Isaiah Brown’s shooting are both painfully familiar and impossible to grasp. A harmless item in the victim’s hand (a phone) supposedly mistaken for a weapon.
An unarmed Black man, seemingly in crisis, confronting an armed police response. Overwhelming use of force — Brown was shot 10 times — that strains comprehension.
And now, a severely wounded victim who may not survive and if he does, will never fully recover.But Isaiah Brown’s case is also different.
Brown is a gay/same gender loving (SGL) Black man. And while we don’t know all the details of his shooting, the shooting is surfacing the long and ugly history of violence, including at the hands of law enforcement, against LGBTQ+/SGL people.