Felonious posture

Oh yes, officially er
I can understand how threatening
A fifteen-year-old boy can be
To a grown man with a gun
A club, a taser, and pepper spray,
Especially a black fifteen-year-old boy
Because you know (we all do)
Those kids come from a violent culture
And have no respect for human life.
I understand the terror you must have experienced
When the boy reached to pick up the phone
His co-criminal had dropped
And, as you reported,
Assumed a “threatening stance.”
If stances, as they say, could kill
And there is no doubt
That his was intended as a death threat.
It is well known that black teenagers
Are just itching to kill whites,
Especially cops.
It is clear you had only a split-second
To act in self-defense
Before that young gangsta
Scowled at you again
So of course you threw him to the ground
And with the help of a fellow officer
Successfully subdued the thug
Smashing his face into the pavement
And getting some punches in
For good measure.
Excellent work officers, I say,
You averted what could have been
A tragic homicidal assault on your persons,
And as far as the bleeding-heart criticism
Of your response to the mortal danger you faced
From malicious phone-retrieval
And felonious posturing
I commend you for your swift response
In doing exactly what your fellow white officers
Have always done.

See video here

Buff Whitman-Bradley’s poetry has been widely published in print and online journals. He has a new book coming out from Finishing Line Press, A Friendly Little Tavern Somewhere Near the Pleiades. Read other articles by Buff.