NYPD MURDERS - A POLITICAL OR SOCIETAL ISSUE?

Nothing but nothing can happen nowadays without being turned into a hot-button political issue. The brutal senseless murder of two policemen in New York has turned out to be no exception. A priori who in their right mind can support such a travesty or deliberately incite such an event?   Nevertheless all those, who thought there was nothing amiss in the investigative process of the police officers in the deaths of unarmed African Americans in Ferguson and Staten Island, accused all those, who had maintained that the proceedings were rigged against the black victims, of incitement to murder and pointed a finger at them saying, “Gotcha”. It seems that everyone has gone mad in this polarized society and no- one is looking at the real culprits - the easy access to guns for even the deranged and the devastating lack of psychiatric institutional facilities.

 MURDER IS MURDER NOT A TOP LEVEL CONSPIRACY TO KILL THE POLICE

Now as Jay H. Ell blogged last week nothing but nothing is what it is anymore it is always something else - even coldblooded murder. Murder of these two police officers by a demented individual is turned into a political assassination that had been spurred on by half of America in revenge for the deaths of unarmed black youths at the hands of the police. The leaders of this massacre, are the POTUS, of course, his Attorney General and the Mayor of New York. Not that any of them really inflamed the mob, as supposedly represented by this unhinged criminal, but in case you have forgotten the message that these highly placed instigators sent was code for murder. 

The accusations were cheerlead by the usual suspects. Fox News blogged, “The New York murders come after weeks of protests aimed at the officers and encouraged by the President. The man who killed the officers seemed, (Jay H. Ell’s emphasis), to be encouraged by the movement. Another complicating factor, two of President Obama’s Advisors on Law Enforcement, Bill De Blasio and Al Sharpton have spent weeks denouncing police misconduct”. (Jay H. Ell's emphasis and who has searched everywhere for a list of Obama’s list of Law Enforcement Advisors and cannot find any let alone the aforementioned two in prominent positions. In addition he searched high and dry and in vain for the statements where Obama’s “law advisors” had denounced police misconduct for weeks on end). 

Then one has former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, screaming from the rooftops that Obama, Holder and De Blasio are guilty of hate speech and anti cop propaganda without stating any specifics as to what they said or whether that falls within that treasonous rubric. Giuliani trotted out the usual smears and cant. He maintained that Obama had launched anti police propaganda.“The real problem is black on black crime” he glibly frothed, forgetting that white murders, are also mainly “white on white crime”. But respect for the facts is mattering less and less in today’s milieu. Perhaps Giuliani is thinking of another run for President?                 

RACIAL TENSION  AT A FEVER PITCH

The upshot of all of this is the raising of racial tension in the community to a level, according to NYPD Commissioner Bratton, not seen since the seventies. (In a CNN poll decidedly more African Americans than Whites thought the police were prejudiced against them and in a Rasmussen poll only thirty percent of Americans thought race relations were good or excellent down from forty - two percent a year ago. With regard to how the Rasmussen respondents saw the current state of race relations, roughly a third saw them improving with equal numbers believing they were remaining the same or worsening. Again a downward trend in relation to previous years’ statistics).  

Commissioner Bratton maintained that De Blasio had since the beginning of the year supported the Police Department and allocated an additional $400 million for training and equipment. He thought all this heaping of blame on the NY Mayor was unfair and regretted that the issue had now become partisan. The rift has deepened between the Mayor, who, ironically, has been more supportive and empathetic to the City’s employees than any of his predecessors, and the City’s Law Enforcement Agency. There has been tension between the Mayor and his Police Department ever since his campaign where he successfully championed for the termination of  the racial profiling “stop and frisk” policy of the NYPD.

Conflict is thus crescendoing, fanned by political lunatics from both sides. As a result of an investigation by the Daily Beast, the latter unearthed the fact that a small group, The New York Chapter of The Travyon Martin Organizing Committee have as their objective to ratchet up the anger against the police. Slogans such as “No Good Cops in a Racist System" and chants calling for police to be killed by this tiny irresponsible non representative minority are enough to wreak havoc in peaceful protests. In fairness to the protestors against the system no high profile figures or groups have attempted to rationalize or defend the murders. This is stark contrast to several high profile figures, who have laid the blame for this tragedy on Obama, Holder and, in particular, Mayor De Blasio.

There is little doubt that misperceptions abound and anger has been manifest in many arenas. These include the sports fields where for the first time African American athletes have demonstrated in numbers and police organizations, many who feel aggrieved and misunderstood at being smeared as murderers themselves, have responded angrily, en masse, at the protestors.

WHERE TO START IN THE HEALING PROCESS?

One does not know where to start righting the ship but playing loose with facts and then more than implying that Obama and his fellow travelers are agitating for the murder of policemen in this current climate is irresponsible at kindest. Or trying to change the narrative of this debate by saying that we have civil war on our hands where the police are under attack from the protestors is a gross distortion of reality. 

Firstly, let us make it quite clear that Obama, Holder, Sharpton and De. Blasio, like every sane American including members of the Brown family condemned the murders. De Blasio stated that out of respect for the slain policemen’s families the protests for police reform should be postponed till after their funerals. Secondly, to equate murders to protests attempting to rectify centuries old prejudice is despicable. Thirdly, it was acknowledged that there was a problem by the majority of the population when the Grand Jury announced that there was no probable cause in the Garner choking death. (Blog: Staten Island - Ferguson On Steroids). 

