Bernstein writes: "Thirty-two years ago, in 1984, I was teaching media activism in an alternative high school in the South Bronx with filmmaker Chela Blitt. We were getting ready to begin a documentary with the kids on the social, political, and economic reasons why their neighborhood looked more like Hiroshima after the war than a neighborhood in New York City. But instead, we changed gears and produced with the kids the documentary film '12-Gauge Eviction,' which chronicles the close-range gunning down of a 67-year-old, arthritic grandmother named Eleanor Bumpurs."



Eleanor Bumpurs. (photo: unknown)

Remembering the 12-Gauge Police Eviction of a 67-Year-Old Grandmother in the South Bronx

By Dennis J Bernstein, Reader Supported News

hirty-two years ago, in 1984, I was teaching media activism in an alternative high school in the South Bronx with filmmaker Chela Blitt. We were getting ready to begin a documentary with the kids on the social, political, and economic reasons why their neighborhood looked more like Hiroshima after the war than a neighborhood in New York City. But instead, we changed gears and produced with the kids the documentary film “12-Gauge Eviction,” which chronicles the close-range gunning down of a 67-year-old, arthritic grandmother named Eleanor Bumpurs, in the Sedgwick housing project in the Highbridge Section of the South Bronx.

And we got off to a swift start. One of my students had heard the shotgun blasts through the walls and halls of the high-rise. In no time, with our cameras and recording equipment in tow, we were filming through the broken keyhole into the murder scene, where Eleanor Bumpurs was snuffed out of this world for being late on her rent. She owed the city about $400 dollars back rent, which she claimed she was withholding until the city came in and did some necessary plumbing and heating repairs.

Social Services called in the police, and what unfolded next was obscene, extremely brutal, but not all that uncommon. A half-dozen special duty New York City cops arrived at the front door of her small apartment, armed with mace, tear gas, shields, nets, clubs and side arms, but finally decided that nothing less than a 12-gauge pump shotgun fired at close range would do the trick. The first blast from the shotgun took Bumpurs’ hand off. The final blast blew the back of her head off.

The cops claimed they had no choice. They were facing mortal danger, claiming Eleanor Bumpurs, mother of seven and grandmother, was wielding a butcher knife. They claimed the shoot was clean. The local corporate press took it from there. Many press accounts, informed by the police of course, characterized Bumpurs as being “emotionally disturbed” and “deranged.”

My students jumped all over this. One student, a Junior named Douglas, who lived in the projects and had ear-witnessed the shots through the walls – led us to the crime scene. He guided us to the floor where Bumpurs had lived and died, and to the senior citizen center, the library, and other parts of the projects where the residents would congregate. And the kids started to ask questions and interview residents about the police killing of Mrs. Bumpurs.

“If the lady was so mentally disturbed,” pointed out one resident, “people wouldn’t have asked her to babysit their kids.” The resident knew of several parents who had entrusted Bumpurs to babysit their kids for them, until her arthritis became too severe to “chase the little ones around.” One Housing Authority supervisor, Michael Pierson, told the kids, “She just seemed like a quiet individual to me.”

That evening, my students carried their cameras to an outdoor prayer vigil at the projects and interviewed friends and relatives of Bumpurs, as well as a few local politicians who had come to pay their respects to the slain grandmother. “It’s amazing that any time a black or Hispanic is killed like this, it’s police procedure,” said the Rev. Wendell Foster, who was then a Bronx City councilman. Sound familiar? One resident told the student investigators, “A couple of weeks ago a dangerous animal escaped from the Bronx Zoo, and they captured it with a sleep dart and brought it safely back to its cage in the zoo. Around here” said the resident, who requested anonymity for fear of police retribution, “cops treat black folks worse than zoo animals. They’ll risk their white skin to save an animal, but they’ll murder us on the spot.”

I have to believe that it was the thorough and unrelenting investigative work of the students, along with a local independent newspaper, The City Sun, that forced the court’s hand, making them deal with some of the real facts of the case, rather than let most of the local the racist corporate press marginalize Bumpurs as a community danger, a crazed black woman who was willing to kill a cop to avoid paying her back rent.

After reviewing extensive testimony, a grand jury indeed voted for an indictment for second-degree manslaughter against Officer Stephen Sullivan, who cut down Bumpurs at close range with two quick blasts from his department issued pump-style shotgun. However, subsequently, a state judge dismissed the indictment against Sullivan, asserting the evidence was “legally insufficient” to indict Sullivan for manslaughter or any other offense.

In an interview after the ruling, when asked if under similar circumstances he would do the same thing, Sullivan replied, “Yes, I would,” according to The New York Times. And New York City cops have been killing people of color non-stop before and since. Here’s a partial list published by The New York Times:

Dennis J Bernstein is the executive producer of Flashpoints, syndicated on Pacifica Radio, and is the recipient of a 2015 Pillar Award for his work as a journalist whistleblower. He is most recently the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.