(On February 8th, 2016, APD Officer Geoffrey Freeman responded to a disturbance call in the northeast Austin neighborhood of 12000 Nature’s Bend. There Freeman encountered a naked, unarmed seventeen year old named David Joseph, exhibiting obvious signs of delirium. Without waiting for backup, Freeman aggressively confronted David with his firearm drawn, inciting David to sprint towards Freeman. Despite Officer Freeman’s commands to halt David continued to run. Freeman then opened fire, hitting David in the leg and chest. David died soon afterward due to his injuries. This journal marks the beginning of an ongoing project chronicling the story of David Joseph’s death as well as the aftermath of that incident.)
This is a picture of David Joseph.
As if seduced by cliche, my amateur instinct prompts me to begin his story by stating “David was your average Texas teenager.” Such a statement would not only be false, but excessively so. This is the portrait of an exceptional Texas teenager; a young man whose ability and charisma were only surpassed by his ambition. Even the title of “martyr” does not venerate his identity in any true respect. If anything, it should be a stinging reminder that our nation has lost the full voiced symphony of David’s character, leaving only its prelude as a glimpse of what could have been.