As time went on, the terrible details filtered in. The policeman who killed Prince embodied the country’s beliefs.Įven though he felt like a heretic, Coates did not believe in forgiveness for the destruction of Prince’s body. The police, racial profiling, and incarceration situation are from the will of the American people. In reality, the police reflect the people in “all of its will and fear” (78). The grieving rituals of his people were far from him, especially because he knew it was not just one man who’d killed Prince but his entire country.Ĭoates tells Samori he knows that right now police reform is in vogue however, body cameras and diversity training are only ways that the rest of the population can pretend there is distance between themselves and the police. He had been driving to see his fiancée and was killed just yards from her home the police said Prince had tried to run over an officer with his jeep.Īt the service in the Howard chapel, people spoke of the comfort religion provided for them, but Coates felt none of it. It made no sense – Prince was through the system, but they still got him. He did not know who at first, but to his shock recognized the face of Prince Jones in the newspaper. That September, he heard the Prince George County police had killed someone from Howard University. He was let go, but knew his body had been vulnerable.

Afraid, he remembered the black people they’d killed, the FBI investigations they’d underwent, the reward their chief received. Not long before Samori was born, Coates was pulled over by the Prince George County police for no reason.

Author of between the world and me