01. Writer
–
John Duffy
02. Theme
–
Resentment
03. MUSIC INSPIRATION
–
Gil-Scott Heron:
B-Movie
04. WRITING
–
Incident
But he died in darkness darker than
his soul and everything tumbled blindly with him dying
down the stairs.
We have no word
—From “Incident,” Amiri Baraka
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.
—From “Incident,” Countee Cullen
Three years before he was killed by cops, Austin Ryan Thomas was a student in my class. He was part of a group known as The Forty-Four: forty incoming freshmen who were identified as at risk of not graduating in four years.
Before their arrival, our principal projected all forty names during our opening staff meeting. He talked about the steps we would take, a new school-wide initiative, to engage and support them in every way we could. Whatever service or support they needed, we would supply it.
The gesture seemed very much in line with the work we had been doing for years, and everyone nodded along in agreement. The labor required to make this happen was a no-brainer because the payoff was so big: kids get to experience success; they become models, mentors, and tutors for younger peers in similar situations; the school earns a higher graduation rate; the community gets to work with educated people who are connected to networks of resources. Parents can brag about their children’s achievements. School workers can brag about them, too.
Austin’s name appeared next to mine on the big screen facing us in the meeting. He was in my first hour class, and I met him the next week. He sat in the back, slumped down in his chair, and wore big clothes. He was frequently tired and did everything he could to make himself invisible. His mom frequently sent him to class with granola bars because snacks helped him to stay awake. He had opinions about Lenny from Of Mice and Men, though, and when we talked about Lenny as a sympathetic character, Austin came to life. Lenny is a character for whom the world cannot account, we decided. Always at the will of his impulses, he makes serious mistakes that eventually cost him his life. This detail caught Austin’s ear, I remember. Perhaps this was the universe doing its best to sound an alarm, a grave warning from a world beyond our own. The best laid plans, indeed.
Austin didn’t pass the class, but he did make it through summer school. I never heard from him after that, which was unsurprising. Like so many students, he found a way to move through the next few years on a path that attracted as little attention as possible.
Three years later, another staff meeting, our principal was talking about testing practices when another teacher mentioned the group of students, The Forty-Four. Oh yeah, he said. One of them died, I think. I just read about it in the paper. The news shocked us, of course, but so did its flippant delivery. The words came like trash from the window of a moving car. The principal said Austin’s name and then pivoted back to the testing practices, a gut punch. The room became brighter, almost total white, and my face felt molton hot. Back to my room, I Googled Austin’s name and read the reports in the local papers. He had been killed by cops a mile away from the school.
. . .
Years before I began working in education, my friend Cody shared a story about a chance encounter with the police. He was working at an industrial supply warehouse when a man buzzed the front door. Cody’s employer shipped large wholesale orders, so walk-in customers were rare. When Cody answered the door, the man pulled a gun and demanded to be let in. Cody was the only person there that day, so he did as the man asked. The man took as many items as he could carry: power tools, a jacket, some work pants, a mop bucket. Then he was gone.
Cody called the cops. Two hours later, another buzz at the door. To Cody’s amazement, it was the same guy from before. Cody met him at the door again, this time with a shotgun. The man said he had left some items inside and that he had come back to retrieve them. Cody racked his 12 gauge and told him that this was the last time they were going to see each other. If the man ever came back, he was dead. The man left.
Curious, Cody went back into the warehouse to search for the man’s belongings. Tucked underneath a tipped-over pile of workshirts was a brown pocket folder with some papers inside. Cody leafed through them and quickly sensed what was up: the man had used the folder for job interviews. It contained a resume with his name, phone number, current address, and employment history. He was stealing the equipment he needed to work a custodial job.
Two hours later, another buzz at the door. This time it was the cops, two guys, both white. Cody told them what had happened—the gun, the theft, the guy’s return, the papers. He gave them the man’s belongings and even told them how to get to the address on the resume. Cody confessed that he was close to shooting the man when he returned, too, because the police had not arrived.
