The Rainbow Bridge Traveled Too Soon

I went to a memorial service on Sunday. It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful service, but it’s hard to write about. It wasn’t someone I was close to, though only because we hadn’t met until recently. I liked him. I knew he was gay and that he enjoyed dancing, though he wasn’t graceful or strong. I knew he was having hard times, since he volunteered for a while at the Habitat for Humanity Restore to have something current on his resume. He was also Hispanic, and suffered from mental illness.

He died because he got drunk and upset one night and took out a decorative sword and someone called the police. Neighbors said they heard 6 or 7 shots. The police said they told him repeatedly to put down the weapon. They said they feared for their lives, though none of the articles I read or TV reports I heard claimed he was attacking the officers or any other person.

I thought of him as a skinny kid, though he was in his 20s. He always struck me as being kind and gentle. I have a very hard time imagining him, holding a sword, as a credible threat against two police officers with guns. He didn’t have either the self-confidence or grace that comes from martial arts training.

I think about the number of friends I have who have swords, people who have had them in hand while drunk and upset, and lived to see the dawn (and suffer the hangover).

I think about the fact that his neighbors reported so many shots. How many bullets can you possibly need to stop one skinny drunk guy from endangering anybody else with an antique, decorative sword? Were these police officers trained at all in de-escalating situations? Did they have any training in how to identify and deal with a person who has mental illness? Did they do anything but bark orders and shoot?

There’s so much I don’t know about what happened. I don’t even know why he was upset.

But I can’t help but think that if he had been white and straight he would still be alive today.