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Panic in the streets: Black cops weigh in on Ferguson

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Cover Design by Andrew Nunez (88487)
Cover Design by Andrew Nunez

It is perhaps just one of the oxymorons of modern society that Black men, among the most marginalized within the American justice/legal system, find gainful employment within the law enforcement entity that is so often at odds with the African American presence here in the United States.

It is also a quirky phenomenon that the event of a highly publicized shooting (by law enforcement) of another Black American young man on the cusp of adulthood coincided with a convention of the  National Black Police Association, a week-long confab here in the “City of Angels.”

Last Thursday, the attendees gathered at the West Adams District’s Messiah Baptist Church to honor their fallen brethren of color at an “end-of-watch” ceremony. In spite of the volatile political atmosphere in Black neighborhoods around the country, several members of the community observing confessed to a moment of emotional sentiment as dozens of uniformed officers marched down Adams Boulevard, executed a smart column left, then up the steps and into the chapel.

Prior to the ceremony, the mood in front of the church was similar to the experience, prior to and after an actual Sunday service in the ’hood, with people socializing in cordial fellowship; in this instance united by their shared vocation as officers of the law. The primary topic, as might be expected, centered on events transpiring 1,500 miles to the east in Missouri, and the casual listener could easily pick up snippets of conversation throughout the crowd.

“Did you catch the news today?”

“Ferguson was a nice, quiet town until this happened.”

“Did you see how they put Ron (Johnson, the Missouri Highway Patrol Captain placed in command for security in the area) on ‘front-street’?”

“How long you think it’ll be before they bring in the National Guard?”

“They can just write this off until they bring the feds in!”

The incident that sparked this animated exchange was the shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson policeman Darren Wilson on Aug. 9. The character of the deceased has been alternately depicted as a gentle giant who shunned trouble, or an oppositional delinquent who used his size as a tool of intimidation which ultimately got him killed.

Almost as if guided by providence, a succession of Black men have suffered violent deaths at the hands of law enforcement in recent months. They include Eric Garner 43, who expired after New York City Police applied a chokehold on July 17; 37 year old Andre Milton who was shot and killed by an Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy responding to a domestic disturbance in San Leandro, Calif., also on July 17; 22 year old John Crawford was shot to death after he waved around a toy gun in a Walmart just outside of Dayton, Ohio, on Aug. 5; and developmentally challenged 25 year old Ezell Ford was shot and killed by the LAPD on Aug. 11.

The conference attendees were probably aware of all this, but were mainly concerned with the opportunity to fellowship with like-minded peers who’ve chosen careers that mandate they uphold society’s rules. Here was a chance to renew old acquaintances and make new ones.

Several of the retired cops at the convention were from departments in St. Louis and nearby environs. While they were quick to have opinions about the Ferguson shooting, some would only speak off the record.

“For years, local law enforcement served under the direct supervision of the governor. After the last election, all that changed, and now they’re under the mayor,” said one man who is one year into his retirement from the St. Louis Police.

This, in turn, he claimed, complicates things because the mayor is subject to the whims of the various aldermen who comprise the local government, resulting in the unwelcome addition of “cronyism” into the milieu. They speculate that foreseeable consequences of all this will be the likely inability to get impartial adjudication, if the accused policeman is brought to trial at the local or state level. This will all but ensure that the legal system at the federal level will be brought into play.

“I don’t condone murder—but it’s hard to support (someone) when pic(ture)s show you jacking someone.”

—from the Facebook page of Cheryl Dorsey

During her months-old retirement, LAPD Sergeant Cheryl Dorsey has become an outspoken critic of the department she served for two decades. None-the-less, she retains a cop’s sense of order and propriety. This outlook informs her view of the officer-involved incidents in Missouri and New York.

The events that precipitated Brown’s demise may have started with an alleged theft of a box of cigars from a convenience store. Brown’s use of his size (six feet four inches tall and 292 pounds) supposedly facilitated a form of strong-arm robbery against a diminutive clerk.

Having viewed the security video of the alleged robbery, Dorsey used her years of patrol experience to surmise that there was a “back story” that informed the tragedy that unfolded. She bases this on the body language Brown exhibited in the video.

“Everything about his demeanor (on the video) suggests he was a ‘bad actor,’ probably well known to the police and the clerk he victimized.” That said, she agrees that he did not deserve the punishment that was meted out.

No video footage exists of the exchange between Brown and Wilson, but the information available along with her years of practical experience gives the seasoned cop a sense of what likely transpired. She believes oppositional acting out against authority figures is a typical behavior exhibited by young men in their teens and early adulthood. Dorsey has come up with her own term for this conduct—“Contempt of Cop.”

Similarly, she speculates that the 350-pound Garner had a previous relationship with police because of his hawking loose cigarettes in the neighborhood along with other behaviors. She believes such repetitive activities create emotional friction, at which point the involved police can easily personalize disrespect, real or perceived, that they believe is directed at them. Officers who reach this point are just a step away from over reaching, and in turn may find themselves on the wrong end of the legal system.