To spell it out - more African Americans are arrested and jailed for similar crimes than their white counterparts. Harvard Law Professor, Charles Ogletree, Head of the Charles Hamilton Institute for Race and Justice, as reported in the online Newsmax, maintained that whether we like it or not race is a factor in policing. He pointed to the statistics that showed far more blacks and browns died at the hands of the police than any other demographic. There is distrust and fear of police in black communities and the belief that excessive force is used in the arrest of blacks including gun fire. The Ferguson and Staten Island deaths resulted in widespread anger and the failure to prosecute the police in what appeared to be kangaroo court hearings designed to exonerate them, seemed to bring the issue to a head. (Blogs: Staten Island - Ferguson On Steroids and Ferguson - To Bad To Be True).  It was hoped that the tragedies would bring fruitful discussion between the police force, whom were acknowledged to play a crucial role in the community and the communities they serve.

VOICE OF SANITY - Kareem Abdul - Jabbar.

Perhaps the sanest voice in this whole sordid mess was that of Kareem Abdul - Jabbar, the basketball legend that is up there with Michael Jordan. He now is a celebrated author, filmmaker and educationalist. In a Time article he shared that both his father and grandfather were police officers, and maintained that, “The way to honor those who defend us with their lives is not to curtail liberty but to exercise it fully in pursuit of a just and peaceful society”.  Condemning the brutal murders that he believed should inspire nationwide mourning, he could speak firsthand as to what a difficult and dangerous profession the police force was. “We need to value and celebrate the many officers dedicated to protecting the public and nourishing our justice system. It is a job that most of don’t have the courage to do”.

Abdul - Jabbar then went on to argue that the deaths were in no way related to the nation wide protests against systemic abuses of the justice system symbolized by the recent deaths of Eric Garner, Akai Gurley or Michael Brown. He continued that the cynical attempt to lump the murders with the thousands of peaceful protestors was like focussing on a few looters in an attempt to delegitimize the protestors. He condemned the behavior of certain police unions such as the Sergeants Benevolent Association who tweeted that there was blood on Mayor De Blasio’s hands.  Former Governor Pataki’s criticism was the false whine born of Party Politics and he feared that these tragic murders have become a bargaining chip in the ongoing partisan battle. 

“The marches are not anti police as portrayed by some of the media  the police are not under attack, institutionalized racism is” was just one of the additional points Abdul - Jabbar emphasized. He likened the removal of bad apples in the police institution to the removal of sexually abusive priests in the Catholic Church which was no more an attack on Catholicism than the desire for an equitable system of justice system was an attack on the police force. He concluded by articulating, “This is the season and the time when we should be resolved to continue seeking justice together and not let those with blind biases, distract diminish or divide us”.

GUNS, THE MENTALLY ILL AND THE POLICE SHOOTING.

One of the factors that should be addressed in this cauldron of discord is how this unhinged known felon, who had a rap sheet a mile long and had threatened murder in the social media was able to have a gun. There are thirty thousand gun deaths a year in the USA and there is still no meaningful attempt to control who has a weapon. The gun lobby and the NRA has not even had to publicly condemn the murders and bleat that people kill not guns. Fat chance this individual would have had without a gun. It seems as if the gun debate is dead. Thirty police deaths in 2013 and 46 in 2014 were due to intentional gun homicides. There is no racial breakdown of the cops shot or the alleged perpetrators or the circumstances surrounding the shootings. This figure makes up a large slice of police mortality in the line of duty. 

Another neglected issue is the woefully few facilities that are available for the care of the mentally ill. There are a limited number of psychiatric beds and even those that are suicidal or homicidal languish in emergency rooms for days at a time till placement is found. The number of mentally ill in prison at the moment is legion. The Non Profit Quarterly reported that the prisons and goals have become repositories for the mentally ill. There are twenty mentally ill incarcerated to every one that is treated in an institution. 

These two factors - guns and mental illness played a far greater role in the shooting of the NYPD police officers than anything else and ironically no-one knows this better than the police. Ask them how much of their time is spent with the mentally handicapped since the Reagan Administration closed the psychiatric institutions in the facile belief that the psychotics could be managed in the community? They are arresting the mentally challenged for vagrancy as they make up a large percentage of the homeless, petty theft and crimes such as shoplifting on the one end of the scale and then have to deal with the homicidal and suicidal mentally unstable on the other. It is the police that are at the interface of this ever-growing under treated slice of society not only interacting with them in the community but forever supervising their transfer to the overworked Emergency Rooms. Often they are filling out endless petitions for their institutionalization as it is they who have witnessed their dangerous behavior. Jay H. Ell has seen the police in this role fulfilling this tedious and dangerous mission for society with patience, empathy and resignation.

If anything the police as a group should be campaigning for the control of guns and treatment of the mentally ill. They more than anyone else are in the frontline of their management and as sadly epitomized by the New York shooting incident, their destructive homicidal tendencies. They too would have a far easier task if the gun laws were seriously tightened and they were given the resources to regulate these. 

So let sanity return to this debate. There are really no simplistic solutions to this complex problem and for once can well meaning citizens sit around a table and get to the root causes of these societal challenges in all its dimensions and then act on the solutions? This instead of political finger pointing. As Professor Ogletree of Harvard’s Institute of Race and Justice, whose policeman sister was murdered, reminded, “The reality is that we have to respect how difficult it is for these officers”.

TORTURE REPORT WAS “AWESOME”

The much awaited Senate Torture Report was announced last week amidst the customary partisan storm. Nothing anymore is what it is, it is always something else. So let it be with the Torture Report which became known as the Enhanced Interrogation Technique, (EIT), Report. As Alice said in “Through The Looking Glass” things mean what I say the mean. Or as Shakespeare more elegantly put, “ What’ s in a name. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Thus giving prisoners enemas with pureed food, keeping them without sleep and or leaving them naked in the cold for days on end, keeping them bundled up in diapers hanging from the ceiling, threatening to rape them, their wives and their children, smacking them in the face or hitting them in the stomach, stuffing them into small containers for extended periods of time, depriving them of food, waterboarding them, for example, are all designated as conversation stimulants, not torture. 

