Forty-five-year-old Pamela Turner had few options left. She had professed her innocence; she had tried to assert her rights; she had begged for mercy; as best she could she had tried to ward off the blows aimed at her, and now she looked death in the face. There’d be no reprieve for her...unless...maybe, just maybe she could try one more thing. Maybe, just maybe she could stay that hand reaching for the gun…
“I’m pregnant!”
If Officer Juan Delacruz heard her desperate declaration, it meant absolutely nothing to him. His hand didn’t pause in reaching for the gun. He took only a half a step back so as to steady himself and then he deliberately and with malice aforethought fired five shots at the woman kneeling at his feet. He wanted her dead.
Ms. Turner’s family members revealed that she struggled with mental illness.
Merritt, who is working with Turner’s family and their attorney, said he believes the officer broke protocol in Turner’s attempted arrest. The woman had paranoid schizophrenia, and should have been treated differently, he said.
In an attempt to justify the murder, apologists are pointing to the fact that the murderer knew his victim. He’d interacted with her many times before and that’s why he knew that she had outstanding warrants, we are told. Well, did he not also know that she had a history of psychosis? And that as such, he had a legal obligation to protect her?
The spokesman for the Baytown Police Department is very upset. He thinks that something happened the day Pamela was murdered that was "extremely disrespectful for everybody involved."
But he said it was "unfortunate" that the witness shared footage of the killing online."It's unfortunate that somebody take a tragic incident like this and start posting it on social media," he said. "That's extremely disrespectful for everybody involved."
Ha! You thought he was upset that a defenseless woman was callously gunned down by a murderous coward, didn’t you? Nah, son. Lt. Doris is upset that the public will get to see the truth before he and his department get the chance to kill the murdered woman’s reputation. Before they were able to find and distribute her mugshot. Before their buddies in the media got the chance to solidify the narrative that the poor cop was forced to neutralize Pamela because she was a really bad person who deserved to die. She had warrants out for her arrest, doncha know! She may have scratched her landlady on the nose! She took the taser from the brave cop and used it on him! What else was the cop supposed to do?
And so the system continues to feed on black flesh. An unarmed woman was murdered and the sun rose the following morning and in a few weeks we’ll forget all about her...as we’ve forgotten about Decynthia Clements, and Deborah Danner, and Korryn Gaines, and Symone Marshall, and all the others too numerous to mention here.
Just where should black women go for protection, I wonder?
Pamela’s neighbors describe her as a very caring woman.
Neighbor Teryn Burns said she'd been talking with the woman close to an hour before the shooting. She'd found a pair of children's shoes and was hoping to return them to their rightful owner.
Pamela spent her last hours worrying about an unknown child who’d lost a pair of shoes. She found the shoes as she made her rounds voluntarily cleaning up the grounds of her apartment complex. A loving soul. A gentle soul. A defenseless woman murdered by a coward.
Rest in peace, Pamela Turner. We call your name. Condolences to your loved ones.