From the Blog “Pax on both Houses” Alan Archibald
“Bad Black People.” Why Bill O’Reilly Is Wrong Even When He’s Right”
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“Actor Jesse Williams Gets Real About The Relentless Dehumanization Of Black Males”
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A Former Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Ferguson
I served as a deputy district attorney for a district of seven rural Colorado counties, from 1983 to 1986.
One of the first things I learned was how to tell the “good cops” from the “bad cops”. Police who regularly included a resisting arrest citation with virtually every arrest were invariably a “bad cop.” Any officer can encounter a suspect who physically resists arrest, but habitual resisting arrest situations are a sign that the officer is provoking the suspect. Or even worse, that the officer really enjoys taking a few whacks at the suspect. Policemen didn’t leave their dispositions on patrol either – good cops were friendly to me and did all they could to help me. Bad cops were nasty to me.
I would be curious to know if the officer who killed Michael Brown had a history of habitually issuing resisting arrest citations.
One cop was notoriously bad. He not only led the police in resisting arrest citations, he was especially nasty and insulting to me. His misconduct and even violence he inflicted on citizens who did no more than speed less than 10 mph over the speed limit or run a stop sign led to his being fired. The ex-officer got a job as a security guard in a large discount retail store, where one day he spotted a teen age boy walking out with a tee shirt for which he hadn’t paid. Instead of gently tapping the boy on the shoulder, he grabbed the boy by the throat, threw him against the wall, and beat the living daylights out of him. The chief of police called me and set up a meeting to discuss how we should charge his former officer, but we never had the meeting. That evening, he entered the supermarket where his estranged wife worked as a cashier, and he held her and other store employees hostage for 12 hours before surrendering. The SWAT team from Denver arrived but the police chief decided not to give the sharpshooters the order to shoot. Would they have shot you or me? Not surprisingly, it came out during the hearings leading up to his guilty plea that he had been beating his wife before their separation.
Another police officer, this one a very conscientious and dedicated officer, ran over a small child who had darted out in front of his vehicle during a high speed chase. None of us thought our officer to be culpable, but without even debating the issue we went right to court and asked for the appointment of a special prosecutor. The special prosecutor also agreed that the officer was not culpable – he had no chance to avoid hitting the child. But we were shielded from any criticism that we were covering up or protecting our own. It’s inexcusable a special prosecutor hasn’t been appointed in Ferguson.
Contrary to what some have written on Daily Kos, being a policeman is a tough job and a dangerous job, and most policemen, like teachers, are woefully underpaid. Of course, the degree of danger depends on where the officer is located. In Baltimore City, where I live, whole neighborhoods of mostly empty slums are controlled by well armed drug gangs, where shootings occur more nights than they do not. Every major city has a law enforcement memorial dedicated to the police men and women who have lost their lives in the line of duty. In Washington, D.C., you can visit the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, dedicated to law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty. From the website:
On average, one law enforcement officer is killed in the line of duty somewhere in the United States every 58 hours. Since the first known line-of-duty death in 1791, more than 20,000 U.S. law enforcement officers have made the ultimate sacrifice.
The name of each of these over 20,000 officers is carved into the memorial wall, and every year, in May, officers from all over the United States parade through the streets of Washington to the memorial, where the names of those who have died in the line of duty since the previous May are unveiled and dedicated.
When I served as deputy district attorney, a number of officers told me that the most dangerous part of their job was approaching the driver of a vehicle they have stopped. 99 times out of 100 nothing goes wrong, they serve the citation and both motorist and officer go on their way. But with so many guns these days and so many people carrying them, an officer never knows if that next traffic stop will be his or her last.
In short, with the danger, and the pay, I wonder why anyone would want this job.
We need the police. Those of us who have been victims of crime have called 911. We depend on the police to protect us and to limit crime. We are imperfect people. Remove authority, and some will revert to the worst possible behavior. The worst of anarchy would immediately prevail.
But a community needs to respect their police, and the police need to respect the community. This need for mutual respect has clearly broken down in Ferguson, if it has even existed since the racial composition of this community changed with white flight. Ideally, police men and women should be drawn from the community – the police should be part of us. Do the Ferguson police officers even live in Ferguson? I suspect few do.
And the donning of military uniforms, and the use of armored tanks, only separates the police from the community they are supposed to serve.
If the police forces of Ferguson are revamped to reflect the community they serve, if the police donate their military weaponry back to the National Guard or federal armed forces, if bad cops can be weeded out, and the remaining officers and new hires trained in community and interpersonal relations, then Michael Brown will not have died in vain.
NEWS:
The man killed by a NY cop, was habitual offender. He had been arrested several times for selling 75 cent cigarettes.
In my opinion there are actually two different problems here .. one is the occupation of Black America. That problem involves politics, business, and black leadership. The other is the militarization of the police. Like occupying forces in Iraq/Afghanistan, the police have a legal system that protects them. That system needs ot be broken.
Kinda reminds of the Seattle cop who wrote over 70% of the marijuana tickets issued by the entire Seattle police force. When you see that kind of thing happening, it tells you that cop is exploiting his job position to pursue his own personal agenda against a population he’s targeting. Cops like him should be removed from the streets and stripped of authority, even if what they’re doing is technically legal. The job of a cop is to serve society, not his personal beliefs and priorities. If we don’t enforce that principle, our police could easily become political police that target protesters or minorities … oh, wait … haven’t we seen this newsreel before?