DAVID HOSIER is DYING / Who’s “Backing the Blue” Now?
Yesterday, I received a phone call from David Hosier telling me that he has gone into acute heart failure. Even if David wasn’t scheduled to be executed next month, x-rays of his chest and abdomen have confirmed that he is not long for this world. Presently, he’s in an outside hospital struggling to move, eat or breathe and filled with fluid. Based on his current condition, it is possible that he might be bedridden for the foreseeable future. The State of Missouri seems to be pursuing medical treatment for one reason and one reason only, so that they can execute David on June 11.
After Indiana State Patrol Sergeant Glenn Hosier was murdered, the “Back the Blue” crowd neglected to stand with his son David in life. Will they also now neglect David in death?
Before I learned of the severity of David’s condition, I wrote the following concerning the hypocrisy of those who claim to “Back the Blue” amid his impending execution.
Let me be perfectly clear, I hate the police. Not necessarily particular police officers or those close to them. I hate what seems to be the prevailing iteration of modern policing, the unrestrained lawless collective that seems to target those with the least. I find the fact that we empower certain citizens to treat other citizens however they please with little to no consequence to be particularly problematic. If my juxtaposition isn’t clear, I’m a fierce activist against police brutality. So much so, I was at the center of one of the deadliest moments in the struggle.
Imagine. July 7, 2016. In response to the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille, I’d organized a rally and march in Dallas, Texas. Our rhetoric was hot. Still, everything was relatively peaceful. Shots rang out. I was close enough that I instinctively grabbed my chest. In the distance, I saw officers drop. Turning around, I did everything I could to get people out. By the end of the night, the full scope of the moment was clear. Five police officers dead. Dozens injured. The assailant coopted our protest to unleash his terror. For days, I appeared extensively in the media. Ever since the terror of it all, I’ve struggled with what I could have done differently to save the lives of those officers. It’s hard to stop one lunatic with a gun. Even though my feelings about police brutality remain as fierce as they did that night, those five officers are never far from my mind. Parts of me will forever remain in Dallas. Yet, the rest of the world moved on long ago.
Public tragedies are bizarre. One moment, everybody cares. The next moment, nobody can even remember the details of what happened. I experienced it in Dallas. I experience it now.
When I met David Hosier several months ago, I met someone who’d also left parts of himself at the scene of a bygone tragedy. The scene was the death of his father. On April 26, 1971, Indiana State Police Sergeant Glen Hosier died from a gunshot sustained while trying to apprehend a murder suspect. Following that tragedy, everybody said they’d be there for David. Especially, those who declared the most fidelity to “Backing the Blue.” However, few followed through. The neglect has created a life of struggle. Now, David is 69.
On June 11, 2024, the State of Missouri is scheduled to execute David Hosier for the 2009 murder of his former lover, Angela Gilpin. It was also heavily implied that Hosier killed her husband, Rodney Gilpin. One could fill many shelves with the transcripts and briefs constructed about this case. Throughout the legal process, David has maintained his innocence, even rejecting a plea for a life sentence. Despite a conviction and death sentence, there are questions that remain. There were no eyewitnesses. There was little physical evidence. During mitigation, no doctors or psychiatrists examined David. The State relied primarily on an assumed motive, David was fiercely angry that Angela had left him and was determined to get even. Even if it’s all true, the case can’t be extracted from the broader trajectory of David’s life. What if the “Back the Blue” crowd had been there for David like they promised they would be?
None of this seems to create the moral or ethical room to justify the bizarre act of using public resources to strap a defenseless old man to a gurney and pumping him full of poison until he’s dead. But I’m sure that most of those more determined than I to “Back the Blue” would disagree.
Indeed, the “Back the Blue” folks are determined to make anyone with a suggestion of blood on their hands pay the ultimate price. But how could they take such a bloody stance in the case of David Hosier? This is a child of a fallen officer. Do the “Back the Blue” folks not see their complicity in the events surrounding this case? I thought “Blue Lives Matter”? I thought the pledge was to leave no family member of the fallen behind? I suspect that such talk is nothing more than “Back the Blue” bluster. I’d love to be wrong. I’d love to see the “Back the Blue” crowd arise and commit to trying to save David. Not because of how they felt one way or another about David’s case, but because they’re honest in their stated unwavering intention and determination to support families of fallen officers. Don’t you think some type of effort to save his son is what Sergeant Hosier would want?
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