Advertisement
Advertisement

And in the case of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old Black boy who was fatally shot by police in 2014, we can see how stories like this can take a tragic turn. The police were responding to a call of someone pointing a gun at people in a Cleveland park. But the “gun” Rice had was actually a toy.

The race of the children and parents in this Reddit post is unclear. But as a mom of two Black children, I’m hyperaware that encounters with the police don’t always have happy endings when our people are involved. I’m not sure what the parent of that toddler was trying to accomplish, but I’m sure the kid forgot all about the toy and the hair pulling before the police arrived.