I would like for you to just take a second and try to imagine having to wake up everyday not knowing if you'll be coming back home to your family because you live in a society where you are constantly a target by the law enforcement due to the color of your skin. I have always tried to avoid watching the news these days because I know I will end up being in distress and regretting my decision immediately. Over the past weeks, I've been recording my thoughts on events going on with this Black Lives Matter movement.

His SUV was stopped in the middle of a road. Terence Crutcher was a guy who needed a hand, and requested aid from the police. Instead, Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby killed him.

I was speaking to a friend about this issue and was provided with a fairly reasonable point: this is just like the show How to Get Away with Murder - where the Keiting five are representatives of our cops in a way. There will be intense parsing of the video of Crutcher’s killing. At Fault Lines, former police officer and firearms instructor Greg Prickett takes apart the video and tries to understand what might have given rise to this killing. The upshot is that while there are explanations, to some limited extent, for Shelby’s shooting, they aren’t good explanations at all.

But it remains to be seen, according to Greg, whether there is anything more, as to the alternative of Betty Shelby being a straight up murderer is so hard to fathom. And Tulsa has demonstrated its willingness to prosecute a cop, take a cop to trial and convict a cop, if the facts warrant it. They did so with Robert Bates!

But while all eyes are on the moments before the killing, as the apologists at PoliceOne blame Crutcher for "not complying" to commands, as if that’s a reason to execute a man, and seek out any excuse to explain why one of theirs gets to kill one who isn’t one of them, Terence Crutcher’s SUV wasn’t the only breakdown on the road in Tulsa in need of explanation.

The police weren’t there to provide aid and comfort to Crutcher. They were on their way to another call, and happened upon Crutcher’s SUV in the middle of the road. There were two patrol cars and a helicopter. Why a helicopter was anywhere in the area is unknown, but it’s unlikely that they dispatch an eye in the sky for a stalled car.

Wherever the cops were heading when they came upon Crutcher, whatever their call was for, was apparently not as important as his stalled SUV or the black (and as much as I hate to do so, I have to emphasize on being black part) man in the road with the vehicle. The cops rushing toward danger decided that this stalled SUV was more important or dangerous. Call forgotten, they converged on a guy whose car had stalled.

Officer Shelby has since lawyered up, and her attorney offers his defense of her shooting.

In an interview, Officer Shelby’s lawyer, Scott Wood, said the officer had thought that Mr. Crutcher had a weapon. Thought? This is no matter of thought. She took a life! No matter what she does or tries to say, nothing could justify what she did. Mr. Wood said Mr. Crutcher had acted erratically, refused to comply with several orders, tried to put his hand in his pocket and reached inside his car window before he was shot. Excuse my French, but that's bulls**t!

The official police narrative similarly falls back to the typical jargon to justify a killing.

Chief Jordan said Officer Shelby had encountered Mr. Crutcher and his vehicle while en route to another call and requested backup because she was “not having cooperation” from him. Officer Turnbough and his partner responded to Officer Shelby’s request for backup. It was the dashboard camera in their patrol car that recorded the shooting.

Shaun King, an American writer and civil rights activist, lucked upon the obvious:

"This epitomizes the black experience in America..."

This epitomizes the black experience in America. Something that should have been routine and safe turned out to be fatal. As it turns out, Officers Betty Shelby and Tyler Turnbough were actually being dispatched for another call when they came across Crutcher’s broken down SUV. Thankfully, several cameras filmed the entire incident and eyewitnesses have come forward as well.

"He's black so no matter what, he is always a threat..."

The officers say Crutcher approached them — and failed to obey the cops’ commands. First of all, why are commands being given if it was clear that the man was in distress and needed aid. Oh wait, he's black so no matter what, he is always a threat. I'm pretty sure if this was a white man, such "commands" wouldn't have been given.

It should have been routine. Terence Crutcher wasn’t a bank robber, an escaped prisoner, or a mass murderer. If anything, he was a guy who could have used a little help, whether to push the SUV out of the middle of the road or to call a tow truck.

Did Crutcher refuse to obey commands? It’s the wrong question. It’s the wrong place to start, and leads one down a path that misapprehends the situation.

The post-hoc rationalization of the event was that Crutcher could have been a threat, and that neither Shelby nor Tyler Turnbough, the officer who tased him in the split second before Shelby put the bullet into Crutcher that killed him, knew that Crutcher wasn’t a potential threat.

I’ve learned many lessons, but the essential one that is particularly timely today is about the initial statements that police officers give to the local media after they kill someone.

"Instead, these initial statements are made by skilled men and women who have every interest in protecting themselves and their fellow officers."

I don’t believe them — ever. They are not based on an analysis of facts. They don’t come after an investigation. They aren’t released alongside body camera or dashcam footage. Instead, these initial statements are made by skilled men and women who have every interest in protecting themselves and their fellow officers. Consistently, these initial statements provide us with horrible details about the victim and nearly no details about the officers involved — all but convicting the victim, and freeing the cop.

In Columbus, Ohio, a 13-year-old black kid was proclaimed dead at a hospital after a white officer shot him several times, claiming to have found a BB gun in his possession. Tyree King, an eighth grader, had a BB gun that "looks practically identical" to the type of handgun that Columbus police carry, said Chief Kim Jacobs. Jacobs told reporters that "This is the last thing that a police officer wants to do in their career. Unfortunately...it becomes necessary at times to defend themselves." A 13-year-old... I'll just leave this here and let you interpret it as you will.

Just a few weeks ago, there were bombings in New York City and Elizabeth, New Jersey. The alleged suspect, 28-year-old Ahmad Rahami, was involved in a shoot-out in Linden, New Jersey with the police. Two officers were shot, but he was taken in alive. People were actually injured in these bombings and he was taken in alive. Now take this scenario and replace Ahmad with a black man instead. How do you think this would have ended? More than likely he would have been killed.

Isn't it funny how when an unarmed black man asks for help, you become a marksman but when in a shoot-out, you suddenly can't shoot. My wishes aren't that Ahmad to be killed, don't get me wrong. I'm just using his case to compare to others. It's 2016, when is the implied (in some cases, literal) segregation going to end?