A Black father, Rodney Hinton Jr., struck and killed a Cincinnati police officer with his vehicle just after his son was killed by the city’s police days earlier.
Hinton’s 18-year-old son, Ryan Hinton, was killed by police on May 1 during a police investigation of a stolen vehicle, said Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge in a press conference on May 2.
In that press conference, Theetge defended police, saying that Hinton was shot because he had a firearm in his hand.
“This is the firearm that was recovered at the scene after the individual was shot. This is what he had in his hand while the officers were chasing him,” she said while displaying a picture of the firearm.
Based on bodycam footage, however, Ryan Hinton never fired a shot at police officers but was killed regardless.
“The police can’t compute in their head that a black person can have a gun legally, and not be a threat,” said Kwame Rose, an activist and organizer from Baltimore. “They shot, and asked questions later.”
The long historical relationship between police and Africans in the United States demonstrates that whether or not Hinton was armed, whether or not he fled, and whether or not he was guilty of any crime initially, is irrelevant to whether or not he should have been killed.
Frantz Fanon, a Martinican revolutionary psychiatrist, explored this relationship in his book “The Wretched of the Earth,” which serves as an anti-colonial manifesto for African people.
“Confronted with a world configured by the colonizer, the colonized subject is always presumed guilty,” Fanon wrote.
“The colonized does not accept his guilt, but rather considers it a kind of curse…He patiently waits for the colonist to let down his guard and then jumps on him.”
Rodney Hinton’s actions that followed the death of his son by police can be contextualized under Fanon’s understanding of violence from the colonized toward the colonizer.
In fact, it was the same day that Hinton viewed the body cam footage of his son’s killing that he struck and killed Hamilton County Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Henderson, according to Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich. Hinton has since been charged with two counts of aggravated murder, one count of murder, and two counts of felonious assault.
During the trial, police created “a coordinated presence clearly intended to intimidate, suppress defense and influence the judicial process,” according to a federal civil lawsuit filed on Hinton’s behalf.
That lawsuit also cited the bruises and scrapes on Hinton’s face as evidence that he faced police brutality during his arrest. The lawsuit, launched days after his first trial, is seeking $25 million, $5,000,000 for compensatory damages, and $20,000,000 for punitive damages.
At the court trial for the killing, Hinton pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer argued that Hinton had a “psychiatric” break, which caused him to strike and kill the officer. Legal experts have weighed in and supported this, saying such an argument would likely carry in court, absolving him of responsibility.
“He couldn’t finish watching the video. It was very difficult to watch for the family,” said Cochran Law Firm attorney Michael Wright, for the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Former prosecutor and civil rights attorney, Chance D. Lynch, spoke to the root and echoed Wright’s statement.
“He could legitimately be incapacitated and considered incompetent because of him observing his son [on body camera]. He was under the control of that,” Lynch said.
African-descendant people online have rallied in support of Hinton while European-descendant people have naturally demonized him. One African-descendant user on X urged people to support a fundraiser for Hinton.
“Rodney Hinton’s sister’s fundraiser hit $20K overnight. Now it’s time to rally behind his wife’s official page,” said BLKSignal writer Mike Baggz on X (fka Twitter).
Another challenged white people who aren’t supporting Rodney Hinton.
“Don’t trust any white person that hasn’t praised Rodney Hinton,” said X user and twitch streamer BlackRedGuard.
It was just as easy to find posts from European-descendants denigrating Hinton as it was to find ones from Africans in support. One user on X reduced Hinton to a criminal.
“Blacks have found a new criminal to worship. Rodney Hinton,” said a verified user named SaltyGirl09 on X.
Robert Sprague, the Ohio Treasurer of State, also flocked to X to share his opinion. He supported the Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost in standing with “the family of Deputy Henderson.”
“Thank you Dave Yost for saying what needs to be said: No one should profit off the murder of a police officer,” Sprague said on the platform.
The swiftness to arrest and convict Rodney Hinton and the lag to arrest or convict the police officer who killed Hinton’s son exposes a primary contradictory value of the United States: violence is only justified when it comes from the state.
African-descendant people have blatantly rejected this colonial value as the truth in their support of Hinton. Instead of representing the criminal the state wants him to be, Hinton represents to African-descendant people a revolutionary force.
The revolutionary force Hinton represents is supported by a centuries-old African radical tradition.