Let me assert from the outset that police brutality is all too common in the United States.
For example, according to the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project, from April 2009 to June 2010, there were 5,986 reports of police misconduct; 382 fatalities linked to police misconduct; and $347.5 million spent in settlements and judgments related to police misconduct.
Ironically, increase in police-brutality cases occasioned implementation of one of America’s most famous policing strategies, namely, New York City’s “zero tolerance” policy. For the more this policy led to dramatic reductions in everything from felony murder to the menace of squeegee men, the more aggressive NYC cops became in stopping and frisking people – based not on probable cause but racial profiling.
But only God knows why some incidents of police brutality, even among cases that result in fatalities, incite street protests (and the media attention they attract like moths to a flame), while others don’t.
More to the point, only God knows why some of these (mostly peaceful) protests end up in riots of the kind we saw raging two nights ago:
A candlelight vigil for an unarmed man who was fatally shot by police turned ugly, with crowds looting and burning stores, vandalizing vehicles and taunting officers who tried to block access to parts of a predominantly black suburb of St. Louis…
The tensions erupted after a candlelight vigil Sunday night for 18-year-old Michael Brown, who police said was shot multiple times Saturday in a scuffle with an officer.
(The Associated Press, August 11, 2014)
Not every fatal shooting by the police of an unarmed man is a case of police brutality. We’ve all seen far too many incidents of people resisting arrest – even wresting away a policeman’s gun and killing him – just because they fear being questioned or arrested … even for something as simple as petty theft.
Indeed, you’d be hard-pressed to cite a case that resulted in fatality, where the victim followed the few general rules we should all follow when dealing with the police. Those rules, which form the acronym “Dodge” (as in bullets), are:
- Do not run.
- Obey commands. (Wait for the police to explain why you’re being stopped before politely posing any objections, concerns, or questions you may have.)
- Do not resist being frisked or handcuffed.
- Get the encounter on video. (Wait for the police to approach and make clear that you’d like to reach for your phone; i.e., avoid any sudden move that might make some trigger-happy cop’s day.)
- End the encounter civilly. (Not only might this spare another black man a racial-profiling stop (e.g., for DWB), it might make that cop less trigger happy during his next encounter with the next black man.)
This is why, even though the policemen who beat the crap out of Rodney King deserved to be prosecuted, (most of) that beating would have been avoided if King were not drugged out of his mind and, therefore, unable to follow simple police instructions.
This is also why, contrary to popular opinion, 43-year-old Eric Garner bore some blame for his own death. Garner, of course, was the unarmed Black “gentle giant” who died, openly and notoriously, from a chokehold by a White cop on Staten Island last month. But, had he not resisted arrest, there would have been no chokehold, or the sub-standard EMT care that followed. And the kicker is that he reportedly resisted simply because he did not want to be arrested for selling untaxed cigarettes … again.
But the cop involved should lose his badge (i.e., he should face disciplinary action for using a tactic, that chokehold, that he knew or should have known was banned by NYPD regulations).
In contrast to these gray-area cases of police brutality, the beating of 51-year-old Marlene Pinnock was black and white. Pinnock, of course, was the unarmed Black woman who a White cop pummeled on the side of a Los Angeles freeway last month, reportedly, because he wanted to protect her from wandering into oncoming traffic.
Of course, the facts are still out in this suburban St. Louis case. But it’s worth noting that video evidence was critical in establishing the facts in all cases referenced above. Therefore, any video of this encounter, whether shot by the police or civilian bystanders, will be critical.
But if the facts establish that a policeman shot Michael point blank while – far from resisting arrest – he had his “hands up,” then this policeman should be prosecuted for murder, and Michael’s parents awarded due compensation.
On the other hand, if they establish that Michael got shot while resisting arrest, which allegedly included trying to wrest the policeman’s gun from him, then this policeman should have our understanding and Michael’s parents … nothing more than our sympathy.
Incidentally, it’s worth noting the direct correlation between police officers either wearing video cameras or videotaping every stop on dash cam and the dramatic decline not only in complaints by civilians, but also in use of force by the police. Frankly, it seems a no-brainer that every police department should make wearing video cameras as standard as wearing bulletproof vests.
Meanwhile, the usual Black lawyers and activists are already doing all they can to turn this into another race-based spectacle, like the Trayvon Martin case. (They are probably cursing comedian Robin Williams for sucking up so much media coverage with yesterday’s breaking news of his death, ironically, by suicide borne of depression….)
But I urge the media to help counter the prevailing narrative of cops as the mortal enemy of Black men by featuring Black leaders, like former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who have been entreating Black men to behave as follows:
When you’re faced with an officer who is trying to do his job and get to the bottom of something this is not the time to get in an argument with him.
(“Colin Powell Weighs In on Arrest of Prof. Skip Gates,” The iPINIONS Journal, July 29, 2009)
That said, I shall end with a few key points:
- No case of police brutality justifies looting and vandalism. Period. The cause for anger and frustration among Blacks today pales in comparison to that which Blacks endured during the Civil Rights Movement. Yet the only barbarism on display during protests back then came not from Black marchers looting and vandalizing stores, when they weren’t taunting the police, but from White cops willfully attacking them as they marched peacefully and non-violently. Is there any wonder that people (Black and White) have as much contempt for these marauding Black protesters today as they had for those mauling White cops back then?
- It’s instructive that Michael’s mother condemned those involved for rubbing “salt in the wound” of her grief. Because, like most sensible Black people, she has nothing but contempt for the idiots who pillage community stores (for items like clothing, hair products, and malt liquor) and then burn the buildings to the ground … in a plainly self-immolating attempt to get back at the police. Not to mention how these opportunistic riots only reinforce the stereotype of Black young men as wilding savages who can only be tamed by force, including police dogs, batons, chokeholds and, ultimately, bullets.
- There would be fewer of these fatal encounters between Black men and White cops if more (unemployed) Black men became cops to police their own communities. I mean, am I the only one who was struck by the contrast between the Black men looting and the predominantly White cops trying to restore law and order in this predominantly Black community…? In fact, this suburb of St. Louis, Ferguson, is almost 70 percent Black, yet it’s being served by a police force that’s over 95 percent White. Perhaps, instead of leading St. Louis Blacks in hackneyed chants of “No justice, no peace,” Reverend Al Sharpton should turn and shout at them “Stop looting! Start policing!”
Related commentaries:
Arrest of Skip…
Colin Powell weighs in…
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