October 14, 2015

"IMAGINE A world where we are allowed to say 'no' to an officer. It would be chaos."

When New York City prosecutor Francesca Bartolomey uttered those words during the recent trial of NBA player Thabo Sefolosha--who was accused of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, among other things, during an altercation with police that left him with a broken leg--she put on stark display the double standard at the heart of the system.

Despite the widespread and systemic police abuse that disproportionately harms people of color and other minorities; despite the police murders of Mike Brown, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Ramarley Graham, Rekia Boyd, Natasha McKenna and so many others; despite the unrestrained violence that infects America's police departments to the tune of more than 900 deaths at the hands of the cops to date this year, far more than any other developed nation not in the midst of a war--despite all of this, Bartolomey's concern wasn't for a man who claimed police attacked him without provocation, but for the ability of the police to act with impunity to force those they encounter to obey without question.

Since the Black Lives Matter movement emerged in the spotlight--sparked by the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, by a white cop--a few police officers have been charged and even forced to stand trial for violent crimes. But this remains a rare exception, usually happening only when there is video of brutality, like when officer Michael Slager shot Walter Scott in the back in North Charleston, South Carolina--or when there is a massive public outcry, like after the killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore.

Rarer still is an actual conviction of an officer for breaking the law. That's because those responsible for holding the police accountable are committed to giving them maximum leeway to use force. When Bartolomey says that allowing a person to say "no" to a cop would be "chaos," what she really means is that any challenge to police authority is a challenge to a wider system responsible for enforcing the status quo, economically, politically and socially.

OF COURSE, 12-year-old Tamir Rice never had the chance to say no.

Less than two seconds after Officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback arrived on the scene at a Cleveland park on November 22 of last year--before the patrol car had even come to a full stop--Loehmann had jumped out and fired two shots, with one striking Tamir in the torso, killing him.

Loehmann initially claimed that Tamir disobeyed his command to drop his "gun," which turned out to be a toy. That was a complete lie--Loehmann didn't have the time to give an order, and the 12 year old certainly couldn't have obeyed it.

Prosecutors haven't yet presented evidence to a grand jury that will decide whether Loehmann--who had been fired from a previous job as a cop for emotional instability--should stand trial in Tamir's death. But that didn't stop Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Prosecutor Timothy McGinty from releasing two commissioned reports--one from a former FBI agent and the other from a Colorado prosecutor--that concluded Officer Loehmann was justified in believing Rice presented a threat to his life and in shooting him.

The two reports claim that Tamir's age and the fact that the "gun" was a toy are "irrelevant." But they make no mention of the fact that Loehmann and his partner failed to administer first aid to Tamir, and tackled and handcuffed his older sister when she ran to her brother's side to help him.

The release of the reports suggests that prosecutors don't expect that Loehmann will face criminal charges--or believe that he should. In a statement released after the the reports were made public, Subodh Chandra, a lawyer for Tamir's family, expressed outrage at the prosecutor's office and its actions. Chandra's words go to the heart how victims of police brutality and their families are often re-victimized by prosecutors more concerned with sending a law-and-order message than demanding accountability from killer cops:

The family now believes that the prosecutor's office has been on an 11-month quest to avoid providing that accountability. Any presentation to a grand jury--without the prosecutor advocating for Tamir--is a charade. To get so-called experts to assist in the whitewash--when the world has the video of what happened--is all the more alarming. These hired guns--all pro-police--dodge the simple fact that the officers rushed Tamir and shot him immediately without assessing the situation in the least. Reasonable jurors could find that conduct unreasonable. But they will never get the chance because the prosecutor is working diligently to ensure that there is no indictment and no accountability.

While Loehmann may have pulled the trigger, his fellow officers, the police command, prosecutors and politicians are aiding and abetting his crime. They would rather smear the memory of a 12-year-old child than send the message that police should be held accountable.

THIS IS a familiar story. After the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch made a show of announcing that a grand jury had refused to indict officer Darren Wilson on any charge--essentially making Wilson's case for him in the court of public opinion.

The end result was that a white cop who shot more than a dozen bullets at an unarmed African American teenager was not only let off the hook, but was portrayed by the prosecutor as a victim.

This is par for the course. From police officials to prosecutors, and judges to politicians, the idea of holding police accountable when they abuse the law is so rare as to be a foreign concept in the U.S.

That's because they are all guardians of a system that depends on the police to maintain the status quo. So police brutality is rationalized away as a cop who had no other choice; or an anomalous case of a "bad apple," not representative of police as a whole; or a temporary lapse in judgment caused by the pressures of a job that requires cops to "put their lives on the line." (Never mind that "police officer" doesn't even crack the top 10 list of most dangerous jobs in America.)

This is why "reforms" do so little to reduce police violence--because they do nothing to change the underlying role of police officers in protecting the interests of the state and capital. Violence and domination are a job requirement.

Consider Kathleen O'Toole, the Seattle police chief with a liberal reputation--who recently softened recommended discipline for an officer who pepper-sprayed peaceful protesters without provocation during a Martin Luther King Day march last year.

