Posted on 12/06/2014 11:49:46 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
With the recent decisions of no indictment involving the police officers responsible for the deaths of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and John Crawford to name a few, America could not be anymore divided in how we analyze these events through our own filters. Current poll data articulates that 65% of minorities believe there is a racial construct within our police and legal system which disproportionately affects minorities while reporting the opposite belief by White Americans at roughly the same percentage.
However, I would challenge future pollsters to parse out additional data on party affiliation when polling White Americans because it is my belief the over polling of conservative white Americans is creating a skewed result. Before we can develop solutions and move forward, we must first define the problem and acknowledge the symptoms in order to design and implement interventions to reduce risks. However, this process proves to be even more difficult due to our inability to discuss racial issues in a country whose prosperity and place in this world was made possible as a result of racial injustice.
It's been almost three years since the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, and the relevance of his death could not be more apparent today. I remember one of my white friends asking me “Why Trayvon Martin…what so special about him”? I didn’t take offense to the question because I knew it was coming from a place of “I really don’t understand, and I want to know what you think”. Translation: What is the significance of his death, and why is it so important to you?
I reflect on Trayvon’s death because it foreshadowed a future that struck fear into many black families across the nation. George Zimmerman, a man with no police authority and no legal right to follow or detain anyone, established a legal precedent lowering the bar of jurisprudence in the killing of a minority. Despite illegally following Trayvon with a firearm, Travyon was denied the right to fear for and defend his life as any other reasonable person would do.
In past case law, the legal test when looking at the actions of a suspect or victim asked the question “what would a reasonable person do under the same set of circumstances”. However, this standard was was not applied to Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman. In review of the facts, it would be reasonable to conclude that any person being followed by a stranger at night, first by vehicle then on foot, on their way home would fear for his/her life, and they should retain the right to defend his/her life as provided by law. I can only imagine the fear Trayvon felt wondering if he maybe leading a murder, rapists, or pedophile to his family’s home. Also, this case changed the trajectory of how police departments and prosecutors would respond to future cases demanding legal action as a result of public outcry. Without public protest, there would not have been a trial for a non-law enforcement/private citizen who killed another American citizen, and the bar is becoming even lower for seeking indictments in the rise of police involved homicides of unarmed minority American citizens.
The Trayvon Martin case came with a scary realization for many minority families. If a regular citizen with no police authority can gun down an unarmed person, what will this mean for minority interactions with the police? The Trayvon Martin case also set a new legal standard for the victim by establishing the good black person versus the criminal black person. Basically, if you are a criminal, have a criminal record, history of drug abuse or drugs in your systems essentially the police or anyone with presumed credibility can come to your home, neighborhood, work or retail store and shoot you dead with no questions asked.
The killer only has to articulate they feared for their life or that the dead victim threatened them. For some reason, the killers in these situations are not drug tested or histories released unlike the victim who can no longer speak or defend themselves. It appears one can murder without fear of having a trial and can be cleared by their local police department who may choose not to preserve any evidence on the slim chance there maybe a trial.
The media attention of the Trayvon Martin case and his treatment as a victim publicly exposed the persistent racial divisions between black and white America. If you can honestly substitute a white woman, a white man, or yourself as a place holder for “what appeared to be a big black man” describing Trayvon, proceed to add back in George Zimmerman following you in his car, then following you on foot with a gun, and still arrive at the same conclusion, then race is not a factor in how you analyze events.
Supporters of Officer Darren Wilson view Mike Brown as the antithesis of Trayvon Martin, and they argue Brown was a violent criminal seen on camera being threatening toward another minority then attacked a police officer inside of his patrol car. Let’s say for the sake of argument this version of events is true. The question we should be asking is whether Darren Wilson used deadly force on an unarmed fleeing suspect once his safety was no longer being threatened. After Brown fled from the police car, what actions could Darren Wilson have taken to apprehend the suspect and minimize the loss of life as well as the potential loss of life of bystanders from shooting a hail of bullets?
Police officers do not have the authority to shoot fleeing suspects who are not in the act of harming another person despite what prosecutors lead the grand jury to believe. There is a fleeing felon law provision which exist only for the Bureau of Prisons in apprehending escaped convicts. Police officers with proper training would have call for back-up, set-up a perimeter, called in the K-9 units to track the suspect, put out a city wide alert with description of the fleeing subject, and followed in his police vehicle to keep a visual of the suspect.
In this case, Officer Wilson was unaware of Mike Browns’ involvement at the convenient store, and his involvement resulted from Brown walking in the street. Police officers possess the ability to obtain warrants for a crime based on a suspects physical description and clothing without having a name. Officers are trained not to go on a lone pursuit after a suspect because it increases the risks of your safety being compromised. There were many tools and options at Darren Wilson’s disposal as police officer other than exiting his vehicle and immediately begin shooting at a fleeing suspect. What if one of the stray bullets killed an innocent bystander?
