Back in Dispatch #200, I wrote about winning tickets in a local radio contest to see a sneak preview of the very first Indiana Jones movie back in 1981.
I attended that screening with my school friend Danny, who at that time lived on Babcock Drive, just off Winchester Road in southwest Fort Wayne.
A few years earlier, on a Friday night in either fifth or sixth grade, I'd slept over at Danny's house. The next day, he showed me around his quiet, residential neighborhood—a collection of modest, post-WWII homes with neatly manicured lawns.
I suppose that's why news about the shooting of DaChe'na Warren-Hill by FWPD officer Mark A. Guzman in that very same neighborhood initially seemed so surprising—for its location—but sadly, not for its outcome.
It is a grimly disturbing fact of life in the USA that Black Americans, who make up 13% of the U.S. population, face death through extrajudicial killings by law enforcement at nearly three times the rate of whites.
Nearly a month after the shooting, details on incident are still frustratingly scarce and we may never know the exact circumstances surrounding Warren-Hill's death outside of official police statements. Attempts to view the body camera footage of the incident by the press have so far been rebuffed.
At this point, all we know for certain is that a 20-year-old Fort Wayne woman is dead. Meanwhile, officer Guzman has returned to duty after five days of administrative leave.
It's a disturbing reminder of the case earlier this year involving FWPD Seargent Joshua Hartup—who faced no repercussions for the death of attorney Henry Najdeski.
Fort Wayne needs to acknowledge that it's long past time for a citizen's review board to hold local law enforcement responsible for their actions, because letting the FWPD police themselves is clearly not working.
There's more to come in the next dispatch.
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