Though decades apart, two Black women share tragic fates.
The deaths of Eleanor Gay Bumpers and Niani Finlayson, though separated by thirty-nine years, are linked by tragic circumstances: Both women were in distress when law enforcement officers responded to calls at their homes, and subsequently, shot them.
“Old, Black and overweight”
There was nothing special about 66-year-old Bumpers, the mother of seven and a grandmother. If you had seen her walking near her public housing apartment in the Sedgwick Houses in the Bronx, New York, you would not have paid much attention to her: She was old, Black, and overweight. A photo of her, featured on the front page of New York City newspapers four decades ago, captures her look of wariness and mistrust.
In October 1984, Bumpers owed $395 in back rent, which she had refused to pay because she said the city had failed to make requested repairs, yet she would not allow maintenance workers to enter the apartment. New York City Housing Authority officials knew that she was experiencing mental health problems. The Washington Post reported, “Four days before the fatal eviction attempt, a city psychiatrist … found her ‘psychotic,’ ‘delusional’ and ‘hallucinating’ … (but) making no aggressive gesture.”
On Monday, October 29, after several attempts to serve a court ordered eviction notice, city marshals summoned the New York City Police Department’s Emergency Services Unit; six officers arrived wearing masks, holding shields, and carrying a black pole. Bumpers, who refused to open the door, yelled threats; consequently, officers broke down the door.
Inside, Bumpers, who was naked, swung a butcher knife at two officers, who tried to subdue her with the pole. When this failed, another officer, Stephen Sullivan, fired a shot from a 12-gauge single-barreled shotgun that hit her hand holding the knife. A second bullet hit her in chest, killing her.
Despite increased racial tensions and calls for justice, in 1987, after a bench trial, Judge Fred W. Eggert acquitted Sullivan of manslaughter charges.
“… a future filled with promise.”
“I need the police now … This man won’t get out of my house … (scream) Get the fuck off me …. He will not leave me alone! (excerpt from Niani Finlayson’s 9-1-1 call)
Twenty-seven-year-old Finlayson foresaw a future filled with promise. A Los Angeles native, she was the mother of two daughters--Xyla, 2, and Laisha, 9—and had been working toward a career in nursing. Relatives describe her as “kind,” “funny,” and “uplifting.”
On December 4, 2023, two Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) deputies responded to a domestic disturbance call at the Cedar Ridge Apartments. After several attempts to break down the door, Finlayson, holding a large knife, moved toward her ex-boyfriend, huddled on a sofa; she is threatened to harm him.
Bodycam footage shows officers entering with guns drawn; Finlayson’s older daughter, pointed them in the direction of her mother, while screaming, “He pushed me! He pushed me!” Within seconds, Deputy Ty Shelton dropped a taser (that his partner had handed him) and fired four shots at Finlayson. Taken to a hospital, she was later pronounced dead.
During a CNN interview, Finlayson’s father, Lamont Finlayson, and the family’s attorney, Brad Gage, both rejected the claim that officers had acted in accordance with LASD guidelines, which state, “Department members are justified in using deadly upon a person only when they reasonable believe … that such force is necessary … to defend against an imminent threat of death or bodily injury to the member or another person ….”
Gage said officers did not have a “reasonable belief” that Finlayson would do bodily harm since she had held the knife during a 16-minute call to 9-1-1. He argued that had she intended to stab her ex, she would have done it before deputies arrived. “They could have used pepper spray or a taser (but) wound up using deadly force which was not necessary.”
TheGrio reported, “Records indicate that Shelton killed another person, Michael Thomas, 61, under similar circumstances on June 11, 2020.” Shelton has been removed from field duty, pending the results of investigations by the Office of the Inspector General and the LA County District Attorney’s office.
Finlayson’s family has filed a $70 million-dollar wrongful death lawsuit against LASD and Los Angeles County.
#SAYHERNAME
Finlayson’s name joins the #SAYHERNAME campaign’s roster of more than two hundred Black women and girls—ages 7 to 93--killed while in police custody or shot by police. The campaign, launched in 2014 by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) and Center on Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies (CISP), brings awareness to “the often-invisible names and stories of Black women and girls who have been victimized by racist police violence, and provides support to their families.”
In a recent article for the Los Angeles Times, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, co-founder, and executive director for AAPF, explained that “Black women and girls are more likely than any other group of women to be killed by the police. Black women make up around 10% of the female population in the U.S., yet they account for one-fifth of all women killed by the police and almost one-third of unarmed women killed by the police.”
In most of the cases profiled by AAPF, Crenshaw said, “Virtually none of the officers involved have been held accountable.”
In July, Crenshaw and the AAPF released, #SAYHERNAME: Black Women’s Stories of Police Violence and Public Silence.
In honor of Black History Month, let us remember their names.
2024 Wista Johnson (Reprint by permission only.) Photo: skitterphoto (pexels.com)