The cops laughed. Cody asked what was so funny, and one cop said that it wouldn’t have mattered that much. When shit like this happens and we’re not around, he said, just make sure there’s only one story by the time we show up. The cops laughed again. In an act of feigned solidarity, Cody did too.
. . .
Acting as a “multijurisdictional narcotics team” (with the cinematic acronym N.E.T.), seventeen officers tracked and eventually killed Austin Ryan Thomas. In a prepared statement following the incident, Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe alleged that Austin was selling drugs to an undercover officer and that the officer had purchased drugs from him “at least two times.” When the officer set up a third meetup, they got together at a condo complex down the road from our school. Austin allegedly entered the officer’s car, pulled a gun, and pointed it at the officer’s head, attempting to rob him. McCabe then describes the final moments with sterile detachment: “The officer pulled his gun and was able to fire shots that struck the suspect.”
Even with so little detail, the story is tragically familiar. We recognize the plot from centuries of accounts of Black people killed by police with no one else around to see it, film it, or refute the official story. We don’t know how many shots were fired in the car. We don’t know how the officer managed to unholster his gun, aim it, and fire multiple shots before Austin could pull the trigger of his own gun, which was allegedly already at the officer’s temple. McCabe’s story urges us not to question it because it’s one we already know, a quickdraw contest where the hero saves the day. Variations of this story endlessly circulate in the flaccid Hollywood action films we’ve seen for decades: cop as John Wayne, cop as Clint Eastwood, cop as Stallone, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris. The hero wins and the villain is vanquished, never to be seen again. Order is restored. Townspeople cheer. Safety returns.
But this tragedy isn’t just about the loss of life and how we narrate it. It contains multitudes. Just as tragic is what we are invited to believe in order to see the outcome of this incident as just: the police are honorable. Their work is always in the service of public safety. Justice was served. Youth drug offenses are criminal matters, not matters of public health. Maintaining the perception of safety is worth paying a high price, even when that price is a child’s life. The undercover officer did the right thing; we believe him when he says that his own life was at risk. The prize of capturing Austin on a greater charge was more valuable than deescalation, than intervening earlier, than lessening the danger. The lack of transparency is justified because police work is dangerous. Children who commit crimes that adults commit should be treated as adults, even if that means being killed by cops. Killing children absolves the police of the need to be accountable for destabilizing communities, endangering citizens, and eroding public trust in their organization.
. . .
The official story of Austin’s final moments is a work of fiction. We’ll never know what happened in the car, and we live with that. The person who pulled the trigger is still out there, likely policing predominantly Black neighborhoods. We don’t know who he is, and we live with that. An internal investigation committee determined that the narcotics team acted appropriately, that there was no purpose in looking into this incident any further. We live with that. Austin was a young Black man—a child—who was shot multiple times in the car of an undercover cop, and his family, friends, and loved ones will always live with the burden of not knowing what really happened.
When I think about Austin, the memory of his face begins to fade. This is where I leave him: a 14-year-old in my 1st hour English class, bleary-eyed, hungry, and ready to entertain new ideas. I see his face, his hair braided in neat rows, his oversized orange shirt, his shoes. But I wonder if this is really him. Perhaps what I’m seeing is a composite, a collage of the other 1,300 students who have occupied this room since he left. Then I think of his final moments in that car. What was said. What he thought. How it escalated. His heartbeat thundering in his ears. How it played out, like in a movie. And I return to the liminal present: a time where any of my students who look like Austin could die like him too. I sense the edges of my story beginning to warp and fade. A search online warrants very little: the photo from an obituary website, some message board prayers from loved ones—the remaining evidence of his brief time with us. How many of us have been Austin Ryan Thomas? How many will be? As my memory goes, I worry that I’ll lose him entirely and that the cops will win: by the time someone else shows up, there will only be one story left.