(Above cartoon by Mikhaela Reid.)
This quote from the Chicago Tribune says it all:
“If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names,” said [Homer, Louisiana Police Chief Russell] Mills, who is white. “I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested. We’re not out there trying to abuse and harass people—we’re trying to protect the law-abiding citizens locked behind their doors in fear.”
As Resist Racism notes, it’s sickeningly clear who Mills doesn’t consider “people.”
The article is about a black grandfather, Bernard Monroe, gunned down in his own yard during a cookout. Multiple witnesses say that after Monroe had been shot, the cops moved a gun to the ground near his hand.
The article’s writer, Howard Witt, points out that Monroe’s violent killing is part of a pattern:
In the mostly white Houston suburb of Bellaire, a 23-year-old black man sitting in his own SUV in the driveway of his parents’ home was shot and wounded on New Year’s Eve by police who mistakenly believed he had stolen the vehicle. The case is under investigation.
In Oakland, a transit police officer has been charged with murder for allegedly shooting an unarmed black man in the back while he was restrained and lying face down on a train platform on New Year’s Day.
In New Orleans, nine police officers are under investigation in the New Year’s Day death of a 22-year-old black man who was struck by 14 bullets after an undercover team stopped his car. The police say the man raised a gun and fired at them, but the man’s family disputes that. […]
The evidence is not merely anecdotal. The most recent national analysis from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that blacks and Hispanics were nearly three times as likely as whites to be searched by police—and blacks were almost four times as likely as whites to be subjected to the use of force.
It isn’t bad apples. It’s a cultural problem. And until it’s addressed that way, it will not stop.
How dare you say that all white people are inhuman and deserve to be shot!
(Just thought I’d get in and say that sarcastically before someone says it sincerely.)
There can be no question that there are racist cops and that some police departments have a racist culture. Looks like Driving While Black is still a major offense in some areas of the country.
I would not have thought that there would be a departmental racist culture in cities such as Chicago where there are many black cops and many in positions of authority. I would be curious to see what the racial breakdown is of the police in various major cities (overall and of the officers at or above a certain authority level) and see if there is a correlation between that and reports of issues such as this one. I would expect to see a strong negative correlation. And even within cities, I wonder what you would see if you did a breakdown on the basis of the racial balance of the precinct (both the cops there and the population of the public within the borders). Let’s just say that the report of a black man getting harassed (and in this case killed!) when he was in a white suburb – somewhere where he “didn’t belong” – is not surprising to me.
There are racist people in all walks of life. But few have the power to ruin people’s lives with racist acts like cops do. They must be held to a higher standard both in perception and reality.
The Tribune has been facing some financial difficulties, as have most big city newspapers. Right after the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday they posted an editorial in the Sunday edition that announced that the paper was going to make exposing official misconduct in Chicago and Illinois their major editorial focus, and that people could expect to see them take a very active role in pursuing changes to the political culture in the state. I’m not sure how these stories fit in; while they clearly focus on official misconduct, they have nothing to do with Chicago or Illinois. They certainly get attention and help sell the newspaper, though. Looks like I won’t be dropping my subscription any time soon.
I would hope that an investigation would be launched based on the quotes in this article. Not only that but I would hope that people would want change, beyond those who are here. Perhaps someone in the who is central to the issues physically could start a petition? Call the Mayor, governor, push for it? I know Illinois is getting a bad rap lately, but, I hope that there is at least one person who can listen, who can fight to rehumanize the humans that are being so disabused.
Kat
That’s interesting about the Tribune because in order to expose corruption, a lot of investment of time, energy and money has to go into investigative reporting which is the first form to go during difficult financial times and a lot of newspapers are being vastly restructured and shut down. I hope they can do this b/c it’s necessary and in my opinion, their responsibility as journalists and a media outlet.
DWB is still a major problem in many agencies, small ones like this one and the one in the other posting and in larger ones as well. They may or may not be as overt about it in issuing statements like in this case. But I’ve seen some videos from police dash cams (complete with audio) and also YouTubes where statements made in police encounters particularly use of force or excessive force are addressing race of the individuals. In one case, an officer saw a group of 3-4 Black men with baggy pants and detained and was planning to arrest one of them b/c he hated baggy pants. It’s on the audio, leading right up to the point where he suddenly lunges, grabs the guy by the throat and forces him down to the ground. It’s caught on dash cam and in fact, the officer jokes about being on film about two minutes earlier and he claimed the man lunged for him to butt his head against him which never happened according to the video. The video ended up viewed by a supervisor who forwarded it to the sheriff. The deputy is now facing criminal charges of assault. Actually trying to say you’re taking a man in b/c you don’t like his clothes on video.
There’s other videos of that ilk out there.
As far as racial breakdown, Black officers are still probably the minority and even a very small minority in many departments. Not all of them. More Black officers in places like Detroit, D.C. and Philadelphia along with others, correlating somewhat with the population demographics. That’s kind of seen with Latino officers as well, though in some areas with rapidly growing Latino populations, their representation in those cities or counties’ LE agencies is below that percentage.
