A black Daunte Wright was shot and killed by a white police officer who mistakenly shot him with her gun instead of using her Taser. The incident is under investigation and she has been arrested and charged with manslaughter.

Daunte was pulled over for license plate expiration tag. The officers then notice a car air freshener dangling from his windshield rear view mirror, which is against the law in Minneapolis. An outstanding arrest warrant was discovered and the officers attempted to arrest Daunte, but he resisted and jumped back into his car.

At this point, Kimberly Potter, drew her gun (thinking it was her Taser) and pointed it at Daunte for some seven seconds while shouting, “Taser, Taser, Taser,” before discharging it. It would seem to me that an officer of the law would obviously realize the difference between a much lighter Taser and a Glock gun in seven seconds of time. Not to be surpassed by Danute thinking he’s going to be tased at best, not literally shot with a gun for not obeying.

Regardless, Danute drove off a short distance, crashed and died. His gunshot wound caused his death. The car air fresheners placed at the scene are symbolic of the tragic occurrence. Kimberly and the police chief have both resigned.

In 2003 Dwight Gordon, a Florida black man was pulled over for air fresheners dangling from his rear view mirror. That led to examining his trunk which revealed some illegal drugs. And that led to prison time. Eventually, the case was dropped on a technically, and apparently, taken off the books (in Florida only?)

The ACLU and other similar groups maintain that these “pretext” stops by police (like a faulty tail light, etc.) are just excuses to profile further the black community at large. And this systemic racism, most likely, is the bigger picture that one can miss as the result of being blindsided by the “insignificant” details of any one particular case. PS perspective: The closer you bring an object to your eyes for detail examination, the less of the background (forest) you’ll be able to view. And the little that you can view won’t be in much focus.

Interesting enough evangelic Christianity has its parallel to the above. So often we Christians get bogged down in the particulars of Scripture (tree fresheners), that we often loose site of the big picture of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection being the “soul” source of our eternal life in the forest of heaven–period