After Officer Sandra Delafuente was caught on video pepper-spraying activists, including Seattle educator, activist and SocialistWorker.org contributor Jesse Hagopian, Seattle's Office of Professional Accountability recommended that Delafuente be given a one-day suspension. Anyone who saw the video of the unprovoked attack would think that a light punishment. But it was too much for O'Toole, who has called herself "a champion for civil rights for decades." She instead changed Delafuente's punishment to an "oral reprimand"--less than a slap on the wrist for a cop who purposefully inflicted pain and fear on innocent people.

Questioned by Seattle City Council members, O'Toole called Delafuente "stellar" and "not a bad cop." She explained away Delafuente's behavior, saying the officer was emotional because a fellow officer had tripped and been injured that day, and police were overwhelmed on the protest.

As Seattle's Stranger reported, O'Toole failed to mention that police initially arrested two protesters and blamed them for the injuries to the officer who tripped and fell--falsely accusing them of assault until video from a bystander eventually cleared them.

That's the police attitude in a nutshell--cops deserve the benefit of the doubt, even when someone is injured or killed, but those who dare to question police authority (or simply happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time) are automatically suspect and at fault.

COUNT ON Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to provide an even more obnoxious example. At a meeting with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a group of mayors and police officials from across the nation, Emanuel blamed an increase in violent crime on police feeling paralyzed and second-guessing themselves over their actions during arrests, according to reports.

Why? Increased scrutiny as a result of the upsurge of protest against police violence. "They don't want to be a news story themselves, they don't want their career ended early, and it's having an impact," Emanuel reportedly said.

At a later news conference, Emanuel went even further:

Officers themselves are telling me about how the news over the last 15 months impacted their instincts: Do they stop or do they keep driving? When I stop here, is it going to be my career on the line? And that's an honest conversation. And all of us who want officers to be proactive, to be able to do community policing in a proactive way, have to encourage them, so it's not their job on the line or that judgment call all the time that if they stop, this could be a career-ender.

Emanuel's defense of the police is particularly stomach-turning coming after revelations of years of police interrogation abuses at a secret "black site" jail called Homan Square on the city's West Side--plus the acquittal on a technicality of Chicago cop Dante Servin, who, while off duty, fired into a crowd of unarmed people and killed Rekia Boyd.

There is only one conclusion: For politicians like Emanuel, "blue lives" matter far more than Black lives ever will.

That's true of Hillary Clinton, too. The frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination made a show of courting Black Live Matter protesters, including tweeting her sympathies to Tamir Rice's family after the release of the reports justifying Loehmann's shooting. Clinton also met with Black Lives Matter activists for what Deray McKesson, one of the leaders of Campaign Zero, called "a tough conversation about de-centering the police as the key mechanism to ensuring safety in communities."

Clinton and fellow Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders both will nod toward criminal justice reform in their platforms and be careful to get the words right about Black Lives Matter. But they represent a political party that promoted policies like the "war on drugs" that led to mass incarceration and the militarization of police--not to mention cuts in social programs that have plunged more Americans, disproportionately people of color, into poverty.

That's why it's troubling that McKesson could leave the meeting with Clinton saying, "In the end, I felt heard. I think that she listened. I left even more interested in the contents of the to-be released platform."

But campaign promises from a Democratic candidate, no matter their content, can't be allowed to obscure the party's record. This can only shift attention away from the protests that have put the politicians and police on notice.

WE DON'T have to accept the status quo. Rather than meetings with candidates--which are tailor-made for someone like Hillary Clinton to placate activists with lip service about a newfound commitment to reforming the system--there is a different way forward.

Protest has been key in cities like Baltimore in ensuring that, in at least a few cases, killer cops have been indicted. It has also forced the implementation, over the objection of top officials, of measures that are seen as reigning in the police.

In New York City, for example, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton announced earlier this month that New York police will now keep a record each time someone is "clubbed, slapped, punched, pepper-sprayed, tackled or Tased by an officer." That such records weren't kept before is appalling, and by themselves, statistics won't stop violence. But the point is that Bratton had to act--he "realizes when he needs to stay ahead of the watchdogs," the New York Times reported.

In a just world, no one would have to "imagine" what it would be like to "say no to an officer." It goes without saying, but saying no to a cop shouldn't result in being beaten, unjustly imprisoned or killed.

That's not "chaos," as Francesca Bartolomey called it. "Chaos" is a police officer pulling his weapon on a 12 year old, shooting first and not even asking questions. "Chaos" is an off-duty cop firing into a crowd of unarmed people, as Rekia Boyd's killer did in Rahm Emanuel's Chicago--and walking out of court a free man. "Chaos" is being Black in America and fearing that you or your loved ones will become a target for police because of the color of your skin.

Holding the thugs in blue accountable for their crimes would be one step toward justice, but it will only happen if we continue to mobilize at the grassroots--not rely on the courts, the prosecutors and the politicians who act as accomplices to police abuse at every turn.