Ronnie on Politics

Some of those leaders point their fingers at racism as the leading cause of police brutality, using high profile cases such as the shooting death of Amadou Diallos in New York to argue their case. Amadou Diallos, an unarmed, 22-year-old West African immigrant, was gunned down by four police officers, who were reportedly searching for a rape suspect, as he stood outside his Bronx apartment (Ards 1). The officers who shot and killed Diallos were members of the city’s elite Street Crime Unit, whose motto is “We own the night” (Chua-Eoan 2). Chau-Eoan explains that “in 1997 and 1998 [the SCU] stopped and searched 45,000 men, mostly African Americans and Hispanics, in order to make slightly more than 9,000 arrests (2).

Howard Safir, New York City’s police commissioner, denies that police officers discriminate against blacks (Rogers and Campbell 2). He was quoted by Rogers and Campbell as saying, “I don’t decide where crime takes place, and it just so happens that the majority of crime is in communities of color” (2). Not all police officers would agree with Safir. According to a survey conducted by the National Institute of Justice Research, “[W]ell over half of the black officers surveyed (57.1 percent) thought that police officers were more likely to use physical force against blacks and other minorities than against whites in similar situations” (Weisburd and Greenspan 7).

Several shootings of black men in June 1999, by black police officers in Chicago, have forced the nation to rethink this issue. Abraham McLaughlin, a staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor, feels that “the Chicago cases raise questions about whether diversity in police ranks can help dissolve mistrust between civilians and cops” (3). In another incident on December 1, 1998, a black motorist, Bernadette Jeremiah, and her paraplegic fiancé, Elize Pierre-Paul, were beaten by Brooklyn police during a traffic stop (Noel 1). Two black officers were also present during the beating. (Noel 2). Jeremiah stated that one black officer, a female, “Kicked me, punched me, grabbed me by my ponytail, and slammed my head [against the ground] until I nearly shit on myself” (qtd. in Noel 3).

Some police brutality isn’t just the result of racism on the part of the officers but is caused by the overzealous, militaristic culture of some police departments (McLaughlin 1) “If you’re training cops to think they’re in a war, including a drug war, you’re going to get atrocities,” says Joseph McNamara, a former police chief of San Jose, California (qtd. in McLaughlin 2). Some experts say that calling it a war fosters an unhealthy us-versus-them mentality, especially with minorities (McLaughlin 2). To fix this problem, Nicholas Pastore, a former police chief, feels that “departments nationwide need to eradicate the culture of intimidation that’s so common today” (qtd. in McLaughlin 2). McLaughlin points out that police officers need to get to know the people on their beat because “It’s simply harder to shoot people you know” (McLaughlin 2).
Although racism remains a serious problem, and a contributing factor in police brutality cases in America, it is by no means the only factor involved. It’s only recently that it has put on another face.

Many of the brutality cases in the past involved officers who were getting revenge for attacks on themselves (McNamara 1). “Today,” according to Joseph D. McNamara, a former Police Chief of San Jose, Calif., and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, “there is frequently an element of police gangsterism” (1). One such case involved officers of the Los Angeles Police Departments Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, or CRASH, unit. After his arrest for stealing six pounds of cocaine from the downtown police headquarters, CRASH officer Rafel Perez “admitted that he and his partner had shot an unarmed, handcuffed 19-year-old and planted a rifle on him to cover it up” (Cohen 1). Perez also told of another CRASH officer who “shot a suspect repeatedly with a beanbag shotgun, a nonlethal weapon used to knock suspects to the ground, for the fun of it” (qtd. in Cohen 3). Other incidents described by Perez included; planting drugs on suspects; dropping off a gang member, naked, in another gang’s turf, and covering up unjustified shootings (Cohen 3). This is not an isolated case.

On the evening of February 24, 1991, Arthur Colbert, a black man, got lost while looking for his girlfriend’s house in a Philadelphia neighborhood (Kramer 1). He was stopped by two police officers who arrested him because he looked like a known drug dealer (Kramer 2). Instead of transporting Arthur to police headquarters, he was taken to a run-down crack house where he was beaten in an attempt to get him to admit that he was the drug dealer police were looking for (Kramer 2). After six hours of terror he was released with the warning, “Let us catch you around here again . . . and we’ll kill you” (qtd. In Kramer 2)

Police brutality is not limited to Los Angeles and Philadelphia. According to Robert H. Kirschner of the International Forensic Program, Physicians for Human Rights, DePaul University College of Law, “[P]olice brutality is a daily occurrence across the USA, most of it inflicted in the form of a few extra blows, punches, or kicks during arrests” (2). He goes on to say that “When brutality occurs at a police station, the assaults are more likely to inflict the severe physical and mental pain that constitute torture” (Kirschner 2). That’s exactly what happened to an immigrant named Abner Louima, who was arrested in New York City on August 9, 1997 for assaulting a police officer (Kirschner 2). Abner was beaten on the way to the police station, and after arriving, “[He] was taken to the bathroom and sodomised with a toilet plunger or similar implement . . . it was then shoved into his mouth, and broke several of his teeth” (Kirschner 2). The assault charges against Abner were later dropped.

