I haven't had a bad dream or a nightmare in years, that was until last night. In hindsight the bad dream began a few months ago after the landmark decision in the Michael Ellerby civil case here in Pittsburgh. My stress elevated with the not guilty verdict in the Sean Bell case in New York and reached an all time high level with the recent epidemic of Police terrorism and murder from coast to coast including last weeks incident here in Pittsburgh that ended with Justin Jackson being shot by Police after allegedly shooting a Police dog.
It didn't help that I saw a guy get his ass whipped by a minimum of 8 cops yesterday during an arrest earlier that day. He had already been tazered at least 4 times with 50,000 volts at the moment I arrived. According to witnesses the first charge of electricity seemed to have no effect on the guy, he continued to struggle as he was tazed numerous times until he went down and then fought with police as they attempted to handcuff him. He was cuffed hand and foot and wound up with more than he bargained for as he was pummeled with punches and at one point unnecessarily kicked in the face by a female officer during the scuffle. I didn't realize how much all of this police violence and the absence of justice was affecting me until I woke up around 5:00 this morning from a horrible nightmare that was so vivid and real that it took me a few minutes to get my bearings and deduce that the images burning in my mind were the results of a bad dream and not actual events logged in my memory.
[The Nightmare]:
In the dream I was walking with a young white child (around 9 years old). He was very intelligent and had talked his parents into allowing him to spend a day with me so that he could experience for himself and write a report about how life was different in a poor inner city community than it was in the affluent suburban neighborhood that he lives in. As we crossed a street we saw a police officer punch an unarmed young black man in the face and then shoot him 3 times in the back as he lay on the ground (remember this is not real, it was in my dream). I had my camera in my hand and was about to take a picture when the cop quickly spun around and aimed his Glock at me and the child. He seemed to be fighting with himself whether he was going to shoot us or not when he suddenly lowered his weapon and turned his attention back toward the young man who he had just shot.
We slowly walked away, as we got down the block we could hear a crowd assembling and sirens from every direction. The angry crowd started throwing bricks and bottles at the police and the officers began firing into the crowd. We ducked into a store front and I locked the door behind us. As I explained what we had seen to people in the store the boy who was with me hid as we continued to hear shots for a long period of time. I found the child hiding under a shelf in the store noticed a terrible smell, the young man had soiled his pants! As I gestured in the direction of the restroom, A heavily armed officer appeared at the front door demanding that we unlock it and let him in. That was the moment that I woke up.
[Dream over].
Paradise Gray