Generally speaking there was ambivalence to what the CIA perpetrated with opinions ranging from unashamed support, (Cheney) through outright rejection (McCain) with the general consensus that America was “awesome.”  With regard to the “awesome” part, Jay H. Ell believes they are right for the wrong reasons.

CHENEY - ATILLA THE HUN

Now there were several responses to the heavily redacted 600 page summary of over a million pages of CIA reports. There was an argument that it was “one sided”. Jay H. Ell is unsure what that means. Hazarding a guess it means that just detailing all of these techniques means that you condemn them without giving the other point of view. The other point of view was as follows: To quote George Bush 43, in 2007, “We do not Torture” or his Vice President, Dick Cheney, “We didn’t torture we just did what was necessary”. 

So no-one is arguing that these abominations happened but they were EIT and or the post 9/11 times justified them. Cheney stands out because he is the only “other point of view” that wasn’t uncomfortable with what had happened and had no second thoughts. Even worse he was pure Cheney, as he explained to Chuck Todd of NBC - the hummus, pasta, sauces and nuts that were pureed and rectally administered was given for “medical reasons and wasn’t torture because it wasn’t part of the program’, the other techniques like endlessly boxing some one in a small coffin or hanging them from a ceiling was, “Just short of torture”, as to torturing over 20 percent of the innocent detainees, Cheney had no problem as long as “We achieved our objective to get the guys who did 9/11 and prevented another attack”.

AMERICA — THE “AWESOME”

The Fox political commentator Andrea Tantaros on the Fox News Show, “Outnumbered,” exploded and provided Late Night Comedy shows with their lead in video on the subject:

She blurted passionately, ”The United States of America is awesome, we are awesome. We’ve closed the book on it, and we’ve stopped doing it. And the reason they want to have this discussion is not to show how awesome we are. This administration wants to have this discussion to show us how we’re not awesome. They apologized for this country, they don’t like this country, they want us to look bad. And all this does is have our enemies laughing at us, that we are having this debate again.”

As ridiculous as Tantaros sounded, and she is on YouTube for all to see, she probably summed up how six out of ten Americans felt. Even though they support the CIA they don’t want to hear about it and it is the President and the Democrats who want to embarrass our “awesome” country. The fact that Obama and his administration tried to stop the report and Obama himself was very careful not to criticize the CIA, having stopped these practices almost the moment he came into office, he and his fellow travelers are supposedly to blame. 

DIRECTOR BRENNAN CONTRITE ON THE CIA TORTURE SHAMBLES

The current CIA director John Brennan conceded that the CIA had been unprepared to run the torture program. There were no trained interrogators, there was not any experience in “housing” detainees he maintained as mitigating factors. He countered the criticism that no reliable intelligence was obtained from the process by maintaining that no one really knew. He came across well in maintaining that one had to look at the CIA as a whole that, “ Did a lot of things right to keep this country strong and secure”. He assidiously stuck to the mantra that these were enhanced interrogation techniques and not torture basically pleading for the detractors to lay off.  

He did not deal with the shambles in detail that lead to a program that the government paid $80,000,000 to the designers alone. The two psychologists, Drs. James Mitchell and  Bruce Jessen did not have the slightest idea of what they were doing. When you realize that twenty six of the one hundred and nineteen tortured were totally innocent, that one of the detainees died and another couldn’t be charged in court because it could have been alleged that they obtained evidence by torture one wonders what lunatics were running this asylum. No -one knew whether they were getting anywhere with these techniques so they called in the same psychologists to evaluate the success of their program. Not surprisingly they concluded that their program achieved what it set out to do. In fact when after 2 months of harsh interrogation of Al Nashari, a suspect allegedly implicated in several terrorist events, the CIA interrogators concluded that he was telling the truth and in this and in other similar circumstances with detainees, the psychologists argued with the interrogators accusing them of being soft and exhorting them to continue.

The psychologists involvement created a division among the American Psychological Association’s, (APA), membership, as the APA, unlike the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, do not prohibit their members form participating in torture. Mitchell who participated in some of the waterboarding experiments defended his participation by arguing that the abuse of prisoners was preferable to Obama’s ongoing drone war. 

This has created quite a storm in the APA as detailed in James Risen’s book Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War. It appears that senior staff members of the American Psychological Association, the world’s largest association of psychologists, colluded with national security psychologists from the CIA, the Pentagon, and the White House to adapt APA ethics policy to suit the needs of the psychologist-interrogators. Now, the APA, has agreed to an independent investigation to be conducted by David Hoffman, a former inspector general and federal prosecutor.

DEBATE WITHIN THE CIA AND BUSH'S ADMINISTRATION ON TORTURE

Bearing in mind that the CIA had in 1989, concluded in a report sent to Congress that “inhumane physical or psychological techniques are counterproductive because they do not produce intelligence and will probably result in false answers,” it was not surprising that they were to come to the same conclusion pretty soon into the Al Quada interrogations

The Senate report revealed, that the CIA interrogators came to the identical denouement, In January 2003, 10 months into the secret prison program. The agency’s chief of interrogations sent an email to colleagues saying that the relentlessly brutal treatment of prisoners was a “train wreck waiting to happen and I intend to get the hell off the train before it happens.” He said he had told his bosses he had “serious reservations” about the program and no longer wanted to be associated with it “in any way.”

