10631: BHM 2023—City Of Miami Police.

 

Miami-based 7 News WSVN reported that local police unveiled a new cruiser to honor BHM 2023 (depicted above). Um, will invoke the right to remain silent. But Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs had much nicer rides.

 

Miami Police unveil new cruiser in honor of Black History Month

 

By 7 News WSVN

 

MIAMI (WSVN) – City of Miami Police unveiled a brand-new police car in honor of Black History Month.

 

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Miami Police Chief Manuel Morales were on hand at Thursday afternoon’s unveiling, as they came together to remember and honor history.

 

“This is a beautiful collaboration to commemorate Black history and Black History Month and the history of African Americans and our police department and our city,” said Suarez. “This is Black history.”

 

The moving moment took place at the Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum along Northwest 11th Street.

 

12904: Driving While Black In B&W.

The New York Times published an in-depth report titled, “The Disproportionate Risks of Driving While Black.”

12311: Talk About TalkAboutTheTalk.

TalkAboutTheTalk presents its message from The Brotherhood/Sister Sol in a powerful style, ultimately asking the question, “Do we want one America or two?” On the other hand, the video was produced by Saatchi & Saatchi in New York, a White advertising agency that exemplifies the two Americas created by an industry where exclusivity reigns and diversity is a dream deferred and denied. Granted, the Saatchi & Saatchi team included Sheldon Levy, a top-flight professional who deserves recognition and respect. Yet it’s difficult to separate the contradictions posed by these types of efforts.

12289: Stop Cop Abuse Of Black Men.

From The New York Times…

We Must Stop Police Abuse of Black Men

By Eric L. Adams

I CAN recall it as if it were yesterday: looking into the toilet and seeing blood instead of urine. That was the aftermath of my first police encounter.

As a 15-year-old, living in South Jamaica, Queens, I was arrested on a criminal trespass charge after unlawfully entering and remaining in the home of an acquaintance. Officers took me to the 103rd Precinct — the same precinct where an unarmed Sean Bell was later shot and killed by the police — and brought me into a room in the basement. They kicked me in the groin repeatedly. Out of every part of my body, that’s what they targeted. Then I spent the night in Spofford juvenile detention center.

For seven days after that, I stared into the toilet bowl in my house at the blood I was urinating. I kept telling myself that if it didn’t clear up by the next day, I would share this shame and embarrassment with my mother, although I could never bring myself to start that conversation. When clear urine returned, I thought I was leaving that moment behind me. I never told anyone this, not even my mother, until I was an adult.

As I attempted to put that shame and attack on my manhood away, new horror stories kept compelling me to relive those memories: the nightmare experiences of Randolph Evans, Patrick Dorismond, Abner Louima and countless other young men have reminded me of my own secret. Think of all the secrets that young men of color are hiding. How many are concealing some dark truth of the abuse they endured, and what is that darkness doing to them?

In order to finally bring this darkness into the light of day, our nation must address the foundation of this crisis. That starts with acknowledging that the training taught in police academies across the country is not being applied in communities of color. After six months in the police academy, that instruction is effectively wiped out by six days of being taught by veteran cops on the streets.

I learned this myself firsthand. I didn’t want any more children to go through what I endured, so I sought to make change from the inside by joining the police department.

Hours after coming out of the police academy, I was told something as a new rookie officer: You’d rather be tried by 12 jurors than carried by six pallbearers. In my impressionable first days, I saw officers leave the precinct every day touching the lockers of their fallen brothers. They started their shift on the defensive, thinking about protecting themselves, as opposed to the communities they served, regardless of the complexion of those communities. One of my white fellow officers once told me that if he saw a white individual with a gun, he took extra care for himself and the individual. When he saw a black individual with a gun, he took care only for himself.

These are the lessons to which I was exposed, and the reality of what policing communities of color has been, not just in New York City but across America. There is a legacy of inequity that did not just appear overnight, but was carved into the culture of law enforcement over decades.

There is reluctance on the part of police leadership, which has long believed in the nightstick and quick-trigger-finger justice, to effectively deal with officers who have documented and substantiated records of abuse. These individuals need to be removed from the force. That is an essential component of the larger response we must have to address this history of abuse.

We cannot continue to approach policing in an antiquated fashion, and that certainly includes technology. Technology has been used as a crime-fighting tactic, but not as a tool to determine what happens during a police action. New York City has taken the right step in putting body cameras on police officers, but what about cameras on guns themselves? While I was a state senator, I introduced a proposal to allow such devices, which would not interfere with the function of the weapon; this proposal deserves to be revisited. In fact, we can go further, with cameras on police vehicles as well. Not only will technology shine a light on the darkness of these police encounters, it will be significant in advancing community trust that accountability does in fact apply.

Equally important, especially in the wake of what has taken place after the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, is reform to our grand jury system. Grand juries were established in England in the 12th and 13th centuries, a vestige of a time when people needed to be protected from unfair prosecution from the king and others. There was a necessary element of secrecy — one that need not apply in cases involving police misconduct.

Open, preliminary hearings in court can and should determine if a case should be stepped up to a trial. Additionally, the handling of police shootings should be wholly separated from local grand juries. These bodies cannot handle cases involving local police officers on whom they rely every day.

Special grand juries should be convened for police-related incidents, and independent agencies must gather evidence even before they convene, at the time of police encounters where a death has occurred; the evidence gathered at that moment is the evidence that will shape whether there is an indictment, as well as whether there will be a fair trial based on the facts.

All of these ideas need to be moved forward under the leadership of our president, our governors, the mayors of our major cities and our law enforcement leadership. If we fail to take advantage of this moment that history has laid on our doorstep, we are doomed to more abuse, more division and more chaos.