Rogue cops, who share a fermenting contempt for the people, band together to cover one another’s crimes (McNamara 1). McNamara adds that “This wouldn’t happen if some cops didn’t believe they had a mandate for such behavior” (1).

This mandate comes in the form of a declaration of war on drugs and crime issued by politicians in response to public fear and the subtle indications by supervisors to officers that the sort of “extralegal tactics” common to quality-of-life policing are acceptable (McNamara 1). This declaration of war may be the cause of contempt shown by many rogue cops. It is common in war to dehumanize the enemy, and all wars produce atrocities (McNamara 2). McNamara feels that, “It [is] constantly necessary to emphasize to the officers that [they are] peace officers, servants of the community –not soldiers in a war against crime and drugs (2).”

Politicians need to send a clear message that police brutality will not be tolerated any more than will be crimes committed by our citizens.

Some citizens are placing the blame on a policing technique commonly called “zero tolerance” policing. Richard Lacayo and Jyl Benson explain, “The zero-tolerance policy encourages police to focus on quality-of-life violations—public drinking, lewd behavior, loud music—as a means to discourage more serious crimes . . . . Critics of the strategy say that this practice also encourages cops to sweep neighborhoods and harass ordinary citizens for minor offenses and opens the way to an us-vs.-them mentality” (Lacayo and Benson 3).

Some cities have taken action to prevent incidents of police brutality. One method is to review the records of police officers in an effort to identify and train problem officers (Lacayo and Benson 3). Another method is to increase the numbers of minority officers on the force to produce, “. . . a rank and file less likely to see a minority community as a hostile planet.” Still another is to create oversight review boards comprised of citizens from the community. Many citizen oversight review boards lack the tools, such as subpoena power and an adequate staff, to conduct investigations into allegations of abuse (Lacayo and Benson 3). Jack Maple, a consultant and former deputy commissioner for operations with the New York Police Department and author of the book The Crimefighter feels that police departments need more transparency (2). “People should be able to see what the latest local crime patterns are and to ask the precinct commander why their neighborhood doesn’t get the same protection others do” (2).

However, training, transparency and oversight boards are not the only solution to this problem. Cities and police departments need to recognize that police brutality does exist and a clear message must be sent, from the top down, that brutality will not be tolerated. In addition, leadership within the police departments and city governments need to recognize that they are not at war with the population and that they are here to serve and protect the public, not to beat and harass them. Only then will we ever see this problem solved.


Works Cited

Ards, Angela, “When Cops Are Killers” Nation 8 Mar 1999:6. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 11 Jan 2001 .

Chua-Eoan, Howard, et al. “Black and Blue.” Time 6 Mar 2000:24. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 11 Jan 2001 .

Cohen, Adam., et al, “Gangsta Cops.” Time 6 Mar 2000:30. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 11 Jan 2001 .

Dinkins, David N. “Quality-of-Life Policing Diminishing Quality of Life For…” Crisis July 1997:10. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 18 Jan 2001 .

Kirschner, Robert H. “Police Brutality In The USA.” Lancet 350 (8 Nov 1997):1395. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 18 Jan 2001 .

Kramer, Michael. “How Cops Go Bad.” Time 15 Dec 1997:78. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M. Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 18 Jan 2001 .

Lacayo, Richard, and Jyl Benson. “Good Cop, Bad Cop.” Time 1 Sep 1997:26. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M. Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 18 Jan 2001 .

Maple, Jack. “Police Must Be held Accountable.” Newsweek 21 Jun 1999:67. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M. Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 16 Jan 2001 .

McLaughlin, Abraham “When Cops, Not Just White Ones, Kill.” Christian Science Monitor 23 June 1999:3. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 16 Jan 2001 .

McNamara, Joseph D. “A Veteran Chief: Too Many Cops Think It’s a War.” Time 1 Sep 1997:28. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M. Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 18 Jan 2001 .

Noel, Peter “Rude Cop Scenario.” Village Voice 29 June 1999:27. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M. Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 11 Jan 2001 .

Rogers, Patrick, and Julia Campbell. “Lethal Force.” People 19 Apr 1999:54. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOHost. M.M Bennett Lib., St. Petersburg Junior College. 11 Jan 2001 .

Weisburd, David, and Rosann Greenspan. United States. “Police Attitudes Toward Abuse of Authority: Findings From a National Study.” National Institute of Justice Research in Brief May 2000. SIRS Government Reporter. CD-ROM. SIRS. 11 Jan 2001.