Eurie Stamps was killed by a policeman’s bullet on January 5, 2011. He was 68 years old. A Framingham Police Officer Paul Duncan, who was a town of Framingham SWAT team member fired the fatal shot. Officer Duncan is white. Eurie Stamps is an African American male. Police and the Middlesex District Attorney at the time, Gerald Leone, determined that it was an accident, that the officer merely tripped over Mr. Stamps as he laid prone face down on the floor of his home.
Sound familiar? Yes it does, another Black unarmed male killed by a white police officer, an innocent Black male. However, there were no protests like there are today. Protests that came many deaths too late. Even after seeing or reading about black men being killed by white police officers for such small transgressions - like walking from a store with a package of skittles, running away from an officer and being shot in the back, playing with a toy gun in a park, sleeping in one’s own home or selling untaxed cigarettes. Then there was George Floyd. A video seen around the world showing a white police officer essentially strangling the man to death by kneeling on his neck while he was on the ground. A large segment of the country then said enough.