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”.