An officer who can not do a risk assessment under pressure and cycle through the options at their disposal should not be a police officer. Retreating, surveying the scene, and calling for additional back-up are all options available to officers who want to minimize risks to their own life and the loss of life for others. Officers jumping out of their vehicles without arriving at a safe distance to assess the scene with guns blazing fail to take measures to minimize risks to themselves and others. In my opinion, Darren Wilson was not operating in effort to apprehend a suspect because he had already chosen to use deadly force upon exiting his vehicle. Officers are not trained to wound when they pull their service weapon because they are trained to kill, and this tells me that Officer Wilson had already decided he was going to kill Mike Brown when he fired the first shot.
This case has become about what Mike Brown did to cause his death instead of whether Darren Wilson followed police procedure, whether the evidence corroborated his account after exiting his vehicle, and whether his actions were consistent with the discharge of his duties under the law and departmental policy. Instead, the prosecutors’ office focused largely on Darren Wilson’s account and eye witness testimony while leaving out pesky items such as forensic evidence and police protocol.
According to grand jury testimony, Wilson alleges there was a discharge from his weapon inside the vehicle which is not consistent to video recordings capturing the rapid succession of gun fire with a single pause midway through. The fact that prosecutors did not corroborate Wilson’s testimony against physical evidence supports the grand jury was convened to appease public outcry with no intention of ever taking this officer to trial.
Most police departments issue holsters with safety features that are impossible for a suspect to dislodge your weapon by pulling on it. With the level of gear displayed by this police department, it is hard to believe their officers were being issued inferior and outdated equipment. Did Wilson call out his stop of Brown and his friend to dispatch? Did Wilson have any communication with dispatch prior to Brown’s death? Where is the radio traffic and 911 recordings for the time of the incident? Where is Darren Wilson’s text messages and call logs following Brown’s death? Where were the shell casings found? Did he reload his weapon?
There should be no mystery surrounding how far Darren Wilson was from Mike Brown from when he made the first shot once exiting his vehicle to where the body laid to rest. Shell casing and their ejection trajectory would answer this question, but we will never know because apparently it’s becoming public policy that any action taken by a police officer should not be questioned.
In other cases such as with John Crawford and Eric Garner where there is video evidence disputing initial reports by the police, officers in these cases still escaped a grand jury indictment. George Zimmerman’s exoneration from murder has set the standard so low that it will be virtually impossible to prosecute a law enforcement officer with a history of abuse of authority and use of force who kills an unarmed citizen.
The prevailing arguments give the impression that the police should not be questioned because they are charged with protecting us or officer safety is an automatic defense that does not need to be corroborated by evidence and police protocol. Many Americans who do not see the institutional racism and constructs disproportionately affecting minorities either are unaware, want to ignore, or want to rewrite the American history documenting the utilization of police and the criminal justice system by the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) to harm black Americans.
According to documents on PBS,
The Klan grew quickly and became a terrorist organization. It attracted former Civil War generals such as Nathan Bedford Forrest, the famed cavalry commander whose soldiers murdered captured black troops at Fort Pillow. The Klan spread beyond Tennessee to every state in the South and included mayors, judges, and sheriffs as well as common criminals. The Klan systematically murdered black politicians and political leaders. It beat, whipped, and murdered thousands, and intimidated tens of thousands of others from voting. Read More
In the past, society was able to develop interventions because there was the acknowledgment of racial bias operating within our criminal justice system. What makes current times even more scary is the argument that we are in a post-racial society while dismissing the existence of racists and racial bias within police department and our legal systems across the country. Failure to implement measures, safeguards, and consequences within these systems will result in more loss of freedom and life that will disproportionately affect minorities. With the advent of for-profit prisons who are suing States for failure to maintain full capacity of their prisons, the current racially biased system is further incentivized to maintaining the status quo and resist change.
There is no doubt that progress has been made because black Americans no longer fear death for stating one’s opinion. However, progress is not an event rather than a continuum in which we must stay the course. We must always strive to be diligent in our assessment, reassessment, collection of data as well as establishment of benchmarks to prevent making the same mistakes of our tainted past. Even if you believe there is no racial construct within our police and criminal justice systems, you should still be advocating for the institution of measures to prevent it.
The poor collection of data on use of force, abuse of authority, citizen complaints, and mapping of high risk areas using GIS technology should be a priority in order to implement effective interventions that protect both citizens and officers. Body cameras are a great intervention tool to help protect both the officer and citizens in their interactions with the police, but it will also be ineffective if body cameras are not being used in the departments with the highest rates of incidents and complaints.
