An Asian American police officer in Virginia attempted to do a welfare check at an apartment complex on Sept. 16. Once the occupant opened the door, she lunged at the officer with a knife. The person, 33-year-old Sydney Wilson, a black woman, continued to rush the officer while wielding the knife, even with repeated, urgent calls by the officer to back up. The officer, bleeding from cuts to his face, shot Wilson multiple times. Wilson died at the hospital. The bodycam footage is disturbing, to say the least.
At a press conference on Monday discussing the release of the footage, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said of the officer, “He did the things that we trained him and expect him to do when you’re threatened like that. If you can tactically reposition yourself, you do it. If you can use distance, use it. If you can seek cover and concealment, seek it. All those options weren’t available to him.”
Davis also mentioned the unnamed officer is “trained in crisis intervention.” He added that the officer was to be accompanied by a co-responder but that the mental health clinician was responding to a different call and was unavailable.
The climate in the United States is such that when police violence occurs against black people, there are often accusations of racism. On X, one user posted: “This was racism and abuse. He had a gun and she didn’t. She was clearly having a psychotic episode. People having psychotic episodes do not deserve to be murdered.” The post, which has over 3 million views, also has more than 17,000 likes.
Wilson was obviously in a mentally deranged state. That doesn’t mean the officer was wrong in defending himself when Wilson clearly attempted to kill him and had no intention of stopping.
Wilson was a former basketball player for Georgetown. On Sept. 20, the Georgetown women’s team account posted a photo of Wilson with, “Georgetown women’s basketball mourns the tragic loss of Sydney Wilson.” The post has more than 9 million views, 2,300 likes, and 1,500 reposts.
On Oct. 6, the account posted another photo and said, “We love you Syd! We will keep you in our hearts!” Nowhere in either post was it mentioned that Wilson died because of her own actions as she was trying to kill a police officer.
Both posts on X include community notes with the information about Wilson’s death the basketball account purposely excluded. In his own post about how the notes stopped a possible “BLM hoax,” X owner Elon Musk said: “Community Notes is hoax kryptonite.”
It is sad that Wilson’s life had to come to an end in such a brutal way. But the officer acted in self-defense as the 6-foot-5-inch, 330-pound Wilson charged him while holding a knife. He made the correct but difficult call to shoot. There was nothing racist or abusive about it.
Choosing to ignore the events surrounding Wilson’s death leaves too much room for falsehoods to spread. This is especially true in a time when social media dominates, and facts are easily disputed or intentionally overlooked.
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It’s abundantly clear the Fairfax County officer took the difficult but necessary action on that day. This situation is an example of why body cameras are important. The footage protects both police officers and citizens from false accusations of wrongdoing.
In some cases, citizens are in the right and officers are abusing their power. In other cases, police are only doing their job, following the proper code of conduct, and protecting themselves and others. In both scenarios, clarity is found in bodycam footage, which isn’t affected by outside narratives or willful lies to cover up criminality.
Kimberly Ross (@SouthernKeeks) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a contributing freelance columnist at the Freemen News-Letter.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