The problem that will not go away

A potential reality, which has received little or no mention, is the possibility that the peace officers who initiated these deaths were socialized (long before they received their badges) to be afraid of Black men. And this just may be a pivotal point in all these proceedings.

Citizens of a certain age were reminded of the Black and White telecasts of four decades ago as they huddled in front of TV screens watching images of protestors facing off against police personnel in riot gear, wading through clouds of tear gas smoke, and dodging armored vehicles rumbling through streets framed by looted buildings, and burning stores ignited by Molotov cocktails.

These visuals harkened back to another turbulent time in the history of Black people that transpired in the segregated South during the Civil Rights era.

Around the globe, members of the world community apparently took glee in this latest manifestation of Yankee dysfunction, especially those nations the U.S. has regularly pointed fingers at and lectured for their lapses in human rights.

In Ferguson, isolated events have occurred that will ensure the situation is indelibly etched into the national, if not global, psyche. CNN Prime Time anchor Don Lemon was physically accosted by police, as were Caucasian news people from the influential Huffington Post. Among those arrested was Holocaust survivor and witness at the Nuremberg Trials Hedy Epstein, a 90-year-old Jewish activist and supporter of numerous controversial causes, including the Palestinian Free Gaza Movement. Among those weighing in on Ferguson are basketball-icon-turned author Kareem Abdul Jabar, who downplayed the issue of race in favor of a broader theme of class struggle in Time magazine. On the other end of the political spectrum, a South Carolina-based faction of the Klu Klux Klan has reportedly established a legal defense fund for Wilson, the officer alleged to have slain Brown.

Civil rights leaders or “race hustlers,” as some call them, took time to criticize the government response as another example of the over-militarization of the U.S. police state (and another sign of America’s phobia of its dark-skinned citizenry), as news crews documented the deployment of millions of dollars of high-tech weaponry. This gave public figures like Al Sharpton the opportunity to produce sound bites admonishing the authorities for not channeling these funds for education and employment.

Too Black to be blue?

According to sentiment voiced at the police convention, the high-profile appointment of Johnson, an African American captain with the Missouri Highway Patrol, to oversee the law enforcement and security response to the social unrest in an area not normally in his jurisdiction—brought a momentary respite to tensions. Crowds seemed to embrace the Ferguson native as a welcome alternative to the initial heavy-handed reaction by local authorities. As time went on however, Johnson’s appointment appeared to be a desperate attempt by the governor, hoping that a “Magic Negro” would appease the unruly masses poised to commit mayhem. This also appeared to be the tactic behind the mobilization of the National Guard under the command of another Black man, Brig. Gen. Gregory Mason, a move that so far, has had mixed results.

The pros and cons of Ferguson and the controversy hanging over it were the main topic of discussion at the peace officers convention, which wound down with a banquet on Saturday. The consensus being that situations like this might be minimized with an emphasis on community policing. Eric J. Perrodin, former Compton mayor and a deputy district attorney, and the keynote speaker, pointed out that he started his career as a policeman. He noted that along with actively engaging with the constituents, he would periodically slip into the crowd and “ear hustle” to get a feel for what was really going on within the community. All this boils down to a phrase that was repeated so much that it may well have been a rallying cry for the week’s agenda: get out of the car.

During his 20 years with the LAPD, retired sergeant Ron Cato used his position as head of the Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation to create a hospitable working environment for police officers. Known for being a “straight shooter,” he assigns blame for the Ferguson tragedy equally to the authorities and the residents who feel victimized.

“They were complacent!” he declared, explaining that the citizens of Ferguson did not take advantage of the voting rights previous generations had fought so hard to secure.

In the previous election, as few as 6 percent of the town’s eligible voters showed up at the polls, as opposed to the 50 percent who participated in the presidential elections made fashionable due to the presence of President Obama on the ballot.

“What sense does that make?” he asks, insisting that choices made at the municipal level will have more impact on the day-to-day lives of the average Joe than executive decisions determined hundreds of miles away in the nation’s capital.

Going on, Cato said citizens have the responsibility to choose people in authority who’ll look out for their interests.

“It’s easier for Blacks to understand Blacks, Hispanics to understand Hispanics, Asians to understand Asians, and so on.”

Cato dose not rule out the ability for Caucasians to empathize with the minority mindset, but suggests that the trend towards political correctness has shrouded the masses’ ability to accurately perceive the realities of life.

“We need to stop pretending that racism and discrimination don’t exist within police departments.”

Once hired as sworn peace officers, the problems don’t end for cops of color, or the minorities they serve. Ethnicities who wear the uniform walk a tightrope in enforcing the regulations of a society that is all too often abusive to the groups to which they belong.

In this, said Cato, the conscientious officer runs the risk of being “too Black to be Blue,” to be fully accepted by his (or her) colleagues within the department, or conversely “too Blue to be Black,” when they slip off their uniforms to interact with those in the communities.

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