This is Where We Are

We are back in the city.

Across town, two teen girls went missing yesterday. From there, the story becomes complicated, hard to sort out unless you piece together TV news reports with social media posts from people on the scene.

Here is what I think is a synopsis: Families and neighbors search frantically for the two girls. Police refuse to do an Amber Alert. Community takes matters into its own hands and decides to look for girls in a house where they suspect sex trafficking. Shots fired, police come. Neighbors and bad guys in the house shoot at each other while community leaders try to mediate between police and angry crowd, house torched, both girls found, according to one source, only one, according to another source. Police chief claims his officers are the victims, saying that several were hit by bricks thrown by the crowd. Community asks why police don’t look for missing Black girls. The house burns to the ground.

There is so much anger and heartache here.

I don’t have a solution, just an observation. Everything that has happened has led to this point. There is no way to unpave the road.