Harold Austerman
“We don’t have time for this!” exclaimed a police officer as he shot and killed a psychologically troubled, 90-pound teenage boy who had already been tasered and was pinned down beneath two other officers. The victim, 18-year-old Keith Vidal, was “armed” with a screwdriver at the time of his death.
Vidal’s father, Mark Wilsey, had called the police for help when the boy suffered what was described as a psychotic episode on the afternoon of January 5. When the police arrived at the family’s home in Boiling Spring Lakes, North Carolina, they rendered the kind of “help” for which they have become so notorious — repeatedly tasering the troubled young man until one of them simply shot him as a time-saving measure.
Printed copy · Anthology Volume 6, page 979
