These Black teens are turning 18 in Tamir Rice’s America

He wanted to be a police officer like his mother and father. Then he didn’t.

Most Friday nights, Neyland Vaughn turns the finished basement of his family’s home into a makeshift getaway.

When his lime-green and black headphones are on, he is no longer sitting in a sea of beige carpet, surrounded by burgundy walls – he’s in a “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” daze, playing with his friends or others online. 

This is his nirvana – a space where he doesn’t have to think about the anxieties of turning 18, how he’s perceived as a young Black man when he leaves his home in York, Pennsylvania, or what he wants to be when he grows up.

Before the pandemic, Neyland was seeing a therapist once a week to tend to his mental health. He felt overwhelmed by the stories of unarmed Black men gunned down by those who swore to protect and serve. He was nervous at first about therapy, but he says it helped. 

At one time he thought he knew what he wanted for his career path. When he was in fourth grade, he vividly remembers a pile of dirty money in an evidence room during an impromptu “Bring Your Child To Work Day” with his dad at the Baltimore Police Department.

At the time, both of his parents were longtime officers. They have both since retired. 

As Neyland became a teenager, he heard the stories – his father escaping shootouts, being robbed at gunpoint twice, his mother spending months compiling evidence to build cases against homicide suspects. Eventually, he no longer wanted to follow in his parents’ footsteps.

“People are just crazy,” he says.