Angela Helton
March 2012 Rekia Boyd, 22, daughter of Angela Helton, was shot in the back of the head by off-duty police officer, Dante Servin. Resembling the stories of other young Blacks murdered by the police, Boyd was unarmed with her back turned to the officer. Recently, Servin was cleared of all charges.
“Any police officer especially would have reacted in the exact same way I reacted,” he stated. “I’m glad to be alive. I saved my life that night.”
Helton, however, has to live with knowing that the man who murdered her daughter feels no remorse. Helton says, “They just found this man not guilty on all counts, and he blew my daughter’s brains out in the alley.”
Boyd’s death has raised awareness about the intersectionality of police abuse as it pertains to sex, adding increased depth to the “Black Lives Matter” mantra.
Tressa Sherrod
In August 2014, John Crawford, 22, son of Tressa Sherrod, holding an unloaded BB rifle was murdered by police in Ohio. Sherrod states:
I miss him saying ‘mom’; I miss his phone calls and his text messages; I miss coming home and seeing that he ate all my food. There’s a lot of little things I miss about him. I miss his smile. I miss hearing his voice.
Although surveillance footage depicted the appalling circumstances under which Crawford was gunned down, a grand jury failed to bring charges against the officers evolved. ‘I’m so upset about it. I don’t understand why no charges have been brought’said Sherrod in an interview with the Guardian.
