What Did They Do?

Many, many years ago, I was at a Wednesday night meeting and a missionary was showing us slides, as they always used to do back in those days. He was telling us of the great need for the Gospel in this far Eastern country, and showing us the multitudes of people. Then, toward the end of the show, he said, "I saw this poor woman, grieving, holding this starving, dying child in her arms," and showed us a terrible picture of that dying child and his poor mother.

When the lights came up, he asked us if we had any questions. Someone immediately asked, "What did you do for the child?" I don't really know what the situation was, but the missionary stammered and stuttered about the impossibility of the situation, and how so many were beyond help, and that the Gospel was the only thing that could change the country and combat hunger, but even as a child, at that point and from that time, all I heard was, "Blah blah blah..."

You see, this man had seen a child dying of hunger before his eyes, and all he could do at the time was take a picture. Of course, now he could speak out about how evil the devil and that country were for letting kids starve like that. I think I was not the only one that was thinking, "I might not have been able to change that whole country, but I sure could have done something for that child and his mother. The picture still haunts me.

Over the past few days, we were given the grotesque picture of a Minneapolis officer letting a human being die while he pleaded for his life. We have pictures; we have more. In this era, where everyone with at least a double digit IQ can be a photojournalist, we have several angles to view. A man died. It doesn't matter what color he was. It doesn't matter if he had a criminal record or not. What matters is that a man died. And the immediate answer we might want to give is, "Those evil officers!"

My problem is, it seems that all the crowd around the man did was take some pictures and fuel the fire and rage that is burning in Minneapolis right now. We have pictures of that officer with his knee on the man's neck, lying next to or under that car. Yes, it's horrible. Yes, it's cruel. No, he did not deserve to have his life end that way. What would I have done if I had been there? I think I would have kept the camera in my pocket, and tried to stop the murder.

"Oh," they say, "the officers were threatening everyone with pepper spray and violence. Maybe tasers. Those big bad policemen were going to hurt anyone who helped. From what I can gather, there was a crowd around, composed mainly of phone video takers, photographers, and people telling them to stop. There was at least one off-duty medical professional there, telling him to take a pulse. There were other people there; we have their testimonies.

What I don't see is anyone who would have been willing to knock that policeman on his back and get him off that man. Now I am an old guy. I know; I might have been pepper sprayed, tasered, or beaten up by some cops. But I would have let that officer know that a citizen was not just going to stand there, taking videos.

If everyone who says they were there really was, and everyone who says that the people said what they did, really saw it, I can tell you this: those cops were outnumbered. Instead of a major mob the next day, assaulting cars, breaking into stores, blocking streets, and hurting people, we could have formed a mini-mob, and let those officers know we were not going to just stand there and watch an innocent man die; that we were willing to risk pain, comfort, convenience, even our lives, to try to save him.

Proverbs 24:11-12 says, Deliver those who are drawn toward death, And hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, "Surely we did not know this," Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not  render to each man according to his deeds? There may be other interpretations, but I see Proverbs saying, "If you stand by and do nothing as someone is being killed, you are complicit in the murder."

Maybe you are saying, "Well, you weren't there. You don't know how bad it was, and you don't know what you would have done." I think of a rainy Sunday afternoon in a large city in Ecuador. We were finishing a service in a small church in the neighborhood, and as I stood with two missionaries by the store front where we had just finished, we saw a commotion. Three men were chasing a fourth, who was obviously a little drunk. As they caught up to him, he stumbled into the ditch by the curb across the street from us, and went face first into the water. The other three stood over him, watching him drown, and the other two men and I could not let that happen. We started across the street. The other three men, seeing us, started to move toward us threateningly, daring us to try to help the man. As I was walking toward them, I remember thinking, "This may not turn out well," but we didn't stop. Unknown to me, one of my friends turned back toward his pickup parked on the curb. All I saw was the men suddenly look startled, turn, and run away. I would find out later that he remembered he had a tire iron behind the seat, and decided that anything that could protect us could help. I'm sure they thought he was going for a gun, but they left. When we got to the man, we got him out of the water and sat him on a bench, making sure he was breathing.

I wish I could tell you how we changed that man's life, but we didn't. We were asking him if he was okay, and he was coughing mildly, shaking his head to get the water out of his face. Then, he looked at us angrily, and waved his hands to tell us to "beat it." We spoke for a minute, and then left the ungrateful man on the bench.

But we knew that we had done what we were supposed to do. We had risked life and limb for a man who was in danger of dying, and it didn't matter what he though. We did it because we served "He who weighs the hearts," "He who keeps our soul." We had done right.

I like to think that, if anyone had made a move toward that cop, and knocked him back off the man, that others would have been emboldened to do the same. Some of us might have been sprayed, some of us might have gotten tasered, some of us might have gotten worse, but I have a problem with the fact that those who were there could only take pictures and tell them how bad they were.

For some reason, I'm supposed to feel some racial guilt for what happened in this. Sorry, not happening. I have never done anything like this, even close, and you already know what I would have done if I had been there when it happened. You might be reading my obit instead of this blog, but you would know that I tried to do something. An old white man who thought it was worth risking his life to help another human being who was dying.

Why did no one try? I saw the videos later. People blocking streets, breaking windows, assaulting cars, even cop cars. But the guys who did this got away. They will certainly be fired, and probably jailed, but a man is dead who didn't have to be.

I cannot go back in time and stop slavery. I cannot go back and stop the lynchings in the South, and now I cannot go back and stop this murder in a Northern state. But I did not do this. I am seeing a lot of good people, well-meaning people, expressing outrage, and telling all us safe, privileged people how we need to feel guilt and blame over what happened in Minnesota. Don't get me wrong. I feel genuine grief. I saw the one still photo, and cannot bring myself to watch the video. I have seen people die, several of them, and I don't want to see it again. I feel genuine grief.

But I feel frustration too. That same energy, directed at traffic and businesses and cop cars and people who had nothing to do with this -- that energy could have been used to let some evil officers know that they were about to get the stuffing beaten out of them if they didn't let that man up, that they might get the first wave of us, but that wouldn't be all of us.

You can show your justifiable rage now at how bad it was, and, symbolically, how bad we are for living in a country that has this happen, but that's not going to raise the dead, and it's not going to stop the rage.

I know what should have been done, and I would have done it. And if it happens some time before me, I will do something besides take a picture. Count on it.