I can’t even count the number of times I’ve written about men, who look like me, unjustly being gunned down by police…and it’s a mentally fatiguing exercise in what sometimes feels like futility. Each time I write, the words I choose re-appear—in the same sequence, in the same context—with the same theme and the same ending. This commentary though…has a different ending. In a chicken-coming-home-to-roost ending, the revolt is here. Now what after my “I-told-you-so” moment?

No, I am not one to exploit tragic events to highlight my prognosticator skill. Though I predicted the eventuality of blowback against the police, I won’t claim to be prescient. This week, technology saved the day, if not a life. Two Black men (and maybe more) were shot dead by white, American police—and thanks to social media, the incidents were memorialized and shared with the world. I wonder when the world will take notice of our—Black Americans—longtime outrage and outcry at the sustained injustice of extra-judicial killings of Black human beings? If not now, then when?

The killing of 32-year old Black male Philando Castile after a traffic stop last Wednesday prompted Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton to immediately order a state investigation. What it failed to prompt was an arrest. Castile’s death occurred within a day of police fatally shooting 37-year old Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge. Sterling was killed during an interaction with two white police officers. His death—murder—was captured on cellphone video that triggered protests and an outcry. Likewise, Castile’s murder was captured live on social media. The Washington Post reported that Castile was the 123rd Black American shot and killed by police so far in 2016, that out of a total 560 police killings.

Guess what? An investigation is now under way in the Castile case too. Are you seeing a familiar pattern? What’s also familiar is that the investigations usually lead to no charges against the police. Instead, the media covers ad naseum the police unions that defend illicit, if not illegal, police conduct. It doesn’t help that once again, these police officers are white. That reality only awakens this country’s “Race Monster,” a monster so formidable that people make an end-run around it, scurrying for cover as though it were Godzilla on Tokyo.

We’ve entered the media phase of unearthing the Sterling’s and Castile’s past legal, criminal and employment woes and encounters, rather than address the acts of police needlessly pulling a weapon on a Black man during an initially routine encounter. Attacking the victim is what the police do. Think about it: Hundreds of millions of us in America walk around without a gun. Some of us even engage in confrontations with other people—threatening or non-threatening—and choose not to introduce a gun into the incident. Most of us walk away. With these two shootings, what you likely didn’t see coming (and here’s the I-told-you-so eventuality) was a Black male well armed and fired up, ready to fire on police. Unthinkable, huh?

Officials have identified 25-year old Army veteran Micah Johnson as the gunman who stood atop a building and shot 12 Dallas police officers, killing five. It appears that he acted alone. Neighbors of the home he shared with his mother expressed shock on Friday over the actions of the “normal, good kid” they knew. You have to think deeply on the fact that he was trained to kill by the best—the US Military.

It’s been reported that Johnson was killed by a police-controlled robot bomb following a standoff with law enforcement. When do US police forces use robot bombs to kill suspects? The tactic of leveling a bomb to halt negotiations and standoff with police was news to me.

Oh, Johnson was the first recipient of the police’s new tool in its crime-fighting arsenal; Johnson was the proverbial canary in the coalmine. A bomb?…Really? I’ve come to notice that Blacks are always making historical Firsts in negative, life threatening events! Johnson: killed by robot? How many white people have—and in the foreseeable future—will share that dubious distinction?

The killing of Black men by white police (or police, period) is a multi-layered problem of a critical degree. The clear differentiation in the use of force against Blacks and whites in America is an issue; an issue of disparity, an issue of inequality, an issue of injustice. Look, if this country didn’t tout itself as moral or just or free, then I wouldn’t let our justice system bring perpetrators to justice. However, America does tout its moral superiority at home and abroad.

The fact that whites claim that they’re aware—while some diminish the existence— of tension-filled interactions with Blacks is another issue. The fact that police unions fight tooth-to-nail to avoid accountability is another issue. The fact that police rank and file remain silent and are therefore, silent partners in police brutality and illegalities is another issue. And, finally, the fact that America refuses to utter the G-word as the visceral, gut-wrenching issue is the issue. Yes, guns are THE issue.

Nothing says power and control louder than the firearm. Once a gun is introduced into the picture, the picture is altered dramatically. Gun proponents never want to admit the role of guns in mass killings or any fatal shooting, unless it’s in the context of firearms for protection. Recent shootings, including the Orland Club massacre that killed 49 people, have yet to bring us to a point of honest admission: Guns are the common denominator in these tragedies. Eliminate the guns and you eliminate a majority of threats and murders. Just that simple…

What’s not ironic is that police have described Micah Johnson (yes, he had a biblical name, so don’t even bring in Christianity) as a “loner” and said that he told negotiators he was not affiliated with any groups. The Dallas Police Chief said, “The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.” I posit that Johnson, a Black man, is not, nor will he be the last person to invoke such sentiment.

Let’s go back to police murders of Back men. The Castile murder was the second high-profile police killing of a Black man in Minnesota in seven months. Two Minneapolis police officers last November 2015 shot and killed 24-year-old Jamar Clark in a struggle that started when they were called to assist an ambulance crew that was helping Clark's girlfriend. What we know is that numerous eyewitnesses said with certainty that Clark was handcuffed when the police shot him, yet the “investigation” disregarded their statements and as usual accepted without question the police officers’ versions of the event. This predictable scenario reeks of pure, unadulterated injustice. I know because police lied in my 2008 trial, and I know that eventually the victims of injustice will not continue to remain calm. So, here we are. I told you so!

What lessons do we learn here? Obviously, none. However, the obvious lesson for police should be: STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE! Why is that too much to ask? For some Blacks, such as the Black Live Matter (BLM) movement, they’re tired of asking; they’re demanding that the power elite in this country value Black lives. For “lone wolfs” like Johnson, he too demanded respect for Black lives, but he spoke with in a mentally unhealthy, unwise and fatalistic voice.

Both factions—BLM and Johnson—statements speak for a population (that President Obama described as a bunch) of Americans who walk daily in the conflicted state of hope and fear, angst and anxiety. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair, but I’ve said before on “The Other Side of the Tracks” I told you a long time ago that retaliatory murders of police would be inevitable…that they would be an eventuality if elected leaders continued to disregard the pleas of Black America. I told you so.