Jane Mayer in her book on torture in the Bush years, “The Dark Side”, chronicles several other instances of internal opposition. This included the CIA Inspector General John Helgerson’s serious and influential internal investigation. This led the Justice Department to “ask the CIA to suspend the torture program”—at least “until it could be reconciled with the law.”  Another quoted was Alberto Mora the general counsel of the Navy in 2004. Jane Mayer wrote that he tried to stop the torture program. He told his superiors at the Pentagon that the Bush torture policy violated the Geneva Conventions’ prohibition of torture and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” There were others such as Sergeant Joe Darby and Captain Ian Fishback and Phillip Zelikow, an advisor to Condoleezza Rice who submitted an “anti torture” report.  

There were obviously opponents of these practices higher up in the Bush administration as the injunction to keep this away from Colin Powell or “He would blow his stack”, would indicate. Attorney General Ashcroft was said to be against it. It was also reported that Bush when he was finally informed showed discomfort.

MC CAIN SPLITS GOP RANKS

In a nearly 15-minute speech from the Senate floor, Senator John McCain, in what was arguably the most robust defense so far of the report's release, referencing his term as a tortured prisoner of  war in Vietnam, rebuked his Republican colleagues and endorsed the Senate study's findings.

McCain praised Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) for a “thorough and thoughtful study of practices that I believe not only failed their purpose … but actually damaged our security interests. The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless,” McCain said.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The myth that torture has proven value is just that - a myth. The fact that this degrading program saw the light of day with not even the dignity of any proven merit and was under the control of two sadistic psychologists who had one objective in mind to justify the colossal amount of taxpayer fees that they were generating, is outrageous,

The lame rationalization that this was not torture insults the intelligence of all concerned. This was torture contrary to the US Federal Torture Act and the Geneva Convention that the US is a signatory to. The US has prosecuted enemy combatants for less in years gone by.

It would have been far more genuine to admit that post 9/11 one lost one’s head and in the aftermath anxiety and fear one desperately did anything. 

The ethical dilemma of any non humane behavior in war is faced everyday. One has to weigh up what one is fighting for. If striving for values and morality is in the mix then obviously one does not want to be accused of the very immorality one is waging war against. If one is guilty then one is on the slippery slope to hell. Our modern day enemies justify killing children, mutilating women and barbarism to further their aims. What if our two psychologists believed that doing that to them was the only way to conquer them? Would these tactics by our soldiers be justified?

Torture will be front and center in the next Presidential elections, Hillary who hasn't said much of anything as yet has called for legislation banning it. 

Ali Soufan, a CIA interrogator lead a very public battle against torture and maintained, "Imagine if we didn't go down that road. Imagine. We played into the enemy's hand. Now we have American hostages in orange jumpsuits because we put people in orange jumpsuits.”

Where America is “awesome” is that we are having this debate at all and this painful issue has not been hidden behind layers and layers of Official Secret Rulings that is the modus operandi in so many other countries. This is no thanks however to both the respective administrations involved. Bush, under whose watch this happened, tried to stop the report and Obama in his desire to cozy up to his Administration is not smelling like Shakespeare’s rose either.

BILL COSBY - ICON OR SERIAL RAPIST OR BOTH?

Once again with feeling society is faced with its myths, perceptions and beliefs shattered. This time there are damningly serious allegations against Bill Cosby, who is to the American value system as Apple Pie and Mother’s Milk are to the nation’s symbols of “goodness”. After a denial lasting decades and an extended period of bargaining, “Just say it isn’t so”, the pervasiveness of the internet and social media forced society to face the unthinkable - that fatherly figure who broke so many cultural barriers, smashed so many racial stereotypes and heralded and pioneered a paradigm of family dynamics, was allegedly, simultaneously wallowing in a life of victimization, sexual assault and abuse of his powerful position. To Jay H. Ell the incredulity of this reality was conveyed to him by the reaction of a twenty - five year old female fellow worker, who could have only seen his reruns, who simply refused to entertain the possibility and exclaimed, “Utter rubbish”.

 COSBY AND HIS THEATRIC PERSONA ARE ONE AND THE SAME 

This isn’t a question of an actor being separated from a role. Cosby made no bones about his thespian forrays. They were him. From his earliest comedian stand ups where he lampooned his upbringing to his celebrated Cosby Show and thereafter they were modeled on the great man himself. He reeked authenticity. His public persona, his charities, his involvement in his alma mater and unashamed, but often politically incorrect pronouncements, on the behavior of his fellow African Americans all cried out for the label of a wholesome, if not perfect, role model. There was a public hiccough when he refused to pay extortion money to someone who claimed to be a daughter. But he took responsibility for an affair with the daughter’s mother but “on principle” he bucked at paying blackmailers. He went through the publicity of a court case and the young lady was sentenced to a jail term and emerged with his dignity and honor intact. 

America mourned when his son Ennis was murdered in California. His drama had played out before them. Ennis’s low school grades and his father’s insistence that he was lazy was in real life and on the sitcom for all to see. Ennis’s subsequent diagnosis of dyslexia and Cosby’s and (Huxtable’s) acknowledgement that he had been wrong in labelling him all became part of every tv room. Ennis became the focus of the Cosby show as he was Cosby’s in real life. Eventually Ennis became highly successful as a teacher even gaining academic honors. When Cosby returned from California following Ennis’s tragic death he confided to the media that, “Ennis was his hero” and the nation’s tears were with him. Cosby and his wife Camille inaugurated a Foundation in his memory, “The hello friend/Ennis William Cosby Foundation which would address the needs of children with learning disabilities. “Hello Friend” was Ennis’s salutation. Cosby and his family were the part of the fabric of American folklore. It is thus impossible to separate his private life persona from his theatric persona.

