Marlowe Tulloch

St. Louis, MO

I remember that Saturday when Mike Brown was killed. I remember happening upon the news and watching this kid's body laying in the street...hours...I remember the blood triggering me to a state of anger like, I had never been there before because I could only imagine if that was our boy, if that was my grand-boy. I wanted them to allow his family to get him out of the street. I wanted him to be treated with a level of dignity and respect, just some humanity, but that's not how they handle that. So for hours, this kid's body...I don't care what he did, that's how I feel. I don't give a darn what he did...It was really inhumane. When I consider the authorities that we turn over to police officers, law enforcement, the justice system, to protect us as citizens so that we're not shooting each other up, that whole O.K. Corral-thing...I understand that we turn over our personal authorities for their protection, to create safe space for everybody, and I didn't feel any of that on that day. I watched the people in the community and the community hurting. I watched his mother...kind of like "Oh Mary Don't You Weep," that kind of deal, while they've got your boy up on the cross. I mean, they had her son laying in the street and nobody showed her the kind of compassion that I would want as a mother or a grandmother. So, I've got this 17 year-old grandson at the time and he's, you know, he's a senior in high school, first couple of days, he's excited. He's swagged out. He's 17. He's tall. He's like--now he's 6'3"--he's like 6' 2.5" or .25" then and all I could think of was "What's the difference between Michael Brown and my grandson? Nothing." For me it was nothing that created a marginal distance, that that couldn't have been him. That couldn't have been me and my daughter screaming in the street while his blood was running. It was nothing.