Sunday, August 2, 2020

A tribute to Elijah McClain in First Street Green Art Park



New this past week in First Street Green Art Park ... a tribute to Elijah McClain by the Brooklyn-based artist Vincent Ballentine.

As he wrote on Instagram:

#elijahmcclain was a specifically painful story for me. After teaching art for 5 years, he reminds me of all the young men I’ve worked with. To the artsy, sensitive, introverted and magical minds, you have purpose.

Elijah McClain was walking home from a convenience store in Aurora, Colo., carrying a bottle of iced tea last August when three police officers tackled him after receiving a 911 call about a suspicious man in a ski mask. McClain, a 23-year-old massage who taught himself how to play violin and guitar, was put in a stranglehold by police and injected with ketamine. He died six days later.
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1 comment:

  1. GojiraAugust 3, 2020 at 11:11 AM

    Beautiful. Thank you to Vincent Ballantine for this tribute to a young man so sensitive that he taught himself to play the violin so he could go into animal shelters and serenade the cats and dogs there, believing it soothed them. To think that we lost such a soul at the hands of uncaring thugs - it beggars belief.

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