- Officers should have been in uniform
- Officers should not have went at night
- Officers should have aborted when another person came out with the suspect
In addition to all of these flaws Officer Miller should not have been involved in this investigation due to his close relationship to the victim of homicide case. He was a close friend to the retired officer who lost his son and even attempted to resuscitate the victim at the scene. His close relationship to the victim made it particularly odd that he would be in charge of investigating the whereabouts of the suspect. In addition to this critical misjudgment in who should be involved in the investigation, the officer who shot Chance was also involved in an incident with his partner just the year prior that cost King County $10 million. The fact that officers can bee involved in these types of cases that cost lives and millions of taxpayer dollars and then go back to work to do it again is completely unjust. Its obvious that settlements and payouts aren’t just punishment for the individual officers whose basis and misjudgments result in wrongful death of innocent citizens.
It is nearly impossible to prosecute police
