News

December 2020

Columbus Urban League Dec. 23 statement on shootings

The following is a statement from Columbus Urban League President & CEO Stephanie Hightower regarding the recent shootings of two black men by Central Ohio law enforcement officers:

“December 23, 2020 will stand in our memories for the rest of our lives. Today, we bury Casey Goodson Jr. Today, we await hard facts about the shooting of another black man by Columbus Police officers. It is an inflection moment in a terrible history that never seems to end.

“Many community leaders and our Mayor and Council already have expressed their anger and frustration at the deaths of yet two more people of color. I echo their rage, their grief and their calls for swift and certain justice. We can’t restore these men’s lives. All that’s left to us is to ensure that truth ultimately prevails.

“And, yet, we have another collective responsibility that cries out to all of us. Together, we have to ask ourselves: How many? How many more black people have to die at the hands of those we trust to protect us? How many more families must mourn a devastating loss while also enduring endless questions and judgments on the behavior of their loved one? How many more moms won’t sleep at night for worry that their child might look like a fugitive to someone with a gun and a badge? How many more black men will be detained because ‘they look like someone who might have an outstanding warrant’?

“Your Columbus Urban League is relentlessly devoted to unraveling the tangled impacts of systemic racism on poverty, economic opportunity, education, health, crime—all the open wounds that never heal because they continue to be inflicted every day.

“But real reform only happens when each of us—all of us—answer those heartbreaking questions with a clear, resounding, ‘Not one more.’”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email