THERE WERE PROBLEMS BUT NO-ONE IMAGINED THIS

Yes there were admitted problems with womanizing but he maintained that he was over them at the age of forty and growing old had helped. But no one was ready for the full blast of this expose. Maybe they should have taken note over the years as the allegations surfaced, amidst denials but everyone else were too in denial. Cosby was king of the tv media not only in America but throughout the world. He was so special so genuine so like how we would all like to be. There are now 26 women that have come forward with detailed accounts of how he drugged them and then raped or sexually abused them. Hour long programs have been devoted to the sordid saga on CNN and other channels with the accusers’ stories. 

There is an alleged pattern of behavior which cannot be interpreted as anything else but as serial demeaning, gross, and grievous criminal sexual assaults. These attacks were on victims who were in no position to lay allegations against an idol that that they had worshipped and believed that had their careers at heart. The graphic stories negated the image of the soft cuddly avuncular father figure and turned him into a fowl mouthed, unshaven, leering, smelly monster. One of the most vivid stories was relayed by Janice Dickinson, the famous model, who oozed the anger and pain she experienced so many decades earlier. She recalled the smell of his cigar and his bad breath as he forced himself on her - the vaginal and anal pain. Others spoke of his utter disdain for them after he had “had his way”. In all it adds up to the behavior of remorseless sociopath unrepentant over a life time.

There was an attack on his lawyer, Martin Singer, who the accusers maintained aided and abetted him in his charade. “Not only did they have to live with that humiliation, which had lingered on for decades, they were now being accused of being liars”. Cosby through all of this has remained mum. The official position is that this is all made up. His lawyer’s argument is that it begs credulity that so many women would keep quite for so long. In fact they haven’t. In 2005 a civil case was brought against him by a Temple University administrator. She had thirteen Jane Does lined up to corroborate her story.The Prosecutor in that trial maintains that he did not believe Cosby and wanted to proceed but he never had enough to prove his brief.  Another civil case is in the woodwork where he forced a fifteen young girl to perform a lewd sexual act on him but it is highly unlikely that it will see the light of day. Already Singer has discredited her saying that she attempted to distort $250,000 from Cosby and has lied to the court in that she claimed she only was aware of her psychological injury in the last three years when she tried to sell her story to a tabloid 8 years ago. Gloria Aldred, the Women’s Rights Advocate, is handling the latter’s case and she has called on Crosby, “To do the right thing”. Hardly a sign that the tough as nails Aldred fancies her chances. 

Another complainant Tamara Green says comments, (calling her a liar), made by Cosby’s representatives to The Washington Post and Newsweek this year “impugned” her reputation and exposed her to “public contempt, ridicule, aversion or disgrace. She has filed the suit to “restore her good name and reputation” her attorney, Joseph Cammarata, told People.

One could go and on but it is merely painful and senseless. Cosby may be able to knock off one or two stories but to go through twenty -six that have the same modus operandi with pill boxes and the like is heavy going. Better to face the issues that this provokes.

MUST COSBY RESPOND?

Cosby’s argument is that he need not give these grotesque allegations the time of day to respond, unless there is a court case and then he comes out firing on six cylinders. However, in Jay H. Ell’s humble opinion he has to. It is indeed true that he has never been charged, never even lost a civil trial but he is a public persona larger than life and he is confronting forty years of allegations. He needs to give a detailed rebuttal and as society is geared, explain why this varied bunch of women would want to lie about such a serious matter. He is not dealing with a court of law he is dealing with the court of public opinion.

Many are hoping that he will fess up so the process of healing can begin. Could they forgive him? These are not allegations of a succession of consensual affairs, inappropriate remarks or bogus reframing of behavior in retrospect, they are independent, non recruited allegations of  outrageous criminal behavior. It is hard to imagine that this is just going to go away or how to make it appear like one giant conspiracy. 

CAN WE SEPARATE THE ARTIST FROM THE ART PRODUCED

While Jay H. Ell has argued that art per se cannot hide behind the fact that it is art, (Blog: The Death of Klinghoffer - The Opera, An Abomination or Art), no one can argue that what Cosby has performed was anything but as pure as driven snow. He never degenerated to smut, vulgarity or foul language. This was all wholesome family fare at its best, both educational, (he obtained a PH. D. for the educational impact of his children’s shows such as Fat Albert), and transformative. So what he has performed has a validity in its own right. 

However, the immediate question is how can we ever look at a rerun of any of his famed sitcoms, his movies, his iconic commercials, his earlier one man stand ups that are timeless in their insights and humor and not conjure up the tarnished Cosby? One has to realize that actors and even composers have long since been separated from their art.  The proviso is that the art is pure which Cosby’s is. Besides bad old Wagner there are many that plied their trade on the stage whose persona are known not to match their scripted roles. Peter Sellers one of the greatest comedic actors of the twentieth century was known to be a miserable s.o.b. Billy Crystal famously said, when Sellers suffered a heart attack, that it was not possible, because he hadn’t a heart. The problem with Cosby is that he and his art are inseparable. Their source is Cosby himself and his supposed family life.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

So Cosby owes it to his vast following to explain or come clean. Already Netflix and NBC have spoken and cancelled contracts that would have kept the legend going forever. He cannot hide behind a legal screen in this day and age of public and social media. If his counsel carries on fuming he will alienate his client’s constituency even more. So unless Cosby responds he is a despised nonentity for the foreseeable future.

One outcome that nobody can take away - the impact that his transformative body of work has had on society. He tackled the issue of family dynamics head on and the content was valid for all regardless of race, creed or color. Whether you were rich or poor the same issues of limit setting, priorities and problem solving presented itself in your home and you could identify with the Huxtables. Even if the solutions were glib and parceled up too simplistically, there were solutions. In addition he pioneered the truth that the African American were not some different species. They, in the words of Shakespeare showed - "If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" 

This will be Cosby’s legacy what ever the outcome of these sordid allegations will be. Who knows one day the reruns may start again and it will be only of historical significance that the self same Cosby was accused of rape and sexual crimes. But as matters stand that is a long way off. 

