“It was dark out and he was black. I was just shooting my gun off into the night for fun and he got in the way.”
“I can’t count beyond 3.”
“I got carpal tunnel from doing so much paperwork and it caused my finger to lock up on the trigger.”
“Oops! Forgot I wasn’t at target practice!”
“I figured better to shoot him now while he is young than later when he might have a gun himself.”
“I wanted to finish off the bullets in my belt so that I could get fresh ones from inventory.”
“I mistook my gun for my taser. Sorry!”
“They were actually supposed to be 16 warning shots in the air but my arm got a cramp.”
“I was just trying to wing him 16 times.”
“I had just gotten through playing Call To Action and forgot that this was a real situation and not an online one.”
“How was I to know that he couldn’t handle 16 bullets? Wimp!”
“I don’t mind so much that he committed a crime, but running away from us? That was enough to make me see red!”
“I thought I had missed him 16 times!”
“We thought rather than shoot 16 separate black kids one time apiece that we would rather just shoot one black kid 16 times and make an example out of him.”
“Was that 16 times? I could have sworn that it was just once and that the other shots I heard were echoes.”
“Mistakes happen! The next few black kids we see we’ll just shoot them once. It will all balance out eventually.”
“We thought he was high on drugs and wouldn’t feel a thing.”
“It’s not that big a deal. His momma can pump out a new kid in nine months.”
“Oh! I mistook him for a black bear that had escaped from the zoo! Oh well, stuff happens!”
“Now, how else was I supposed to stop him when he was running so fast?”