I wrote this awhile ago and was debating posting it since there are ongoing legal challenges involved.

The call I didn’t receive – Mom, Mom, Mom, I’m so sorry.  You know how she called the other day and said that neighbor yelled out to her that they were going to shoot her and Koda because they didn’t belong in this neighborhood?  You told her to call the police to report it and we didn’t because they never answer the 911 calls in this area anyway?   We just decided to fix up the other house and move in a few weeks.  Mom the cops are here right now.  Koda and her were outside and those same people that threatened to shoot her did it.  Mom, I don’t know what to do.  If it was anyone else I’d be right there, putting pressure on the wound.  Mom, the bullets hit them.  Mom, you need to get up here now because they don’t think she is going to pull through.  Mom, I’m so sorry we screwed up and I don’t know what to do.

The call I didn’t receive – Is this Mrs Ludington?  This is the Detroit Police Department.  There’s been a fatality.  We served a warrant on your daughter’s house and during the service of this warrant there was gunfire.  I’m sorry to tell you that neither of the occupants of the house survived.  There were also two animal fatalities because they wouldn’t let the officers near the deceased.  There is a dog that was in the kennel who has been transported by animal control.

The call I did receive – “Mom, someone broke into the house while we were gone and animal control has the three dogs.  I’m on the other phone with 911 trying to report the break-in.  Mom 911 hung up on me and there are cops all around the house guns drawn” I can hear her shouting now “My hands are in the air.  What is going on?  You do not have the right to touch me.  My hands are in the air”.  Then a dead line.

After the call dropped and I wasn’t getting an answer when I tried her number again I made a call to the local precinct, figuring there had to be some error.  “There are people with guns drawn at my daughters house. I need to know if it is the police there or not.”  The receptionist “I don’t have that kind of information.  If you think it is something that needs reported you need to call 911”.    Me “I’m in North Carolina and was on the phone with my daughter when the line went dead.  911 doesn’t work from here which is why I’m calling you.”  Receptionist “I can’t help you” then the phone went dead.

Then about an hour later I received another call.  “Mom I don’t know what’s going on.  The police arrested Taylor and I don’t know what to do.  We need an attorney.  Mom they broke in the side door and destroyed the front metal security door.  Mom I don’t know what to do. Mom will you talk to me for awhile.  I don’t feel safe here tonight.  Mom, while the police were handcuffing Taylor one of them made a comment that a call had come in about excessive force being used and they just laughed. The police trashed everything and I’m trying to find my wallet.  They took the rifle and the ammo that was in the safe, they left the ammo that was in the store bag right next to the rifle.  Mom they took the dogs.  Mom, they said I could go get the dogs in the morning and it wouldn’t cost anything to get them back from animal control.  Mom, mom, oh my god mom, there’s blood on the floor.  Mom I think they hurt one of the dogs, there’s more blood.  They said that the dogs were all fine and that I just needed to pick them up in the morning.  Mom there’s a spent bullet on the floor, more blood, so much blood.  Mom they shot one of the dogs, it jumped over the door barricading the sunroom, there’s a huge pool of blood on the bags of concrete.  Mom I don’t know whether they shot Koda or Mina but mom the police lied, there’s no way the dogs are all fine.  Mom, T’s calling I’ll call you back.

A bit later she called back.  “Mom T says that they showed him a picture of Koda and told him the dogs are all fine.  Why are the police lying?  One of them isn’t fine.  They shot one of the dogs mom.”

As most of you know by know the dog that was shot was Mina.  There was some worry that she would lose her toe or foot due to the damage and possibility of infection.  It’s been just over three weeks now and she’s recovering well.  It helps that I was able to afford top notch veterinary care.

With the news talking about Breonna Taylor and her death at the hands of police serving a no-knock warrant on March 13, 2020 for someone that wasn’t even a resident at her house.  How Breonna and Kenneth Walker woke up thinking there were intruders breaking in, causing him to shoot and the police – who hadn’t identified themselves – to return fire.

