Rural teen shot by law enforcement during puzzling traffic stop. What does it tell us about race and rural law enforcement?

 A 17-year-old man was killed by a sheriff's deputy in Cabot, Arkansas a few days ago.  I first saw the story reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.   Here's what Ashton Eley reported on June 24, when this was the lead story on the website: 

A Lonoke County deputy shot and killed a 17-year-old early Wednesday during a traffic stop near Cabot, authorities said.

Hunter Brittain of McRae was driving a truck on Arkansas 89 just south of Cabot when he was stopped by Sgt. Michael Davis of the Lonoke County sheriff's office. The stop "ended in a shooting incident," according to a news release from the Arkansas State Police, which is investigating.

About 6 p.m., the crowd of protesters demanded answers about Brittain's death, chanting "Justice for Hunter," a phrase that also was displayed on signs and white T-shirts worn by many outside the sheriff's office.

Brittain's uncles, Jesse and Harley Brittain, said their nephew was trying to fix the transmission on his truck at Mahoney's Body Shop near Cabot. At the time of the stop, they said he was test-driving it so he could go to his construction job the next day. Another 17-year-old boy was with Hunter Brittain at the time of the shooting, family members said.

The crowd chanted several times "No Justice, No Peace" -- a slogan associated with protests against racial injustice and police brutality.

Harley Brittain [Hunter's uncle] said demonstrators planned to return today and possibly Friday, as well. He said they held the event for Hunter Brittain, who was white, but also because of police violence around the nation.

"It's happening everywhere. It's happening all the time. This is close to home. This is family," he said. "We're about to light a fire under this whole thing. We're not stopping here."

I thought the implicit reference to Black Lives Matter was interesting, and I wondered if BLM protestors--including Black protestors--were coming to Lonoke County to protest.  

Then, today, I saw that Vice had picked up the story.  Here's how they frame it: 

Early on June 23, before Davis stopped Hunter, an aspiring NASCAR driver from McRae, Arkansas [population 682, in neighboring White County], the teen had been fixing up his truck so he could make it to work on time, Jesse Brittain said.

Hunter had just fixed his transmission and taken the truck out for a test drive when Davis pulled him over, according to the teen riding with Hunter and his uncle’s knowledge of the incident.

“The shifting linkage in the truck was messed up, so when they pulled up, the truck was rolling back,” Jesse Brittain told VICE News.

That’s why Hunter went to get the antifreeze.

After Davis fired, Hunter “sustained a gunshot wound and was transported to a North Little Rock hospital, where he later died,” the Arkansas State Police said in a short statement last week.

Jordan King, the teen with Hunter the night of the incident, told local ABC affiliate KATV that Davis didn’t say anything to Hunter before shooting him. Another deputy showed up and handcuffed King for hours, though Jesse Brittain said the teen, who’s also a family member, was never charged with any crime.

“All they were doing was working on the truck,” Jesse Brittain said.

Rebecca Payne, Hunter’s grandmother and his guardian at the time, told VICE News that authorities have told her little about what happened to her grandson. It wasn’t even the sheriff’s office that told her Hunter had been shot, but other people who were at the property where he was killed, she said.

“I guess I don’t trust any police right now,” Payne said. “Won’t nobody tell us anything. The body hasn’t been released. None of the information has been released to us. We’ve been told a lot of different things.”

Lonoke County Sheriff John Staley said in a video statement posted to his office’s Facebook page last week that “like everyone, I want to know exactly what happened.” He added that Arkansas State Police will investigate and that his office has provided the agency with body-cam footage, though it’s unclear how much of the incident was captured. The family has not seen any body-cam video.

The story references a Tweet storm that went viral, which is here: 

The bio for "Read Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler" is: 

All of this reminds me of my earlier post from about a year ago regarding what we should do when law enforcement behave badly toward relatively powerless whites.  In this case, Hunter may have been lacking power because he was without parents, under the care of his grandmother.  Does that mean he was poor?  perhaps?  also, he was from a rural part of neighboring county.  The deputy who shot him was from an exurban county that is part of the Little Rock metro area.  White County is one more ring out from that, a micropolitan county, but also part of the Little Rock-North Little Rock Metropolitan Area. 

P.S.  On June 30, 2021, KATV based in Little Rock reported that the Brittain family has engaged the same lawyers who represented George Floyd's family, including Benjamin Crump.  That story featured this from Moesha Foreman, apparently the Black woman shown in the video clip at the KATV link: 

Moesha Foreman didn’t know Hunter but met Scott Hendrickson, who is family friends with the Brittains, in passing at a gas station. She decided to join the Justice for Hunter movement.

“I’ve been to protest Black Lives Matter, all lives matter. I’ve been to all the protests and it’s just got to stop,” Foreman said.

She said regardless of what color you are or who you are, you should not be shot down by those paid to protect and serve you.

“You have other actions to go by. You have (a) taser, pepper spray. You have other options to go by before you can take a person’s life,” Foreman said.

To this, I sent this Tweet, which referenced the blog post above: 

And that is close enough in theme (cross-racial coalition building) to this from a few days ago that I'll post this here, too: