(NNPA)—When I first viewed the video of Walter Scott being gunned down by North Charleston, S.C. Police Officer Michael T. Slager, my mind raced up north to Teaneck, N.J. The horrific scene of Scott being shot in the back multiple times, eight shots fired to be exact, was eerily similar to the killing of 15-year-old Phillip Pannell by White Teaneck Police Officer Gary Spath in 1990. Scott and Pannell posed no threat to the policemen and in the case of young Phillip, he was gunned down with his arms raised in a surrender position.
It hardly seems possible that Phillip Pannell was killed 25 years ago today but the killing of Black men by police has been so epidemic that a death two decades ago can be casually forgotten. Yet, what happened to Phillip is so symbolic of the experiences of Black youth that his death cannot be in vain.
I came to the Pannell incident as a local NAACP leader and became involved after waking up to news reports the morning after he was killed. At the time, I was a graduate student at New York University and just weeks from receiving my degree when the news served as a splash of cold water in my face. Hearing that a Black child had been killed by a police officer in a community that neighbored my hometown seemed surreal at the time. It became very real the next evening when the anger of youth erupted at a prayer vigil for Phillip and bands of young people vented their frustration by burning police cars, breaking windows in the municipal complex and in the shopping district.