When Steve Kerr was asked Monday about the latest incident in which a Black man was killed by a police officer, the Warriors coach did not convey his usual outrage and expressed a different emotion.
Fatigue.
Fatigue that comes when tragedy is inflicted with such consistency. Fatigue that comes with knowing, on any given morning, there is the probability of sunrise accompanied with news of a mass shooting or death at the hand of law enforcement.
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“My reaction,” Kerr said, “is just another sad day in America.
“There was another school shooting, in Tennessee, as well. It’s devastating. These things seem to happen on a daily basis.”
A 20-year-old Black man in Minnesota, Daunte Wright, died Sunday after he was shot by a police officer in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center. There was no evidence of Wright being armed or threatening the lives of the officers making the traffic stop.
In a flash, another Black man, a father, was gone at the trigger of patrol weapon.
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And in this instance, a short distance away from Minneapolis, where George Floyd’s video-recorded death under the knee of a police officer last May touched off social-justice demonstrations all over the planet.
Wright died one day before and a few miles away from the location where the trial of Derek Chauvin, the officer who kept his knee on Floyd’s neck until his life ended, entered its third week.
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The news, and local reaction -- including protests -- prompted all three professional Minneapolis sports teams currently in season -- the NBA Timberwolves, the MLB Twins and the NHL Wild -- to postpone home games scheduled Monday.
“We didn’t have any conversations about postponing our game tonight,” Kerr said. “I heard the news after shootaround, and it did not surprise me that the Twins and Timberwolves postponed their games given that the Derek Chauvin trial [began] last week and just how fragile everything is there in Minneapolis.”
It’s fragile in Minneapolis, particularly fragile in the hearts and minds of Black people, Latinos and Asian Americans.
It’s fragile in America.
And it’s exhausting, seeing the steady flow of mass shootings.
It’s exhausting, seeing horrific video and realizing that another family has lost a loved one due to lethal force applied by someone with a badge and a gun. Someone paid to protect and serve all communities.
“I’m just thinking about the victims and their families and hoping they can find some peace,” Kerr said. “It’s just such a terrible thing.”