So another sad end to a symbol of wholesomeness. The Bill Cosby who, over a half a century, has earned America’s highest civil award, The Presidential Medal of Freedom, The Kennedy Center Honor, Humanitarian and every conceivable Comedy Award, including the Mark Twain Prize, been named “Man of the Year” by various agencies, the recipient of Emmy’s and Grammy’s, honored by seventeen Colleges with honorary degrees and been listed as one of the most influential and greatest African Americans, has had his legend trashed. It is hard to dodge this reality and it is only fair to the victims that no one attempts to rationalize or ignore the evidence. A full hearing of it all that could conceivably exonerate Cosby but that won’t happen as he won’t let it. So he has to at least take responsibility for the inferences society make. He carries on pitifully in denial and his website has the banner, “Laughter is Universal - Bill Cosby - Far From Finished”.

It is almost trite to ask all to spare a thought for the Cosby family. For the sake of his daughters and his wife Camille, however in this take no prisoners social milieu, it is necessary. It is to say the least inappropriate to take swipes at them, especially Camille, implying enablement and gullibility. This too from so many sources that were given the heads up by complainants, way back, that they chose to ignore because that was the story then. How Camille and the daughters cope with this is their business. They haven’t invited comment by butting in. So leave them alone.

One can at least take some comfort in the fact that Tony Bennett is still standing!

STATEN ISLAND - FERGUSON ON STEROIDS

FERGUSON AND STATEN ISLAND

If Ferguson was to bad to be true, then Staten Island is Ferguson on steroids.(Blog: Ferguson - To Bad To Be True). The decision not to indict a white police officer, Daniel Pantalone, following the death of an African American suspect, Erol Garner, by a Prosecutor directed Grand Jury on Staten Island, New York has produced a sense of shock in the body politic at large. A Grand Jury system, that a study showed, only failed to indict 11 out of 162,000 cases, once again failed to indict a white policeman, who had been responsible for the death of an unarmed black man. While the circumstances were eerily similar to those of Ferguson, this time there was a video and a conclusive autopsy. 

The response from the public officials and the protests themselves in New York and Ferguson were in stark contrast to one another. And miracle upon miracle, there was a near consensus from all sides in the media and political aisle that this was an outrageous occurrence. Even Republican House Speaker Boehner conceded that there may be a need for hearings on the subject.

Again, it needs repeating the bar to indictment is low. One does not need to be a legal scholar to be aware, as the above statistics prove, “probable cause”,  that is grounds for an indictment, is not “ guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”. While in Ferguson the probable cause screamed out in Staten Island it screamed out on videotape. The black victim, Erol Garner, had his arms in the air early on and screamed eleven times, “I can’t breathe”. When the officer had him on the ground he pushed his face into the pavement. 

What is it, in a videotape showing a police officer using excessive force by means of a chokehold, a maneuver that is banned by the New York police department, coupled with a coroner’s report that death was due to a homicide and that the mechanism was a choke hold, that doesn’t add up to the possibility, that this was a crime, that is “probable cause”, to the Staten Island prosecutor, Dan Donavon?

 AFTER FERGUSON - THE DOCUMENT DUMP AND THEN NO DUMP FROM STATEN ISLAND

Much has happened since that fateful Monday night that Ferguson’s Prosecutor McCullough rambled his justification for the failure to indict Officer Wilson. First there was the document dump by McCullough. It initially achieved exactly what the wily public counsel wanted. The media as well as social media started arguing the merits of the case. He created the uncertainty, that he believed justified the non indictment, knowing full well that only a court of law decides whether there is guilt, “Beyond a reasonable doubt” and all the Grand Jury has to decide is whether there is enough evidence to proceed to a trial, “probable cause”. 

But there was more than enough in the document dump to reinforce the growing public opinion that this was a “fix”. Firstly, to expect a group of laypeople to make legal sense of this unfiltered mass of information, with virtually no direction from the prosecution is ridiculous on its face. Secondly, it was patently obvious that those that supported Officer Wilson’s story were barely cross examined while those who backed up Brown’s friend’s version were grilled.  

Another crucial detail was revealed in its entirety. At the beginning of the hearing the Ferguson Prosecution gave as a reference document a Missouri law that had been declared unconstitutional thirty years ago. That reference document also contained the prosecutor’s interpretation that a police officer had the prerogative to use as much force as he thought fit. This was the thus the standard that the lay panel viewed all the evidence till the very end when the Prosecution finally admitted that after “research” it had been revealed, that that instruction they gave the lay panel, did not jive with current law. It was too late as the panel had framed every witness and every exhibit over the nine weeks in terms of this unconstitutional go ahead for carte blanche police force. ( It is obvious that McCullough was taking no chances). Just one final observation, Wilson’s story when read in it’s entirety does not hang together at all in the light of all the evidence. 

So understandably in the light of the negative results of the Ferguson dump, Staten Island’s Prosecutor Donavon decided to give the transparency bit a miss. However he did let enough out of the bag - the of number witnesses interviewed, (50) and exhibits, (60) that lead the press to ask for more. Like in Ferguson how were the laypeople of Staten Island to make legal sense of all of this evidence?

While there were differences in the culture where these police homicides occurred, the one constant was the total subverting of the Judicial Process by the prosecutors. They both turned the proceedings into a sham with only one objective in mind and that was not defending the integrity of the State let alone the rights of the victim. No! Their modus operandi was to smear the victim and clear the possible perpetrator.   

OBAMA  AND OTHERS JUMP IN AFTER FERGUSON.

