Two and a half weeks into 2023 and yet another unarmed Black man is murdered by the hands of the police.
Keenan Anderson, a 31 year old English teacher and father of one, was murdered at the hands of a police officer last week. Anderson died of cardiac arrest as a result of being repeatedly tased.
According to a news release, on January 3rd, at approximately 3:38pm, police came across Anderson at the site of a traffic collision. Onlookers say he was exhibiting “erratic behavior”. One of the police officers attempted to deescalate the situation, and in a matter of minutes, Anderson began to resist and engage in a struggle with the officer.
Writers Stella Chan and Elizbeth Wolfe, in their 2023 article for CNN, “Keenan Anderson, cousin of Black Lives Matter co-founder, dies from cardiac arrest after being tased by Los Angeles Police”, writes, “As police struggled to arrest Anderson, they tased him repeatedly, edited body-worn camera footage released by police shows. After being arrested, Anderson was brought to a local hospital, where he went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead, according to police.”
Anderson was the younger cousin of Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors. The 39 year old activist and writer referenced Anderson in a tribute post on her Instagram, writing,“ ‘Keenan deserves to be alive right now, his child deserves to be raised by his father,’ Cullors wrote in the post. ‘Keenan we will fight for you and for all of our loved ones impacted by state violence. I love you.’”
The murder of Anderson has left an indelible imprint on the Los Angeles community. This is the third death caused by the police in Los Angeles this year, following the shooting deaths of Takar Smith, 42, and Oscar Sanchez, 35. Anderson, was visiting family in the area while on winter break from his job as an tenth-grade English teacher at a Digital Pioneers Academy in Washington D.C.
Once more, the body camera footage was viewed by the family just moments before it was released to the public. In it, the verbal and physical exchange between the officer and Anderson was depicted and shows the exchange quickly escalated following the initial spotting at the traffic incident.
This is not the first time police officers failing to deescalate an altercation resulted in the murder of an unarmed minority. This of course comes after police-minority relations reached a fever pitch in 2020 following the murders of George Floyd, 46, and Breonna Taylor, 26. What is clear is that there is work that still needs to be done. With all that is taking place at the policy level regarding police brutality and it’s devastating impacts on the African American and Latino communities, there seems to be little to no record of any solution, especially if these incidents are continuing to happen nearly three weeks into 2023.
