Using these three prompts, write on anything you have heard about the Tony Robinson story.
Things I fear
Tony Robinson Shooting: Protests Continue in
Madison, Vigil Planned
Passionate but
peaceful protesters descended for a third day Sunday on the Madison, Wisconsin,
street where an unarmed black teenager was killed by a police officer Friday night.
Tony Terrell Robinson Jr. was shot
by veteran Madison police officer Matt Kenny after reports of the 19-year-old
jumping in front of traffic and assaulting someone in a home. Police said Kenny
forced his way inside of the home after hearing a disturbance and fired on
Robinson when the teen attacked him.
Neighbor, Marshal Erb, said scene of
the crime filled "almost immediately" with protesters, including
Robinson's aunt and grandmother, who told the group gathered there that
Robinson, a recent high school graduate, was "a beautiful, beautiful
soul."
RESPOND TO THIS QUOTE (How the quote makes you feel, what
you might ask the speaker, what you might have said)…
"This has to stop, and we can
stop it," Craig Spaulding, a friend of the Robinson family, told NBC News
outside the home where the teen was shot, hours before a vigil was set to take place there. While the Madison police
chief "has taken tremendous strides," Spaulding said, there have been
"mounting tensions" between the community and police for years.
Robinson's death has "ripped
this community apart," Spaulding added.
RESPOND TO THIS QUOTE (How the quote makes you feel, what
you might ask the speaker, what you might have said)…
During a news conference Saturday,
Madison Police Chief Mike Koval said the case would be independently probed by
the state Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation.
Koval said he understood the
frustration in the community and that the shooting death of a young black man
by a police officer would likely spark distrust. "When you have a person
of color who is unarmed and that life is then taken, it's only natural that
questions and objections should arise," Koval told NBC News Sunday.
"I get that and I'm empathetic to that," he said.
RESPOND TO THIS QUOTE (How the quote makes you feel, what
you might ask the speaker, what you might have said)…
Robinson’s aunt speaks out
On Friday evening, Lorien Carter spoke to a crowd in front of the building
in Madison, Wisconsin where her nephew, Anthony Terrell Robinson, was earlier shot and killed by a police officer,
Matt Kenny.
She said: “Here in our little bubble of Madison,
WI … I want y’all to know, that for minorities, we are [in one of] the top five
worst places to live. But we are [also in one of the] three happiest cities to
be in. So who is it happy for?”
RESPOND TO THIS QUOTE (How the quote makes you feel, what
you might ask the speaker, what you might have said)…
Carter’s words evoked not only the bitterness of
losing a young man too soon, but also well-documented disparities affecting
Madison’s African American community. For many, Robinson’s death was a harsh
reminder that their city is not the progressive utopia it sometimes styles
itself to be.
Other recent high-profile shootings
The shooting came days
after the U.S. Justice Department cleared Darren Wilson, the white former
Ferguson, Missouri, officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, who
was black and unarmed, of federal civil rights charges. A second report found
patterns of racial profiling, bigotry and profit-driven law enforcement and
court practices in the St. Louis suburb.
There have been several
high-profile deaths of black suspects killed by police officers in recent
months. In New York City, Eric Garner died after officers put him in a
chokehold and a video showed him repeatedly saying, "I can't
breathe." A police officer in Cleveland fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir
Rice, who had been pointing a pellet gun at a playground. And although
Milwaukee police determined the officer who fatally shot Dontre Hamilton acted
in self-defense, he was fired for ignoring department policy and treating
Hamilton as a criminal by frisking him.
We then finished reading chapter one. Once finished we worked on foreshadowing:
Read these two sections of chapter one:
- top p. 11 “Well we…” to bottom “ashamedly at the flames.”
- middle p. 15 “George motioned…” through top p. 16 “I won’t get…”
Based on these two readings, write what you think will happen in this book. Why do you think this? ½ page.
