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Casey Goodson Jr.'s case is so singularly wrong that you cannot place other things next to it. His murder is constitutionally wrong. It is a breach of not only social contract ("don't break the law and you won't have any reason to fear the law"), but anti-American.
You couldn't exhibit more of the freedom that America touts than Goodson was in the moment before his death. His murder breaks at least four of the ten amendments contained in the Bill of Rights.
It is a death that leaves a scar on not only his family and community, but on the country itself.
That's why you can't use his name or his death in a congratulations letter to your favorite soccer team.
That's why you can't use his name or his death in a congratulations letter to your favorite soccer team.
There is no scenario in which you can reconcile the subject of Casey Goodson Jr. and the Columbus Crew soccer team in the same breath, save to say that it should never be done. An apology is the least that must be leveled, and not just to his family, but his grieving community.
Unjustified deaths at the hands of the state are not your civic art projects or your training quotas or your well-meaning letters of uplift. They are your burdens, or rather, they should be. They should be things you fix not things you affix.
@colsfoundation did more than drop a ball here, and as someone who has worked with them in the past, I am situated as such to suggest that there are definitely ways they can address this.
Not fix it - that damage has been done and it was completely avoidable. I mean address it, and with transparency, humility and concrete change in the language they speak. We will see if they have the fortitude to do so. If they do not, then we will see that too.
