Trevor Moses, Injustice, And Black Men Defending Themselves

Black men are not allowed to defend themselves. 

To be more specific, Black men are not allowed to defend themselves when the person they are protecting themselves from is white. 

This has proven to be true time and time again throughout AmeriKKKan history. When a Black man is attacked or provoked by a white person, especially a white man, society expects them to take the abuse and turn the other cheek. 

Trevor Moses is a 25-year-old Black man who was arrested and charged with second-degree battery after defending himself outside of a nightclub in Shreveport, Louisiana.  

Video from the early morning hours of Jan. 26 shows Moses standing outside of a nightclub engaged in what appears to be a verbal altercation with several white women. Moses appears calm as the women aggressively yell, attempt to get in his face, and point their fingers at him. A white man, 43-year-old Christopher Temple, leads the women away. 

The entire group walks down the street, and as Moses stands calmly speaking with another man, Temple steps back and then cold-cocks Moses in the head. Moses appears to fall, and Temple continues to punch him. 

The rest of the fight is not shown, but KTAL News reports that the men continued to fight for several minutes before Moses hit Temple in the face. Temple fell, hitting his head on the concrete and falling unconscious. 

Temple was taken to the hospital and later died from his injuries on Feb. 15. 

The case has now been upgraded to a homicide investigation. The Shreveport Police Department and the Caddo Parrish District Attorney are working together to determine whether Moses will face additional charges. 

But why was he charged in the first place?

I've obtained exclusive video of the fight on 1/26 that ended up claiming the life of 43YO Christopher Temple. The video shows Temple initiating the fight with 25YO Trevor Moses. Moses has been arrested & charged w/ Second Degree Battery. More >>> https://t.co/SZ9ttxbKai pic.twitter.com/TwfD8e1qyP

— Daniel Jovic (@DanJovicNews) February 18, 2025

The video shows that at no point in any of the events that occurred on Jan. 26 did Trevor Moses appear to be a threat to Christopher Temple or anyone else standing on that sidewalk — not even the white women who were aggressively getting in his face during their verbal dispute. 

Christopher Temple is being portrayed as the victim in this case by law enforcement, the district attorney’s office, and local media. The framing of this case is that Trevor Moses brutally beat Christopher Temple to death when the reality is Trevor Moses was defending himself after being brutally punched multiple times by Christopher Temple. 

SPD told KTAL that they are working with the DA’s office “to ensure that justice is served for every person involved.”

What does justice look like for Trevor Moses? Is Trevor Moses not the initial victim in this situation? 

If he is charged with the death of Christopher Temple, what does that supposed “justice” look like?

“Unfortunately, that situation was made worse by two individuals, both of which having made poor decisions and Shreveport Police Department is doing everything they can to come in and clean the mess,” Corporal Chris Bordelon of the Shreveport Police Department told KTAL.

Unironically, Bordelon said the actions Moses took that night (in defending himself!) should be held to the principle of Graham v. Connor, a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that “helped shape police procedures for stops that involve the use of force. An officer cannot justify these actions based on a hunch or by showing that they acted in good faith. Instead, they must carefully articulate facts and events that made their use of force objectively reasonable under the circumstances.”

Funny how they want to have this understanding when it comes to a Black man defending himself from a physical attack by a white man but can’t seem to get it together when it involves a Black person being killed by police. 

This case plays heavily into the racist stereotype of the Black man as a superhuman brute who is a threat to everyone around him. 

Trevor Moses is 5-foot-6 and weighs 135 pounds. The video shows Christopher Temple is significantly taller than him. Who was the actual threat here? 

Why is Trevor Moses potentially facing upgraded homicide charges for defending himself? 

The concern here is that Caddo Parish has a historic legacy of racism. As the Death Penalty Information Center notes, although the parish represents only 5% of Louisiana’s population, it is responsible for 38% of the death penalty sentences in the state and currently has more people on death row than any other parish in the state. 

More from DPIC:

Known as ​“Bloody Caddo,” the parish had the sec­ond high­est num­ber of lynch­ings of any coun­ty in the nation. The Confederate flag flew in front of the steps to the cour­t­house until 2011 (pic­tured), where a mon­u­ment to the Confederacy still stands. Inside that cour­t­house, 80% of defen­dants sen­tenced to death between 2010 and 2015 were Black, and no White per­son has ever been exe­cut­ed for killing a Black per­son in Caddo Parish. 

The emphasis in that citation is my own, and I highlight it to make a greater point. We are in the middle of a hostile takeover in America, and that hostile takeover is being staged by white men hellbent on subjugating Black people and keeping us “in our place.”

The way that was done during Jim Crow was through lynchings. It is not a stretch to equate the extrajudicial killing of Black people at the hands of the police as lynchings. It is not hyperbolic to say that policing in America as well as the criminal justice system are still being used as a tool of racial terrorism against Black people. It is not alarmist to say that this will only worsen as the current administration continues dismantling everything that could prevent these unjust outcomes. 

We should all be concerned for the well-being of Trevor Moses. We should watch this case to see if the outcome is actually “justice.”

It’s important to remember that Trevor Moses is the true victim here. He was sucker-punched by Christopher Temple, and he defended himself. Christopher Temple’s death is tragic. Christopher Temple’s death is the result of the decision he made to attack Trevor Moses. Both things can be true. 

When Shreveport Police Department Corporal Chris Bordelon says the situation was made worse by two individuals making poor decisions, it’s important to note that Trevor Moses’ only poor decision may have been engaging in an argument outside of a nightclub. 

Christopher Temple’s poor decision was attacking a man who was posing no threat to him.

Trevor Moses’ decision to defend himself in the wake of that attack is not a “poor decision.” It is what any reasonable person would do when faced with the onslaught of punches he received from Temple. 

Expecting him to just stand there and take the beating is outrageous. 

Punishing him for defending himself against the beating he was getting from Christopher Temple is egregious. 

The desire by those in power to make him pay for the life of a white man who incited this entire situation in the first place is typical and the norm for the country we live in. 

Whiteness is never held accountable. Black people pay for everyone’s sins – even when we are not in the wrong. 

Justice for Trevor Moses. 

SEE ALSO:

Black Man Sues Phoenix Police After He Was Arrested For Asking Questions

New Mexico Cop Found Guilty Of Voluntary Manslaughter After Fatally Shooting Black Man At Gas Station

window.addEventListener(‘interaction’, function () {
setTimeout(function () {
var s = document.createElement(‘script’), el = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[ 0 ];
s.async = true;
s.src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;
el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el);
}, 1000)
});

Read more