A letter to the editor writer recently took issue with the perspective attorney Terry Gilbert expressed in his Dispatch guest column about the shooting death of Ta’Kiya Young.
“Highly charged language does more harm than good in Ta’Kiya Young police shooting,” a headline on Greg Wourms’ letter reads.
Take a close read of Gilbert’s piece and you will be hard-pressed to find any such language. What I did find however is a thoughtful piece grounded in the attorney’s years of experience.
Was deadly force the only viable option in Ta’Kiya Young shooting?
True, Young exercised extremely poor judgment on multiple levels the day she was shot and killed by a Blendon Township police officer.
To be clear, the pregnant 21-year-old should not have been shoplifting nor should she had tried to drive off as one of the officers positioned himself in front of her car.
No argument there.
Gilbert’s main point I believe is, was lethal force necessary?
Was deadly force the only viable option?
Shooting Ta’Kiya Young was not the only option.
After the officers made contact with Young and observed the make and model of the car (sans license plate), there would have been little chance of her evading prosecution had officers simply allowed her to drive off unimpeded, especially once police officers gained access to the store’s video camera that clearly showed Young stealing one item after another.
Would tracking her down hours or days later have been that difficult?
No, it’s done all the time.
Gilbert called the officer’s decision to stand in front of Young’s car “stupid.”
His choice of words may have offended some, but the spirit in which Gilbert characterized the officer’s behavior should not be summarily dismissed.
Ta’Kiya Young was a suspect in a ‘low-level’ crime.
Why would the officer unnecessarily put himself in such a potentially dangerous position given this low-stakes circumstance?
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Positioning oneself in front of a car in order to detain a low-level shoplifter strikes some as not well-thought-out and ill-advised.
Different levels of crimes warrant different levels of response. Low-level shoplifters probably should not be handled in the same manner as an active shooter, a murderer, serial killers, or bank robber, etc.
There is a long record of white active shooters, serial killers and mass murders being taken into custody without incident.Get the Columbus Conversation newsletter in your inbox.
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Would the officer had reacted the same if Ta’Kiya Young were white?
Speaking of race, according to Wourms’ letter, “Terry Gilbert almost immediately characterizes the incident as racial: black women, white policemen.”
Well, that is because like some within the African American community, Gilbert wonders how the shooting officer would have reacted had Young been white.
As a founding partner in a firm with offices in Cleveland and Cincinnati, two cities with, historically speaking, records of policing that leave a great deal to be desired, Gilbert has undoubtedly seen his share of incidents of police use of excessive force against Black residents.
More:Letters: Blendon Twp. officer who killed Ta’Kiya Young shouldn’t have step in front of car
Perhaps the officer would have behaved similarly had Young been white but given the history of police interactions with whites vis-à-vis Blacks the role that race may have played in the officer’s decision to discharge his firearm weighs heavy on the minds of many people.
