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Before deputy Clyde Kerr III took his own life Monday outside the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office, he left haunting final words in a series of social media videos.
Kerr, a father and military veteran, was 43 years old.
In Kerr’s videos, he talked directly to the camera on a range of issues, from police brutality against Black people and mental health needs in policing, to division in society and children’s exposure to murder, violence and other negative or traumatic influences. He also describes his struggle to reconcile his identity as a Black man with his profession while hinting at his impending suicide.
He then went on to call for an end to the drug war, lambasting the fact that police will kidnap, cage, and kill people “for a plant.”
“The countless people who are doing time for [the war on drugs]… how do you make amends for that?” Clyde said rhetorically. “You can’t. You can’t.”
“If this feels right to you as a person, then something is wrong with you,” he said. “Y’all are radicalizing people and then when they get upset and end up going against the system, you come down on them with a hammer.”
Clyde then goes on to describe how the job of policing needs to change — specifically in regards to mental health. His death is a chilling reminder of this dire need.
“You have one psychological eval as a cop, and that is when they hire you. That is not enough,” he said. “We need at least an annual, every six months, or maybe even quarterly. The stigma on this needs to stop.”
For the second half of the video, just hours before he would end his own life, Clyde lists a number of solutions that he says could fix so many of the problems. He started out by saying police need better training in regards to dealing with the public. Just because this job is difficult, he says, doesn’t mean you get to be a monster.
He then calls for society to come together and put aside their political differences.
“So many people in this country are so caught up in whether they are a Republican or a Democrat that they forgot how to be a decent human being.”
In a follow up video, Clyde assured people that he is not “crazy” or “on drugs” and that he feels like this act of self-immolation is necessary to change the paradigm within the system. He took his own life to attempt to change the system which drove him to this point.
“I know what people will say but I am in my right state of mind. I need to do this to protest this broken system. If I don’t do this, who will?” he said.
Being a Black man in law enforcement can be difficult, said Lafayette City Marshal Reggie Thomas, the first Black person elected to a citywide position in Lafayette.
Thomas said he watched some of the videos Kerr posted and could tell the man was deeply concerned about the way police work is going. One video that particularly resonated was of Kerr relating a conversation he had with his son in the aftermath of George Floyd's death at the hands of police.
"He had to talk to his son about how you have to react with a police officer," Thomas said. "Nobody should have to have that conversation."
Kerr’s videos have garnered thousands of views since his death and are catalyzing conversation online and in the community about addressing mental health needs and the current state of policing.
Kerr said he was done serving a system that doesn't care about people like him.
"You have no idea how hard it is to put a uniform on in this day and age with everything that's going on," he said.
"My entire life has been in the service of other people ... y'all entrust me to safeguard your little ones, your small ones, the thing that's most precious to you, and I did that well. I passed security clearance in the military ... but that has allowed me to see the inner workings of things."
The videos show a man who professed he was upset by the state of society: “I’ve had enough.”
While Kerr’s videos focused on the outside world, he made small statements referencing personal turmoil. He spoke on the trauma of working the night of Lafayette Police Cpl. Michael Middlebrook’s death and persevering through struggles in his life. According to court records, Kerr and his wife divorced in 2016, reconciled and again divorced in 2020.
But in his videos Kerr insisted, repeatedly, that his decision to kill himself was a conscious choice made in his right mind as a “protest.” He also said the need for “dramatic and bold” action was made clear to him a week before his death and intimated it was part of a higher calling. He said he would “pass this baton to the next guy” if he could, but this was his mission.
Will Sutton: Lafayette deputy Clyde Kerr's 2020 heartbreak, racist 'justice' and our pain
He cited the deaths of Black people at the hands of police: Botham Jean, shot in his own apartment in Dallas in 2018; George Floyd in Minneapolis; Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky; and Trayford Pellerin, who was killed by Lafayette Police Department officers in August.
"If this feels right to you as a person, then something is wrong with you," he said.
"I understand we have a tough job, but we signed up for this. We need help. Because when you deal with the bottom rung of society, that does not give us an excuse to just do whatever you want, and that's what we're doing and we're not being held accountable."
