OPINION: Police didn't need to kill our friend

On Aug. 19, our friend, Leilani ‘Nani’ Tripp, 53, was killed. Nani was a smart, funny, creative, kind person, a trauma survivor and a gentle, charismatic soul who touched many lives.

That morning she was in crisis and had been up all night asking for help. Scared and seeking support, she was asking to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. Instead, APD Officer Christopher Vaughn showed up, and within minutes of arriving shot her through her chest, literally blowing her out of her shoes.

The person who killed our friend was an agent of the state and swore an oath to serve and protect — someone, who in his professional capacity, is given the power and responsibility of carrying lethal weapons and deploying force on a troublingly subjective basis.

It is true that Nani was carrying a knife that day. She had been experiencing increasing mental health issues as well as housing insecurity in the last two years after suffering a traumatic brain injury from a hit and run. She was all of 5 feet tall and weighed less than 90 pounds.

Are we supposed to believe that these fully grown, armed men, with their badges and their authority, saw her as a plausible threat? Publicly available body-cam footage clearly shows the officer asking her to drop the knife, with no hints of panic or fear in his voice.

And then he shoots.

No other efforts were made to communicate or de-escalate; it would seem that it was just easier to shoot than to attempt any intervention.

Considering how rarely officers are actually held responsible for any problematic use of force, including killing people, he probably had little fear of consequences.

How is it acceptable to shoot someone who clearly needed and was asking for help? Surely as a society we can do better — surely we can reform systems so that pulling the trigger of a high-powered rifle would never be anything but the very last resort.

In the last 21 months, APD officers have been involved in 25 officer-involved shootings, 18 of which were fatal.

Mayor Tim Keller was scheduled to hold a press conference at the complex where Nani was killed that same morning, to take credit for the creation of low-income housing. But the fact is that Nani, like many others at this low-income housing complex, was facing eviction. Yes, we need to increase housing opportunities in the city. But clearly we must honestly and seriously rethink how we accomplish this goal, while also being willing to acknowledge that there are related issues to be addressed with equal urgency.

It is not OK that vulnerable people with disabilities are being evicted from their much-needed living spaces, and that police officers are killing people with mental illnesses at these and other sites.

We are outraged and disgusted at how our friend’s life was ended. And sadly we are far from the only ones who have lost a loved one in this way. We refuse to let Nani and her unconscionable, state-sanctioned killing be forgotten.

We must refuse to accept these tragic abuses and their catastrophic results.

Let’s hold ourselves to a higher standard and show up for our more vulnerable fellow humans. Nothing can bring back the many partners, friends and family members who’ve been lost to police violence.

But if we work together to bring awareness, accountability and reform, maybe we can at least begin to create a world that would have been worthy of someone like our friend, Nani Tripp.