Deona Hooper, MSW
And two visits to the WH.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deonahooper
Projects
White House Summit on Working Families(Link)
June 2014
With Press access, I attended and covered the first ever White House Summit on Working Families with President Obama, Vice-President Biden, Dr. Jill Biden and First Lady Michelle Obama in attendance. In preparation for the Summit, I hosted a virtual Townhall with NASW-NC to identify concerns of social workers in the workplace. The White House Council on Women and Girls, the Department of Labor, and the Center for American Progress hosted the Summit on Working Families in order to identify the challenges and barriers women and families face in the workplace. The Summit convened business leaders, economists, community leaders, labor leaders, advocates, and ordinary citizens to discuss policy strategies and solutions that could improve the quality of life for many working families.
White House Briefing on Social Determinants and the Role of Social Work Education(Link)
September 2013
As Editor-in-Chief of Social Work Helper, I had the opportunity to attend the first ever White House Briefing for Social Work Education. The event was coordinated through the White House Office of Public Engagement with the Council of Social Work Education led by Darla Coffey, President. Presentations were given by federal officials from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), and the National Institute of Health (NIH).
The Martin episode just inspired more thugs to develop serious attitude problems
Kudos. I couldn't do that without gnawing off my own leg.
Even Al Sharpton doesn't mangle the English language like that.
They keep screwing up by making it racist. There has been an increase in police homicides of citizens as an overall trend - those who make it all about race keep the real issues from being exposed.
“If you put enough monkeys in front of typewriters, let them type randomly and wait a long enough time, articles like this will be produced.”
“To be or not to be, that is ... the ... gazornenplat.”
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Social Work Helper strive to assist providers of services with becoming more knowledgeable about the challenges and barriers consumers of services face. Also, we try to help those in helping profession stay current with today’s trends and provide information and resources to help them be more efficient in practice at the macro, mezzo, and micro levels. Most importantly, we hope to provide news, information, and resources to those who may be seeking knowledge or resources to help themselves or a loved one.
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There are at least five grammatical errors.
Fixed it.
After the Michael Brown robbery, the theft of cigars and the assault on the clerk, one must reflect and wonder.
Did the felon that attempted murder on Mr Zimmerman pay for the skittles and tea? Did Trayvon rob the store?
her masters degree was a part a secret reparations deal she wrangled?
From the article -— “In this case, Officer Wilson was unaware of Mike Browns’ involvement at the convenient store, and his involvement resulted from Brown walking in the street.”
Perhaps the writer should actually read the grand jury testimony. Officer Wilson testified as follows, “When I start looking at Brown, first thing I notice is in his right hand, his hand is full of Cigarillos. And that’s when it clicked for me because I now saw the Cigarillos, I looked in my mirror, I did a double-check that Johnson was wearing a black shirt, these are the two from the stealing. And they kept walking, as I said they never once stopped, never got on the sidewalk, they stayed in the middle of the road. So I got on my radio and Frank 21 is my call sign that day, I said Frank 21 I’m on Canfield with two, send ma another car.” -— State of Missouri v. Darren Wilson, Grand Jury Volume V, September 16, 2014, Page 209, lines 2-13.
I wish someone in the press would ask the race baiters two simple questions. Why would Officer Wilson call for police backup if he hadn’t identified the two people walking in the street as the suspects in the robbery? Why would an officer who intended to gun down a citizen innocently walking on the street call for backup and take the risk the backup unit would arrive on the scene to witness him murdering the suspect?
Idiots like this write articles making the police look like they are hunting blacks who are not committing crimes. WHEN YOU COMITT A CRIME AND YOU KNOW IT YOU CAN BET YOUR A## YOU MAY GET KILLED! what part of this dont they understand. I was in a verizon store with my wife and a state trooper came in to shop, afterward I asked my wife what do you think would have happened to me if I tried to take this officers gun from his side? answer? you would be dead.
I stopped reading right here.
It is obvious the author has no acquaintance with the truth.
Saint Trayvon’s death foreshadowed nothing except an insane black establishment over-reaction and a promise of more anytime a black man is killed while beating down another, or committing a criminal act (as in felony).
Nothing more, nothing less. If they want to blame someone, blame a Democrat for fostering an entitlement system that breeds contempt for its masters. Blame a culture that HAS to endorse single mothers on welfare, absent fathers with pants akimbo, and a hatred for anyone that actually earns what they get paid.
Wow. The stupid in this one is strong.
I’ll start listening to these bozos when they start getting riled up about blacks murdering people in disproportional numbers.
Hey, Stupid, Zimmerman had every right in the world to follow anyone in his neighborhood and he didn't detain Trayvon.
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