As far as impact on culture, departments which have larger populations of Black officers and even those climbing the ranks can still have problems with racism in the culture. LAPD is a very good example of that. They lost a Black deputy chief who died and was the highest ranking Black officer and they have glass ceiling issues (lesser so with Latinos, equal or more so with women of all races) but there’s been a lot of litigation filed by Black officers for discrimination, harassment and retaliation including members of the Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation which is the Black union. And the L.A. City Council has approved quite a few hefty settlements in these cases.
It’s interesting b/c the LAPD had two Black chiefs, Post-Gates, which were Willie Williams and Bernard Parks, both single-termed, and Parks in particular had split support among Black officers. Some supported him; others didn’t because they felt he treated Black officers more harshly to prove he didn’t favor his own race. And I spoke with Black officers in the LAPD and some admit that racism is still a institutional problem.
And being chief is no guarantee that you can break a culture. Chiefs are very vulnerable and in many places, their tenures are short. For a while, the average tenure of a police chief was 3 1/2 years because the unions have the power to run them out through “no confidence” votes. Once a chief gets one of those, it’s very hard to remain in the job. So a Black chief even if he gets there is going to be treading on eggshells.
Are there any studies which show the impact of these additudes by police on the crime rate? My guess would be that it increases crime. I thought one of the most important factors to the effectiveness of the police is the cooperation of the community, both from victims and potential informants. How cooperative can a community be when you are trying to make them affraid of being arrested any time they see you?
They already are afraid because there are too many people allowed to be cops that are racist and abuse their power. We need these people fired from their positions of power where they are causing more harm in the communities they claim to want to protect from harm.
Ha! Is that the best you got?!? The police intentionally instilling fear of arrest and many fatal unwarented shootings versus having more babies and voting?
To be fair, California was part of the Spanish empire until the US conquered it.
I don’t know about studies. I know some people who did theses on police/community relations, including history involving specific LE agencies in specific cities. They noted the fear of reporting to police in relation to how communities were policed and treated by police.
For cases involving gangs, reporting is low for different reasons including fear of reprisal but fear and distrust towards the police as well. Do you want to report as an eyewitness to a crime to an officer who abuses you or pulls you over a dozen times a month or your kids? Officers who label your kids as gang members from a young age even when they’re not?
Misiura,
At the request of one of our commenters, I have reviewed your comments, and found that they are not consistent with our site’s goals. Your racism is, as the commenter notes, not even subtle.
You are not welcome at this site anymore, so please do not post again. If you do post, your comments will be deleted.
The Spanish invaded the overwhelming majority of South America, and Central America. They conquered the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Incas and other societies of the time. They also tried to conquer Japan (they got lost and somehow ended up there), but it was so late in their empire that they achieved very little.
Besides the quest for being rich, their goal was conversion to Christianity. It worked on South Americans, on the surface. On the surface, they are “good christians”, if you go any deeper, you’ll see they still hold a lot more strongly to their pre-colonization beliefs, rituals and such. Japanese are less than 2% Christian, even on the surface (most say they are Buddhist).
The New England colony were responsible for the near-complete wipe out of Native Americans in North America, through old-world diseases that they (the English) were used to enough to have developed resistance to, but that Native Americans had not. This is the fate that similarly occurred with the Spanish once they discovered it as a viable war strategy (it was a fluke at first).
About 95% of Native Americans of both the south and northern part of the continent were wiped out like this. I think the most that remains are Inuits in the north of Quebec (the very tip of the province), because they’re so far away from all colonies (even New France people seldom explored that far).
There was a children’s anime produced conjointly with France and Japan in 1982-1983. In English it’s The Mysterious Cities of Gold, and the show itself and its documentaries go on at length about South America in the 16th century, and the conquest by the Spanish.
‘k, Schala. We agree on this one – Misiura was saying factually inaccurate things — but now that he’s been removed from the conversation it’s probably time to get back to talking about police and intimidation of black men.
Police Chief: I Want Young Black Men To Be Afraid Every Time They See The Police
That can’t be healthy ??? Wouldn’t it be of more help to society when the authorities and protectors (police) are friends with the community and work together ??? How did this person become police chief? Doesn’t that position require one to be smart and logical ??? (I do apologise for the excessive question marks, this title is just sooo very baffling!)
Often it seems that police chiefs are every bit the politician that their elected counterparts are.
Interestingly enough, some of our retired management in my city’s LE agency have gone on to be chiefs of smaller agencies, including one in a city in Oregon. And in that case, they waxed on about his ethics including the guy who investigated who said he got glowing reviews on the guy from employees in my city not to mention that some of those employees wrote comments in response to the article.
But they forget one teeny weeny thing. From what I’ve heard, his retirement wasn’t voluntary. And if that’s the case, then you have to think that either there’s some perspectives that are different from those that would have pushed for the retirement, or these glowing perspectives believe it’s ethical to do what he did (as the involuntary retirement was tied with a specific incident six months earlier that was leaked on my site in 2005) or they’re people lying. Usually if there’s a problem with an officer and they’re leaving, they might lie to get him out even if it means that someone else inherits a problem. But this guy had already left.
If you want to vomit, take a look at this blog run by a Chicago police officer:
http://shavedlongcock.blogspot.com/2009/03/chicago-tribune-attempts-to-stir-pot.html
Interesting…blog name. Makes “Deep Throat” look like an underachiever in moniker selection.
I guess there’s one good thing about professional sports if it draws people’s attention to this problem.