People

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Just when the dust was settling over George Zimmerman shooting Trayvon Martin, now a White police office shoots and kills 18-year old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Another Black mother crying over losing her son, but does it ever stop and when will it ever end? It could be a police shooting or someone dying from a chokehold while being restrained by police, the result is the same- death. In nearly all these instances of what would appear to be unwarranted use of excessive force, the officer is rarely if ever charged with a felony crime of first degree manslaughter, which is ridiculous. Now having said that, there are a few bad apples in every police department and these are the ones that are a disgrace to the uniform and dishonor the very oath of civic responsibility and duty that they have been sworn to uphold, “To Protect and Serve.” I think that by and large, the police are not respected and appreciated for the tough job they are required and expected to perform. The police see and are exposed to things that many of us have no idea are happening right under our very noses, dealing with and resolving some of the very worst of situations in order to keep the public safer, certainly deserves our respect and support.

But before continuing on, there is some room for criticism in the Black community. First and foremost, we must stop using the police department as the culturally-institutionalized racial boogey man or scarecrow to justify some kind of almost inbred, generational hatred and mistrust of all police officers, especially the ones who are White. Perhaps even more important than these incidents that make national headlines in newspapers and lead stories on broadcast news is the fact that more Black youth kill one another or are victims of felony assaults than police shootings, so where is the outrage in that? This is a real problem that the Black community doesn’t quite know how to come to terms with and yet it is something that we just can’t ignore. What if Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown had been shot by another Black youth, would we even be talking about them or would they be just another entry in the local obituary column?

Some final thoughts: Does the age of the victim make a difference, I mean, what if the police fatally shot an unarmed 12-year old Black male that was walking down the street or on the sidewalk, or had just shoplifted some candy? What would be the public reaction if a Black police officer shot a White teenage male six times, with two bullet wounds to the head, or slammed a White teenager’s head on the hood of a police cruiser, or if a minority officer placed a chokehold on a White teenager who later died of a heart attack-would the officer be criminally prosecuted or cleared to go back on duty? A few solutions: First and foremost, all police officers or those who patrol in population dense urban areas or communities with diverse ethnic minorities should be required to wear on-body cameras as well as have dash cameras on their vehicles. These devices must be working and on at all times, especially in encounters with criminal suspects. Investigations of any suspicious shooting death by police should be handled by an independent civilian review board or other agency unrelated to law enforcement, and any forensics should be conducted by a medical examiner outside the local jurisdiction.

The U.S. Justice Department and Attorney General’s office should investigate these kinds of events and take charge when local authorities are stonewalling, and the government should vigorously seek indictments through a federal prosecutor on civil rights violations, especially the Fifth Amendment: No one shall be deprived of Life, Liberty, or Property without due process of law. President Obama commented that this was another teachable moment, but for whom? What we need is a “prosecutable” moment where these kinds of egregious abuses of police power will not happen again. It is only when a police or law enforcement officer is finally arrested, tried, and sentenced in federal court (because it is highly unlikely that White jurors would convict) under a federal judge or magistrate, that rogue cops will not be able to continue committing such criminal acts with impunity.

What the police departments have to realize is that the ‘real’ enemy is not the Black community but one of your own fellow brothers in blue, and what the Black community has to do is get over the internal programming of hating the P-O-L-I-C-E that we have been spoon fed for generations; even when many of us have had quite benign encounters with them which usually involved some kind of traffic infraction or violation. And in those few instances when the police did act in some other way, can we say we were just innocent victims minding our own business and were randomly targeted without any prevailing circumstances to the contrary, or that we weren’t doing something we should not have been doing, or that we were at the wrong place at the wrong time? Let’s wake up and smell the coffee and can’t we all just learn to get along.

ADDENDUM:
Since the motivating idea behind the protests is about justice, would rioting in Ferguson and other acts of civil disturbances and demonstrations taking place across the country be happening if Michael Brown were White and shot by the same policeman or another White officer? Why don’t White people get enraged and tear up their communities or would they do so only if a Black cop shot a White youth? In my local community there was a ‘rainbow coalition’ of residents, probably more Whites than Blacks protesting the incident in Ferguson, but I wonder how many Blacks would be participating in demonstrations where a White youth was fatally shot by a White police officer- or even a Black policeman?

I mean, if it’s a matter of “justice” and not JUST US, then race, color, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation shouldn’t matter- but we seem to be nearly invisible when incidents of brutality happen to other people, or is it only just about “us”? Lastly, I wonder what the level of tension is in the squad room at the Ferguson police department, especially between the half dozen Black policemen and their fellow White comrades in blue. Not only that, but have any of the Blacks personally spoken to Officer Darren Wilson in a show of support or shunned him, and would any of them be willing to partner with him in future community patrols?


Robert Randle
776 Commerce St #B11
Tacoma, WA 98402
August 20, 2014
[email protected]

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