Vox’s German Lopez is here to guide you through the Biden administration’s burst of policymaking. She was brandishing a knife, many pointed out, which meant the other Black women needed to be protected.
Even after it was discovered that Bryant was living in foster care, that she was in the middle of a fight with older women when police arrived, and that she was allegedly the one who summoned the police for help, people - some of the same people who called for justice in Floyd’s case - used police talking points to justify the four bullets that Reardon unloaded into Bryant’s chest. For a moment, those seeking justice for Black life exhaled in relief, knowing that the officer who callously took Floyd’s life would be imprisoned.īut the cries for justice that applied to George Floyd did not ring out as loudly for Bryant. Reardon shot Bryant dead about 20 minutes before a judge announced that a jury found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd, a killing that catalyzed worldwide protests against police violence. That she was a teenager in the middle of an altercation, in which she was presumed to be defending herself, did not matter. After watching 15 seconds of police body camera footage last week, viewers of various races and political affiliations had made a decision: 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was “the aggressor” - the “ fat,” “ huge,” “ knife-wielding attacker” and “ maniac” who deserved to be fatally shot by the police on April 20 in Columbus, Ohio.Īccording to these viewers, Nicholas Reardon, the police officer who immediately shot and killed Bryant, who was holding a knife, was justified.
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