zimmerman effect? man who shot at black teen is a ‘neighborhood watch’ guy

So many white and NBPOC across this country are waiting to kill black people. They see blackness and either want to call the cops or pretend to be the cops. I know this because white men and NBPOC are constantly documented taking inordinate measures to interact with black people in the most innocuous situations. Be it firing 20 shots at a black man standing in his own garage, a little boy playing with a toy gun at his neighborhood park, a teenager walking to get snacks for his brother, or a woman getting pulled over for a traffic stop. Something within these white and NBPOC that sees blackness and think “must stop them”. Chilling at a Starbucks waiting for a friend? Must be dragged away.

So, while we were horrified, but unsurprised by the “arrests” that took place at a Philly Starbucks last week, frankly, I’m pretty sure black folks were just happy no one died. Same goes for 14-year-old Brennan Walker of Michigan who was shot at after knocking on the door of a house marked “Neighborhood Watch” to ask for direction after missing the school bus.

Describing the series of events that followed after knocking on the door to Fox 2, Walker said, “Then she [the wife] started yelling at me and she was like, ‘Why are you trying to break into my house?’ I was trying to explain to her that I was trying to get directions to Rochester High. And she kept yelling at me. Then the guy came downstairs, and he grabbed the gun, I saw it and started to run. And that’s when I heard the gunshot.”

Thankfully, Walker kept running and was able to get away where he hid and cried. “My mom says that, black boys get shot because sometimes they don’t look their age, and I don’t look my age. I’m 14; but I don’t look 14. I’m kind of happy that, like, I didn’t become a statistic.”

Oakland County Sheriff Deputies arrived on the scene shortly after where they arrested Jeffrey Zeigler, the woman’s husband. The violent interaction was apparently caught on tape through residence’s Ring doorbell recording system. The video has yet to be released, but both Brennan and his mom we able to review it: “One of the things that stands out, that probably angers me the most is, while I was watching the tape, you can hear the wife say, ‘Why did “these people” choose my house?’” she says, before taking a long pause. “Who are, “these people?” And that set me off. I didn’t want to believe it was what it appeared to look like. When I heard her say that, it was like, but it is [what it looks like],” Mrs. Walker said.