How can two innocent young black people be shot and killed, while jogging and sleeping?

As a mother, I grieve with all mothers who have lost their children — through sickness or through some kind of violence.

While it is sad enough to lose a child through sickness or accident, it is even sadder to lose a child through hateful violence and racist acts of whites, including some connected to law enforcement.

So, today, while I grieve with mothers who have lost their children through coronavirus and other illnesses, I especially grieve with the mothers of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, two young black people killed by whites within weeks of each other.

Ahmaud, 25, was killed as he jogged about a mile from his home on a Sunday afternoon on a tree-lined residential street in Georgia. The men who are accused of killing him, a father and son, later told the police they were trying to make a citizen’s arrest.

The father, Gregory McMichael, 64, is a former Glynn County police officer. The incident happened near Brunswick, Georgia, in Glynn County. His son, Travis, is 34.

Breonna, 26, was killed by Louisville police, who didn’t think it was worth the time to first make sure they had the right house before busting in, and firing 22 rounds — eight of them hitting Breonna, killing her in bed.

Her boyfriend Kenneth Walker thought it was a home invasion and shot back, injuring one of the officers. He was just released from jail after two weeks.

What’s going on, people? Isn’t it enough that the coronavirus is killing people by the tens of thousands? Is the virus not only attacking the physical body, but also the mind?

Is staying at home so boring that two white men can see a black man jogging on a Sunday afternoon and right away decide that he is a thief and confront him? How could they not notice that he was wearing jogging attire, and had no stolen goods — actually nothing — in his hands?

How could they not know that as they approached him with weapons, that he would not fight for his life?

On Thursday, May 7, the two McMichaels were arrested and each charged with murder and aggravated assault in the Feb. 23 murder of Arbery, a high school football star who was jogging around 1 p.m. that Sunday.

I sense another Trayvon Martin situation. Martin, you may recall, was the unarmed black 17-year-old who was shot and killed by a white neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, in Sanford as he was returning home from a convenience store with a bag of Skittles and an Arizona iced tea. Zimmerman was acquitted, saying it was self-defense, even though Martin was unarmed.

Already, the men have claimed they shot Arbery in self defense.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said Travis McMichael shot and killed Arbery. Both McMichaels had guns on them— a .357 revolver and a shotgun — and they were following him in their truck as he jogged.

The one bright spot in these two stories is that we eventually learned about these evil deeds, and that, hopefully, justice will be done.

According to the New York Times, had it not been for Ahmaud’s cousin JL Josiah Watts, an actor and writer, sending an email to Kim Severson, a food writer at The Times who had met him in the course of reporting a story a few years back, we still might not know the truth surrounding his death.

“This is like something from the ‘50’s,” Watts wrote in his email to Severson, according to the Times. “I’m very angry.”

The Times said Severson sent the email to Richard Fausset, the Times Atlanta bureau chief, who learned the police report was based almost entirely on the account of the father, the retired cop. According to The Times, Fausset drove 10 hours round trip in a day to interview people in Brunswick. And, thus, the story started to unfold.

Concerning the killing of Breonna Taylor, I am one who knows about the worries that families of police officers must endure daily. We are a police family — my late husband was a policeman, and my uncle, who was only two years my senior, was killed in the line of duty when he was 34 and working in Palm Beach County.

So, I respect and pray for the safety of our police officers every day. Still, I am not so ignorant that I don’t know that there are good and bad police officers.

The Louisville officers who busted into Breonna’s home in the early-morning hours knew it was a black neighborhood. Therefore, they must have felt there was no need to follow the right procedures by first making sure they had the right address, and by announcing themselves as the police.

An innocent young woman was shot and killed in her bed. She was a certified EMT who worked at the University of Louisville. She was helping to save lives. Nobody could save her.

The officers also wounded her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, 27, who returned fire when the police started shooting. One of the officers was wounded.

It turned out this was a botched narcotics raid, where the cops were looking for someone else. Walker was arrested for attempted murder, but has since been released.

Nothing I write here will bring Ahmaud or Breonna back.

But I can’t help but wonder about what goes on inside the heads and hearts of hateful and racist people. What made the McMichaels think they would get away with this hateful crime? How could they not know that there are yet some Americans, black and white, who still believe in justice?

And could they not care that Ahmaud and Breonna are human beings who are loved by their friends and families?

I’ve asked a lot of questions. I am still searching for answers.

Looking for Virginia Key Wade-In participants

To celebrate the historic wade-in 75 years ago at Haulover Beach, which resulted in the opening of Virginia Key Beach for blacks, the city of Miami’s Virginia Key Beach Park Trust wants families, descendants and friends of those who participated in the wade-in to help tell their stories for future generations, said Gene Tinnie, Chair of the organization’s Trustee Board.

I had written about this before and I had the wrong phone number and website.

Here is the right contact information: Call 305-960-4603, or visit the website, www.virginiakeybeachpark.net.

This story was originally published May 15, 2020 at 6:00 AM.