Mourning Ryan Hinton and the Ripples of Violence

By Bekky Baker, Program Director

Ryan Hinton, a teenager, a brother, a son, our neighbor, was shot and killed by the police on May 1st. The headlines flash that he was armed, that he stole a vehicle, that he aimed his gun at the police despite an ongoing investigation, extremely blurry body cam footage, and the fact that Ryan was running away. Ryan’s family described him as a “jokester,” funny, a “sweet and gentle giant,” and loving. 

Words like fear, safety, criminal, felon, and suspect dominate news stories after a police shooting. When a person is on the other end of a police gun there is a rush to paint them as deviant and to dehumanize them in order to “justify” the shooting. Our lived experiences today are born from the foundations we set many, many years ago. As a society, we have created the conditions that resulted in the deaths of Ryan and Larry Henderson, two devastating tragedies. White supremacy, historically racist policies like the black codes, and the reactionary present day policies bred from a tough-on-crime era have led us to this moment. As an open carry state, we simply cannot predicate the carrying of a weapon as a legitimate fear anymore. Nor can we ignore that we value one’s right to carry a gun at all costs over our very lives. 

I remember the dumb things I did as a teenager, the laws I ignored, the risky situations I was willing to put myself in to be part of a crowd and to laugh a little longer with my friends. We broke into abandoned buildings, trespassed on property, and more. I am still alive today in part due the color of my skin. To police, my skin color signified a harmless, wreckless teeanger, not a criminal, thug, menace, or “adultified” teeanger who poses an imminent danger to society. 

When a police officer shoots a civilian, the police control the release of information, allowing them to shape the public narrative while invoking public safety. There are a multitude of additional protections in place – Marsy’s Law, qualified immunity, the many infractions you can incur for “disrespecting” the police – making it nearly impossible to hold them accountable. Any other member of the public can and will be criminalized for enacting violence on the police, intimidating, threatening, or yelling hateful speech at the police. But our own ability to seek truth and justice when the roles are reversed, even in these cases of extreme violence, is eroding.  

An invincible pedestal elevates the morality and integrity of police officers above any other citizen. When we see side by side acts of violence committed by the police versus towards the police, it illuminates the stark reality of our cultural norms and supposed system infallibility. These systems must be torn down and made new in order to prevent future harm like the pain devastating our city now.  

We know that violence only begets more violence. Are stolen cars and guns a problem? Yes. But how might we restructure our society to prevent this from occurring in the first place? Because a stolen car should never end in a deadly chase. Our criminal justice system utilizes vengeance, punishment, force, and weapons to maintain an illusion of safety. The police shooting led to another instance of violence which has led to calls for and charges that carry the death penalty. Yet again, the death penalty is applied in arbitrary fashion with a political narrative behind it. It is a stark reminder of the lives our society deems valuable and those we deem are not. 

I see multiple families, a community all in immense pain. I see the compounding of tragedies and the overwhelming grief that will remain long after the anger has dissipated. It is another tragedy that mourning the loss of one life seems to imply that one cannot mourn the other, when in reality the whole of our city suffers from this violence. This is a time to center empathy, not vengeance.