Obama while initially issuing a low key statement on Ferguson assembled a group of lawmakers, civil right leaders, faith leaders and law enforcement to meet the challenge of law enforcement in African American communities. He vowed that it would be “different this time”. 

"When any part of the American family does not feel like it is being treated fairly, that's a problem for all of us; it's not just a problem for some. It's not just a problem for a particular community or a particular demographic-- it means that we are not as strong as a country as we can be. And when applied to the criminal justice system, it means we're not as effective in fighting crime as we could be," the POTUS said. "This is not a problem simply of Ferguson, Missouri, this is a problem that is national. It is a solvable problem, but it is one that unfortunately spikes after one event and then fades into the background until something else happens."

Immediate outcome of his effort included a request for $50,000,000 for body cameras for police officers. An idea that has taken hold - although cameras are not the final solution as seen in Staten Island. Also the use of military equipment and weaponry in crowd control was to be investigated. A task force was initiated to bring light to the whole matter. In addition there will be an executive order banning racial profiling n domestic situations.

The consensus from those such as Al Sharpton and the Mayor of New York Bill De Blasio was that this was a constructive gathering. 

There appears to be a determination not only from Obama but Eric Holder, the African American Attorney General, and Bill De Blasio, the Mayor of New York who is married to an African American to navigate this dilemma once and for all taking into account the difficulties that law enforcement faces in its day to day duties. While these men are arguably the three most powerful men in the country and represent all Americans, they have an added responsibility to the African American community. Otherwise there will be despondency by that constituency that these leaders are just token and the lot of the ordinary African American citizen is still hopeless. 

Apparently Obama wants as one of his legacies that the youth of that community can realize that they can reach for the sky and do what he did. The euphoria that accompanied the Obama election has long since faded and the myth that his election had heralded a post racial society has long since dissipated. Obama has intervened in the racial debate rarely. One of the occasions has been commenting on the death of Trayvon Martin. (Blog: Trayvon - All  you Need to Know). He, then in an impassioned speech, claimed that Trayvon could have been his son or could have been him. With Ferguson and its aftermath he is restarting the debate with a vengeance.

RESPONSES BY POLITICIANS IN NEW YORK AND MISSOURI AND THE EFFECT ON PROTESTS.

The approaches by the Mayor and Governor of New York and their counterparts in Saint Louis and Missouri were poles apart and resulted in differing behaviors by the protestors in their respective communities. In Missouri the Governor called in the National Guard prior to the announcement of the Grand Jury’s finding. Eventual crowd control found the police in military gear. Missouri Governor Nixon and Saint Louis Mayor threatened that they would not tolerate lawlessness and they would come down hard. Not surprisingly mayhem followed the Prosecutor McCulloch’s provocatively timed and insensitively worded announcement. 

In contrast the theme of New York Mayor De Blasio’s message was “Black and Brown are entitled to live”. He appealed for non violence in the protests and that was the outcome.The police were laid back and mainly involved in crowd control with limited arrests. New York Governor Cuomo only chimed in much later and then not with threats to the protestors but rather looking to investigate police practices. While there were country wide protests for Ferguson the outpourings following the New York Garner death were compared to the Vietnam protests of the sixties. The protests were once again countrywide and were “rainbow” with nearly half the marchers being brown and white. 

This outpouring of protest and togetherness will be ignored by the powers that be at their peril.

THE OFFICERS INVOLVED  AND THE POLICE  ACTIONS IN FERGUSON AND STATEN ISLAND.

The police were understandably miffed that, all of a sudden, their difficulty in maintaining law and order was being totally ignored. Their initial response was that they had been thrown under the bus.To a certain extent they were doing what they were told. It is unfair to scapegoat the police, they are employees of the society they operate in. They reflect the culture and the mores of their environment. Apparently the Staten Island police have been told to clear up the likes of the cigarette sellers. Their performance parameters included the number of arrests. There are bad cops like there are rotten apples in every discipline but their overall behavior has to examined in the light of the community they serve. The Community needs to take responsibility as well.

NYPD Commissioner, Bill Bratten, made it quite clear that his force would not get out of hand, “There will be no Fergusons here”. He stated that they would be investigating the Officer Daniel Pantalone's behavior. The NYPD has a pretty well integrated force and has not the same problems that St Louis has. 

Officer Bruce Wilson of Ferguson resigned doing himself and everyone else a big favour. His departure was one of the protestors’ demands. The local police backed him and it would have created much tension had Ferguson moved to remove him. He collected at least a cool million dollars over the shindig including a very high six figure appearance fee to appear exclusively on ABC’S George Stephanopoulis’s, “Good Morning America”. He never said much and was “lawyered up”. He knows this aint over yet. In addition to well meaning citizens contributing to his defense, the Klu Klux Klan were big donors.

The Saint Louis police did not come out of this well at all. They objected to five African American St. Louis football players raising their hands, as thirteen of the 15 witnesses said Brown had, at the beginning of a football game. The police demanded an apology from the National Football League. This is an impertinence second to none. The police do not own these players who are entitled to make their feelings known. Their arrogance speaks volumes as to where they are coming from.

NYPD, on the other hand, do get it and the City of S. Louis and its hamlet Ferguson together with the State of St. Louis have a long way to go. The publicity chief of the NYPD tweeted that they would rebuild trust under the hashtag “We Hear You”

However, it needs repeating, and it has been, even by Al Sharpton, that the majority of the police are doing the best they can to serve the communities they patrol. They are in many instances the scapegoats of the prevailing culture they operate in as a cursory examination of the two scenarios of Ferguson and Staten Island show.

TWO MORE AFRICAN AMERICAN DEATHS AT THE HANDS OF WHITE POLICE. 

The shooting of a twelve year old in Cleveland where a Justice Department  investigation has just found that the CPD routinely engage in “excessive force”.

