The NYPD officer accused of killing Eric Garner has been fired. Don't tell me I should be happy

After five years, black America needs more

Black America mourned Eric Garner for five years, and today, we supposedly got justice. Officer Pantaleo, the man who killed Garner using an illegal chokehold, was fired from the New York Police Department.

Maybe I could accept that as firing as enough three years ago. But we all waited patiently for America to hold Pantaleo accountable for five years. Groups like Black Lives Matter organized; activists called for systemic reform; we marched, protested, and we called for Garner’s death to be a turning point. We really thought it might be.

But after watching countless other black men be traumatized, injured, or killed by police across America for the next half of a decade, firing a “killer cop” doesn’t feel like justice. It feels like the bare minimum. And now, despite getting the accountability I wanted, I’m angrier than ever.

Rather than a single “bad apple” getting fired and a few police departments mandating body camera footage, we need comprehensive policing reform across America. It is time to admit that there are no individual “bad apples”; there is simply a system that is rotten to its core.

Unarmed black men dying at the hands of police is a national problem. It is allowed to exist because police unions oppose de-escalation protocols and police departments allow 1 out of 5 officers to go unnamed in fatal shootings. It continues because of the officers who lie to protect their colleagues rather than speak up about misconduct, because the private citizens who claim “blue lives” matter while dismissing black lives, despite police being able to take a uniform off and blackness being irremovable. It’s a system protected by lawmakers, lobbyists, and whoever allowed Pantaleo to earn around $500,000 after he killed Eric Garner.

It is not a single officer issue – not when Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Dontre Hamiliton, James Clark, Darius Stewart, Philando Castille, Michael Brown, and Tony Robinson are dead. Not only Pantaleo was present when Eric Garner was killed for selling cigarettes, screaming, “I can’t breathe” as he died. This is an issue that stretches across the country, from South Bend to New York to Minnesota.

The Los Angeles Times reports that being shot by a cop is one of the leading causes of death for black men in America. One in 1,000 black boys will die from being shot by police. It is an irrefutable fact that police reform is a life or death issue for black men in our country.

I have a 17-year-old brother named Collin. He’s about to graduate high school, and lives in a majority black area of the south. He likes rap music and has a group of predominantly black friends.

I fear, every day, that he’ll become another name on that list. I don’t want my brother to die because of yet another trigger-happy cop, bleeding out in the street or at a traffic stop. I have nightmares about this: about my father, brother, or my future children being killed by police – and I am sure I am not alone in these nightmares. I don’t want this broken system to kill my family for being black men.

For every black man’s safety, at the bare minimum it is time to create systems of police accountability.

There are practical solutions available. They include mandatory body cameras, new non-lethal force protocols, and the mandatory disclosure of the names, records, and details of previous disciplinary actions against officers who have shot unarmed people. We deserve to know who is “protecting” us, and why our black boys are dying. One fired cop just isn’t enough.