Unequal justice?
Perhaps.
In August 2019, Larosa Waller-Asekere and Dwight Broom Palmer were high school basketball coaches at the Elite Scholars Academy in Clayton County, Georgia. Both are Black Americans.
70 percent of the students at Elite, which is located in Jonesboro, are Black Americans. The rest of the students are Hispanic or some other ethnic group, less 0.9 percent who are white (or roughly 6 students out of a total of 686 students).
In August of 2019, Imani Bell was a 16-year-old student at Elite. She was a member of the school’s basketball team. On the 13th of that month she died after suffering a heat-stroke during an outdoor 97 degree practice session.
Last month a Clayton County grand jury indicted Waller-Asekere and Palmer for involuntary manslaughter and reckless cruelty in connection with the teenaged athlete’s death.
In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control reported that heat illness during practice and competition was the leading cause of death and disability among high school athletes. Between 1995 and 2018, an average of three football players died each year from heat stroke, most of whom were high school athletes. A more recent 2021 report by ther International Journal of Biometeorology nearly tripled between 1994 and 2009.
In other words, there was ample evidence in the public record that high or extreme heat during practice or competition was killing student athletes at an alarming, even unprecedented rate. Coaches, athletic directors, school administrative officials, and especially parents were aware of the deadly dangers of high school athletics in the summer time.
Many of these student athlete deaths, including in Georgia, were caused by white high school coaches engaged in intense practice and competition.
So, why were none of them indicted?
Just recently a 16-year-old white high school football player named Drake Geiger at Omaha’s South High School died on August 11, 2021 after practicing in a 91 degree and 105 degree session. Omaha is experiencing one of its more severe heat waves.
Will the white coaches involved in young Geiger’s death be indicted in Nebraska?
I doubt it.
The indictment of Waller-Asekere and Palmer attracted national media attention. A cursory Google search produces nothing about any white high school coach being indicted in connection with a heat-related death of one of their athletes.
I will not pass judgment on whether Waller-Asekere or Palmer should have been indicted for Imani Bell’s death. Most of the grand jurors were probably Black Americans since 72 percent of Clayton County are Black Americans.
Still, the social optics is not good. Two Black American coaches get indicted while white coaches under similar circumstances routinely get free passes.