Just in case this narrative isn’t clear enough two other police deaths on unarmed black men came to the fore in the past week. It has long been the cry of the black community that this is an every day occurrence that no one takes notice off and these events certainly lend validity to their claim. 

One episode was in Cleveland, where a twelve year old boy, Tamir Rice had been shot. The initial story, supposedly backed up by a videotape, was that the child threatened all and sundry with what appeared to be a gun. However, it subsequently transpired that the Police Officer was informed that there was a child in the park with probably what was a toy gun.The videotape shows the child playing in the park throwing a snowball, the patrol car driving up to him, the officer disembarking from the car and unceremoniously shooting the victim within two seconds of his arrival. This narrative differed markedly from the initial version that had maintained the white officer had repeatedly warned the child prior to shooting him. Not long after the first the customary smearing of the victim’s family started. (You can hardly defame a twelve year old). The fact thatTamir’s father was allegedly convicted of domestic violence became known pretty fast. 

The initial explanation from the police department had one caveat that raised  eyebrows - the twenty - six year old policeman that shot Tamir was characterized as a "rookie". Jay H. Ell wondered at the time why that was relevant. Well it turns out that, Defendant, Loehmann was let go from his last job, in a nearby police department, as he was emotionally unstable. He also was reported to be a poor shot!

Th Rice family apparently have lost faith in the normal judicial process and have already filed a Civil Court wrongful death suite. 

To add insult to injury a twenty month investigation just completed by the US Justice Department has found that Cleveland Division of Police (CDP) officers "engage in excessive force far too often, and that the use of excessive force by CDP officers is neither isolated, nor sporadic.” The federal investigation was prompted by several highly publicized police encounters, beginning with the deaths in November 2012 of two unarmed men who were fatally wounded when police officers fired 137 shots into a car at the end of a high-speed pursuit. 

As a result of the investigation, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson signed an agreement with the Justice Department to have a court-appointed monitor oversee reform. Mayor Jackson was among those who asked the Justice Department to step in. So society was taking responsibility.

Phoenix shooting of a black unarmed alleged drug dealer by White Police Officer.

Details are scanty as this one is hot of the press. The officer believed that in a scuffle with 34 year old, Rumain Brisbon, he felt a gun and shot him dead. The merits and details are unclear other than the victim was allegedly observed to be selling drugs. A jar of marijuana and some prescription oxycodone prescription pills were found on the deceased.

Both these events have added fuel to the fire, igniting even more protests.

THE NATION IS BEGINNING TO GET IT

As the POTUS has said that, “When any part of the American family does not feel like it is being treated fairly, that's a problem for all of us”. Let us put it another way:

How many whites are shot dead when their initial alleged crime was jaywalking, selling cigarettes illegally, playing in the park with a toy gun or selling marijuana, or prescription drugs?

How many whites are fearful every time they see a policeman or police car?

Why is it that blacks are arrested and convicted serving jail terms for minor offenses in astronomically higher rates than whites? They are serving jail terms for offenses whites aren’t even being arrested for.

How many white parents, other than Mayor De Blasio whose son is African American, repeatedly warn their sons to be careful around police persons, not to make quick movements, even run, or not to take anything out of their pockets or touch their waist?

How many white parents are rather only to glad that there are police officers around their children playing in the park rather than being terrified?

In short the black community not only do not trust the police they perceive they are victimized by them.  All this is real and is backed up by the incarceration statistics and by an allegedly unacceptably high number of shootings, fatal or not, by police officers on unarmed black men.  For what ever reason there are no national statistics of police shootings. America has the highest incarceration rate in the world and have currently more blacks in prison than apartheid South Africa did. 

There are still those that rationalize away. For example, they argue that if they didn’t resist arrest this wouldn’t happen. Even if that was true it is important to remember that if the alleged criminal had been white he wouldn’t have perceived that he had been told, “Get the f..k out of the middle of the road” and then be allegedly backed into by a police car. It is highly unlikely if a down and out white man was selling cigarettes in a white suburb he would have been considered such a risk to society that five officers would have used force to arrest him, one with what the coroner says a fatal illegal chokehold. Can a white parent for one minute imagine that now he has to warn his 12 year old not to play in the suburban park throwing snowballs with his toy gun in toe?  Or would a white petty drug dealer with marijuana and oxycodone, on the say so of two bystanders, be put in the situation where deadly force had to be used to apprehend him?

FINALLY

Finally, there is a conversation and an acknowledgment and understanding as to the African American perception of law enforcement. It is being seriously debated that police shooting deaths should not be investigated by local prosecutors as they have formed an essential relationship with the police. Surely no more evidence is needed that that system is open to flagrant abuse. 

Jay H. Ell believes that the police to a certain extent are the scapegoats of certain segments of society and are only doing their bidding. There is some validity to their claim that they are being thrown under the bus. The societies that they function in need to learn that “Black and Brown People Are Entitled to Live”. They need to accept that so that their community's law enforcement can become a reflection of that value system. 

Jay H. Ell, forever the optimist, believes that the publicity and discussion of these tragic events will set into motion change that will be beneficial to all Americans. Having just witnessed an evocative rendition of George Gershwin’s 1935 Porgy and Bess at the Chicago Lyric Opera where law enforcement is portrayed as regarding the “Negroes” as non human, Jay H. Ell sadly reflects that, for some, the attitudes have barely changed. He does realize that it takes forever to change behavior and attitudes but has to take strength from Mandela’s dictum that it is a “Long Walk To Freedom”.

He fervently hopes that certain segments of the political spectrum will not look to short term gain and give us the hackneyed cliches such as, “These lazy, immoral, welfare bums are getting what is coming to them”.