When I think that I could have been the mom receiving the call telling me my daughter was dead my heart breaks.   Breonna was just a bit younger than KC, 49 weeks and 1 day.  Both Breonna and KC chose to be EMTs.  Both of the men they loved were men of color who had concealed carry permits.

As mad as I am at the Detroit Police for their handling of the incident at my daughter’s house – seriously who serves a warrant like that on a house where neither of the residents (regardless of skin color) has ANY criminal history.  When she was on the phone talking to me T was going through the house with his legally owned pistol in his hand to make sure that whoever had broken in wasn’t still there.  I am so glad that he set the gun down on the upstairs landing when he heard her say it was the police at the door.  If he had walked down there unaware with that gun in his hand I do not believe he would be alive today, I also don’t have much faith that she would be either. 

These two young EMTs were restoring one of the houses in Detroit.  She had bought the house before they met.  When we went to the house the first time I told her NEVER wear your TSA uniform or branded gear in this neighborhood – keep the uniform covered in a bag when you come and go from this house.  When she lost the TSA job due to an illness and being on probationary period at the time, I actually let out a sigh of relief.  I didn’t think about EMT uniforms being a problem but who knows why that person threatened to shoot her and Koda unless they didn’t like the shade of her skin or had seen the EMT uniforms and not realized that meant these two were the people that you wanted living in your neighborhood – especially with the poor 911 response time.

Yes, the police officers need someone reigning them in.  There needs to be more limits and doublechecks before any warrants are issued that involve them breaking in doors on someone’s house.  If someone has passed the background check for a concealed carry permit – it must mean that the government believes them to be fairly stable people.  Why then, didn’t the police just knock on the front door and say we’ve had a complaint and we need you to come down to the station with us?

The police should never shoot anyone in the back or hold them down in such a way that they can’t breathe or die.  However, I do not believe that all police officers are bad apples.  I believe that most of them go into the field, as my future son-in-law had planned, to improve their communities.  I would hope that is especially true of men of color who choose to enter the field of law enforcement. 

For those of you that think social workers can handle the domestic violence calls, why?  Why would you think that someone going to one of those situations unarmed would be a good thing?  How many officers die in the line of duty answering those calls?  How many are shot just knocking on the door?  Are you going to send a female social worker to the scene?  Hope that someone that enjoys beating his wife wont do the same to her? Are you going to send a male there?  Hope that the person that is beating on their spouse/significant other isn’t immediately jealous and attack them?

There are schools that abuse police resources.  The police should never be called to handcuff a six year old because the school can’t control them.  That’s when you call the parents.  There was a school recently that called the police to search a students house because the online class meetings happened to show a bb gun stowed properly and they decided that their on-campus rules regarding no firearms should also apply to that families home.  So now we have schools teaching kids to fear the police instead of teaching them that the police are the people you go to for help.

We need police, we need police that we can trust to treat each person with dignity and respect because contrary to what T heard while he was in detention, not charged with anything at this point, even criminals have rights. We need police that are properly equipped and trained to handle tense situations.  We need police that know how to handle the weapons that they are entrusted with.  We need police that know how to use words to de-escalate situations.  We also need police that know when to use possible lethal force.

This means we need police that undergo continuous training and psychological evaluations.  We need police that play ball with kids in the park, visit the schools and interact with children at a young age.  We need police that participate in the coffee with a cop events that local restaurants host. 

What we don’t need is politicians and bureaucratic bloat – all of these politicians talking about defunding the police need to have any security provided by the police removed.  If those politicians choose to hire private security guards it should be at their own expense and not be funded by any of their campaign “war” funds.  

All of the actors, musicians, speakers, etc that are telling the world to defund police, that utilize police as security at their events or to direct traffic to/from these events need to not have access to them.

We don’t improve our species by pushing others down or treating them as lesser than.  We improve our species by helping each other up when we can, teaching the younger generations better, kinder ways to do things.

 Why can't we just be kinder to each other?  Is it really that hard?