Georgia Tech student Scout Schultz did not commit “suicide by cop;” they were murdered in cold blood. (This is not relevant to what happened, but just for the record, Scout was gender non-conforming and preferred to be referred to as “they.”)
There is absolutely no good reason why Scout Schultz should not be alive right now. None.
In reporting on the killing of the student, the CNN newscaster thought it very important to inform us that Scout had “attempted suicide before.” (My bold). The word “before” there caught and held my attention. It certainly left the impression — with me at least — that Scout wanted to be killed and therefore the cops should not be held responsible for taking an innocent life. The framing of the narrative and a helpful assist by the complicit media. They had no options, the apologists on CNN wanted us to think; only they did, and in a civilized society they would have been arrested, charged with murder, and awaiting trial with all the other people who have violated and abused sacred societal norms.
This child, for example, was most certainly not asking for a bullet and thankfully there were no trigger-happy cops around… as a result, she’s alive today.
Contrast the video above with the one below… if you can. The idea that Scout needed help didn’t even occur to the cops. Warning!! Video shows the fatal shot at 1:02.
On Saturday, Sept. 16, Georgia Tech police officers responded to a call of a person with a knife on West Campus. Officers found Schultz with a weapon. Schultz did not comply with officer requests to drop the weapon and advanced toward officers before a shot was fired. Schultz was transported to Grady Memorial Hospital where they died. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is investigating the incident.
The weapon that evoked such paralyzing fear, forcing the cops to pull out their guns and eventually shoot to kill, was described as a “metal, flip-open, multitool knife that would likely include a small blade.” Despite the overwhelming fear, the video of the killing shows that rather than stepping back, the cop in the frame kept crowding the agitated young adult. Three cops, one young person with an unopened pocket knife and they had to kill him.
Meet Scout Schultz
Schultz was a leader in the LGBT pride community on campus was known as "Scout." The student-activist served as the president of the Pride Alliance on Georgia Tech's campus. Schultz's profile on the Pride Alliance website states "I'm bisexual, non-binary and intersex," adding "they" and "their" as the appropriate pronouns to address Schultz instead of "he" or "she." The profile also states Schultz enjoyed playing the role-playing game "Dungeons and Dragons" and is politically active.
A young life of service ended when an untrained, unfit cop failed to exercise patience and empathy. Scout became just another name — another hashtag — on the long list of people killed by cops in this country and I don’t understand why we aren’t just hollering from the mountaintop about the injustice of it all. Why are we all so silent about these murders?!
More than 5,100 people have been killed by US police since May 1, 2013.
While we have been distracted by political intrigue, social upheavals, and natural disasters, the police have been quietly going about their business. The Washington Post reports that year-to-date, cops have killed 775 people. A lot of them black, a lot of them mentally challenged, some women, some children, a lot of them unarmed, some armed to the teeth with some dangerous weapons like cellphones, pens, and pocket knives.
Twenty-three percent of the 775 killed so far this year, suffered from some form of mental illness.
Desperate cries for help are repeatedly answered with hot bullets.
Is it time to retire the concept of “Suicide by Cops”?
The police through their apologists — the media — floated the idea that Scout’s murder was a case of “suicide by cop.” The notion of “Suicide by cops” is a fairly new addition to law enforcement vocabulary. “Suicide by cop” would be more aptly described as yet another get-out-of-accountability card; it ranks just behind the “I feared for my life” card.
The concept of “suicide by cop” as a way of thinking about certain killings by police has become well established since its coinage more than 30 years ago by Karl Harris, a psychologist and former police officer in California who later worked as a counsellor on a helpline for suicidal people.
Harris explained that a new term was needed for those people he saw “forcing cops to shoot them because they wanted to die”.
That language, though: “[F]orcing cops to shoot them...” Doctors don’t kill unruly patients. Teachers don’t kill unruly students. Why should cops have the right to kill unruly citizens?
Houston, we have a monumental problem when police can be so easily be duped into killing troubled people who are only just screaming for help. It has got to be one of two things: Either cops are more susceptible than almost all other professionals to being tricked and manipulated, or they are deliberately taking innocent lives.
We need to fix this problem now.
Scout Schultz! We say your name.