YOLO

In memory of Laquan McDonald

(September 25, 1997 – October 20, 2014)

#BlackLivesMatter n.2

Laquan McDonald was a 17 year-old Afro-American shot 16 times in 15 seconds by a Chicago Police Officer.

The footage from the police car is terrifying. The boy was walking alone in a parking area, with a knife in his hand. 8 Policemen arrived on the scene. One of them got out of the car and fired 16 shots at the boy. The policeman stays on the scene for about 30 seconds in total.

It’s hard to understand how it is possible that 8 armed policemen found no other way to stop a boy than to shoot him. And even more to the point, why 16 times? The footage clearly shows that the boy is immediately hit. He falls to the ground, but the cop continues to shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot,
and shoot.

Till the gun was empty.

With impressive precision: all 16 shots hit the boy.

This artwork wanted to give an idea of what this horror means. To do this, the author asked a worldwide champion shooter to replicate that horror on a metal plate using a gun of the same type and at the same distance, firing according to the placement of the bullets shown in the autopsy.

A strong metal plate devastated by the shots becomes the subject of a reflection on what happened.

Laquan McDonald’s Autopsy reported “on the dorsum of the left hand is a black tattoo that reads ‘YOLO’ [You Only Live Once] and has a pair of dice”.