More than three years have passed since I took this photo, standing on the sidewalk by the gas station from which Cyrus Belton fled, a photo of the memorials placed at the site where he died.
The pain was evident in the balloons, flowers and stuffed toys - evident in the rage that left the gas station with heavy damage.
Even more painful: the crowded funeral, where young cousins and classmates said goodbye with tears and disbelief that they should never have had to experience.
So much additional pain existed that I was not a party to: the extended families, neighbors and friends of young Belton, as well as those of the Chow family. I could imagine it - having experienced something like it in my own family.
Today, three years later, with tonight's verdict, the pain has grown deeper, more visceral, and may be set to explode into shards of anger, racial conflicts, and a further cratering of hope in our judicial systems.
Those close to Belton family and friends, stand by them - they need you now. Those of us outside the circle must continue the hard fights to improve our human institutions and relations, so that future interventions will replace pain and death with life, hope and light.