BY PHELICIA BALL 

Antwon Rose Jr., 17, was shot by police after fleeing a traffic stop on Tuesday in East Pittsburgh. Rose was a passenger in a vehicle that police suspected to be in connection to a shooting that occurred minutes earlier. Upon making the traffic stop and ordering the driver to the ground, Rose and another unidentified passenger fled. Shots were then fired as Rose’s back was turned to the officer. Rose was unarmed. The officer has been identified as Michael Rosfeld, who was sworn in as an East Pittsburgh officer just 90 minutes before the shooting, and had worked in three other police departments since 2011. The officer has been placed on leave as the investigation continues.

The Allegheny County Police Department reports that multiple callers informed them that a vehicle was seen fleeing the scene and were able to provide a description of the vehicle which led them to pull over the Chevrolet Cruze that Rose and two others were in.   

Police stopped the vehicle of description and managed to kill a fleeing, and let us remind you again—unarmed Black male. The Allegheny County Police Department reports that two guns were later recovered from the vehicle. Rose was shot three times. A graphic video posted on social media by a woman viewing the incident shows Rose tumbling to the ground.

Pittsburgh protests broke out following the shooting, and activists are demanding justice. “Our black boys can’t make mistakes in this country. We can’t have accidents,” Ayodeji Young, a community organizer, said in his speech. “Your sons that don’t look like mine ... They’re going to come home at night. Our sons don’t come home at night. Our sons make mistakes and it’s over for them.”

So yet again, we have another unarmed Black male murdered by law enforcement because according to law enforcement running from the police is worthy of a death sentence? Driving while Black, selling CD’s on the street; can we do anything? Police have shot and killed at least 491 people in 2018 thus far, according to a Washington Post database. 18 percent of those have been Black. It will be interesting to see how this will unfold in yet again, another case of deadly force by an officer on an unarmed Black male.

I can’t take it anymore. I can’t breathe.