Police shootings highlight unease among black gun owners

It is legal to carry a firearm openly in Texas, and Yafeuh Balogun often keeps a 12-gauge Mossberg 500 slung over his shoulder. He patrols his Dallas neighborhood and promotes the benefits of legal gun ownership to people who, like himself, are black.

But the issues of race, policing and gun rights have turned into a volatile mix after two officer-involved shootings of black men thought to have guns in recent days and the killing and wounding of officers by snipers during a protest Thursday night.

Balogun said members of his Huey P. Newton Gun Club, which is named after the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, were at the protests in Dallas on Thursday with their firearms, something that they typically do "to ensure the safety of the demonstration."

Police arrested one armed club member, who goes by Reign Ifa, at the protest, Balogun said, but he insisted the member had nothing to do with the shooting.

The presence of long rifles that groups like Balogun's openly carry caused some unease during Thursday's demonstrations in Dallas. Police released a photograph of a person in a camouflage T-shirt and with a gun slung around his body, calling him a suspect. But it turned out that the man had not been involved in the shooting.

The shooting of the officers, Balogun said, should not be cause for black people to give up their legal guns.

"I don't condone the killing of anyone, black, white, brown, poor," Balogun said, adding that he nonetheless viewed the violence against the officers as a response to "years and years and years of injustice."

Balogun said it floored him earlier in the day when he heard that a Minnesota police officer had fatally shot a black man who, according to a witness, had told the officer during a traffic stop that he was legally carrying a firearm.

"It terrifies me," Balogun, 32, said. "Here I am telling black people: 'Hey, bear arms legally. You'll have a better opportunity to protect yourself. Maybe the law will respect you more.'"

Now angry questions are flying over whether the Second Amendment is applied evenly across races. And the killings of the officers have only deepened the fault lines between those who back the police and those who highlight their abuses.

The shooting of Philando Castile in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights comes at a time when more blacks appear to view gun ownership as way to shield them from violence. Black communities suffer from gun violence at much higher rates than white ones, but 54 percent of black people said guns did more to protect than endanger personal safety, according to a 2014 Pew Research survey. That is up from 29 percent two years earlier.

Still, black gun owners fight negative perceptions.

"It's really just getting at what we know to be a pervasive stereotype of blackness and criminality," said Robin Wright, a researcher with the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University who studies implicit bias. "If you see a black person with a weapon, you don't assume that it's legal."

Put more bluntly: "Skin color is synonymous with crime," said Jasmine Rand, the lawyer for a man who was shot by police, and later died, in Florida.

[Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick calls Dallas protesters 'hypocrites' for running from sniper's bullets]

Even Castile had pondered the dangers of being a black gun owner hours before his death, his mother, Valerie, said in an interview with CNN. He was at her house discussing his concealed-carry permit with his sister, who also had one, Valerie Castile said.

"You know what? I really don't even want to carry my gun because I'm afraid that they'll shoot me first and then ask questions later," Valerie Castile recalled her daughter saying.

Often in police shootings, the carrying of a gun by the victim has become shorthand for whether it was justified. But experts and activists said that ignores an important point: whether someone was doing something threatening with the weapon.

While there is no data on whether legally armed white or black people are shot at higher rates in the United States, experts on implicit bias said that negative stereotypes of black people would suggest that they are at a greater risk of having their actions or intentions misinterpreted when they carry guns.

It is an issue with long historical roots. As far back as the 17th century, the British colonies expressly prohibited gun ownership among black people and Indians. Through Reconstruction, local judges and sheriffs administered gun permits in a racially discriminatory way. And when California's Legislature banned open carry in the 1960s, it was in response to the Black Panthers' openly wielding guns at the State Capitol.

But black gun advocates said that they should not be deterred from legally carrying firearms.

"I think there's some social realities that take place when you are an African-American male and are open carry or concealed carry," said Philip Smith, the president and founder of the National African American Gun Association. "You can't worry about that. If I went around worrying about what everybody's thinking as I'm carrying a gun on my hip, I would go crazy."

Balogun helped found his Dallas gun club two years ago to organize and educate on the subject of gun ownership for blacks. When they openly carry their guns, they always try to travel in numbers or have a camera rolling. That is to ensure that witnesses can attest that they are not up to something nefarious.

"The thought of a black male with a weapon scares America," he said. "They automatically fear that we're seeking some form of vengeance. We're not seeking vengeance. We just want to protect our community and our homes."

[Aftermath of fatal Minnesota officer-involved shooting of black man is captured on video]

It remains unclear exactly what happened in the shooting of Castile in Falcon Heights on Wednesday. But authorities said that an officer stopped his vehicle for a broken taillight. After the shooting, Castile's girlfriend began streaming live video on Facebook while he bled to death next to her and the officer trained his gun on the vehicle. In the video, the girlfriend said that Castile told the officer he had a licensed handgun. He reached for his wallet to give the officer his identification when the officer opened fire, she said.

Minnesota law allows people to carry guns with a permit obtained from a county sheriff's office.

Castile's killing came just a day after Alton B. Sterling, a black man in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was fatally shot during an encounter with two police officers. Amid the scuffle, one of the officers said Sterling had a gun.

Central to de-escalating situations on the streets is helping law enforcement learn their implicit biases, experts say.

When three rookie police officers investigating a report of a possible burglary at a metal recycling plant came upon Earl D. Brown, a 73-year-old black man, in Lauderhill, Florida, they did not take him for a night watchman. On that night four years ago, he carried a shiny .44-caliber Magnum pistol, and the officers yelled for him to put his hands up.

As Brown raised his hands and said, "I'm security," the officers met him with a barrage of 22 bullets, two of which struck him, according to the lawsuit.

It turns out that Brown was a security guard, carrying a licensed gun, investigating a report of a burglary at the recycling center where he worked the late shift.

Brown, whose family was represented by Rand, had a heart attack at the hospital and died two weeks later.

A grand jury declined to indict the three officers, but it issued a stinging report saying they were poorly trained and inexperienced. It also recommended that they be suspended without pay until they were retrained. Maj. Rick Rocco of the Lauderhill police said the officers underwent an Internal Affairs investigation and were exonerated.

"Officers are trained to react to behaviors, not the color of a person's skin," he wrote in an email. "If a person, of any color or race, has a firearm, there is a significant danger to all involved until it is determined that the person is not a threat."

That was no comfort to Brown's loved ones.

"Honestly, I hear the NRA talking about the right to bear arms," Brown's widow, Gloria, wrote in an email on Thursday, referring to the National Rifle Association. "He had the right to bear his that night; they just never told us he wouldn't have the right to life. It seems like white men and police officers are the only ones who have the right to bear arms in this country."