When my son was 15, he was stopped by the police in a movie theater for no apparent reason. He showed his ID and explained that his father was a retired police captain and a state senator. The response was “So what?” It doesn’t and shouldn’t matter who he is. He shouldn’t have had that experience at all. And until that changes, for all men of color, real reform will never come.

Eric L. Adams is the Brooklyn borough president, a retired New York Police Department captain and the co-founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.

12271: Ramming A Protest.

From The New York Daily News…

St. Louis police officers upset over Rams players’ ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ gesture before game, demand apology

St. Louis Police Officers Association called for a ‘very public apology’ and wants the players involved disciplined by the team or NFL after five Rams players came onto the field with their hands raised in a gesture of solidarity with protesters in nearby Ferguson, Mo.

By Nicole Hensley, Reuven Blau, Bill Hutchinson | NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

St. Louis cops are demanding “a very public apology” from their hometown football team after five Rams players did a pregame “hands-up-don’t-shoot” gesture of solidarity with protesters in nearby Ferguson.

The St. Louis Police Officers Association immediately condemned the players, saying it was “profoundly disappointed” in the coordinated move, which came during pregame introductions Sunday at St. Louis’ Edward Jones Dome.

The five black players — Jared Cook, Tavon Austin, Kenny Britt, Stedman Bailey and Chris Given — came onto the field with their hands raised, a pose that has become symbol of the ongoing protest over the police shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown.

“I just think there has be to a change,” said tight end Cook. “There has to be change that starts with the people that are most influential around the world.”

The action came during the Rams’ first home game since the Nov. 24 announcement that Officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted for the Aug. 9 shooting of Brown, 18. The players’ gesture also came on day after Wilson resigned from the Ferguson Police Department.

Some witnesses said Brown had his hands raised when he was shot to death, but others, including Wilson, told the grand jury that Brown was charging after the cop when he was shot.

The St. Louis police union statement said the players “chose to ignore the mountains of evidence” released by the grand jury and engaged “in a display that police officers around the nation found tasteless, offensive and inflammatory.”

The group called for the players to be disciplined and accused the Rams and the NFL of being hypocritical.

“We respect and understand the concerns of all individuals who have expressed views on this tragic situation,” the NFL said in a statement to The News.

Union business manager Jeff Roorda said it was “way out-of-bounds” for the players to conduct an on-field protest while being protected by officers who have been working 12-hour shifts and even gave up their Thanksgiving holiday to defend their community.

Meanwhile, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said Sunday that Wilson did not receive a severance package when he resigned.

Wilson left the force Saturday in response to death threats against other officers, his lawyer said Sunday.

“The information we had was that there would be actions targeting the Ferguson (police) department or buildings in Ferguson related to the police department,” his attorney, Neil Bruntrager, told the Associated Press.

Wilson was on the force for three years.

Wilson’s resignation letter stated that his “continued employment may put residents and police officers of the city of Ferguson at risk, which is a circumstance I cannot allow.”

Nicole Hensley reported from Ferguson, Mo.

With Stephen Rex Brown, Bernie Augustine and News Wire Services

12236: Ferguson Follies.

From DiversityInc…

#PantsUPDontLOOT

By Julissa Catalan

Don Alexander, a Tennessee-based IndieGoGo campaigner in support of Darren Wilson, has raised enough funds to post a ‘#PantsUPDontLOOT’ billboard in Florissant—the center of Ferguson, Mo.—where most of the protesting has been taking place.

“PantsUPDontLOOT” is intended to mock “Hands up, don’t shoot,” which is taken from witness claims that Michael Brown, the 18-year-old unarmed teen who was shot and killed by Wilson, had his hands in the air at the time of the shooting.

Alexander wrote: “This crowdfunding campaign is for the purchase of a billboard in the Ferguson, MO area. The billboard will display black text on a white background with the text ‘#PantsUPDontLOOT.’ After some initial confusion we are working with other, undisclosed companies in the area that are willing to create and display this image. The funds collected from this campaign will be used to purchase this billboard for as long as possible. Lamar originally quoted us ~$2500 for 1 month but others have come in under that amount. Whatever funds we will receive will go directly to keeping the billboard campaign up as long as possible. If we come to an agreement with a company and can fund it for 3 months, 5 months, 7 months… we will.”

Alexander’s goal amount was listed at $3,000, but that was surpassed once he started publicizing his mission on multiple social-media outlets as well as St. Louis CopTalk, a message board for police officers and their supporters.

According to Gawker, one commenter posted to CopTalk on Nov. 13: “There is an effort to crowdfund a billboard in the Ferguson area against the rioting and looting with the hashtag #PantsUpDontLoot on it. It is coming down to the wire of getting it up before the Wilson announcement.”

That very day, Alexander announced on his campaign page that the $3,000 had been exceeded, with a total of $3,081 from 29 contributors.

The campaign has 30 days remaining, and as of Nov. 18 has raised $3,345 from 152 different donors.

Oddly, the one other campaign Alexander seems to be following is the Ferguson Defense Fund, a campaign raising legal funds for protesters who get arrested demonstrating on Ferguson streets.

12023: Are Cops Color Blind?

From The New York Times…

Are Police Bigoted?

Race and Police Shootings: Are Blacks Targeted More?

By Michael Wines

IF anything good has come out of this month’s fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., it is that the death of the black teenager shined a spotlight on the plague of shootings of black men by white police officers. And maybe now, the nation will begin to address the racism behind it.

That is the conventional wisdom, anyway, and maybe it is true. Only a fool would deny that racial bias still pervades aspects of American society. The evidence is clear that some police law-enforcement tactics — traffic stops, to cite one example — disproportionately target African-Americans. And few doubt that blacks are more likely than whites to die in police shootings; in most cities, the percentage almost certainly exceeds the African-American share of the population.

Such arguments suggest that the use of deadly force by police officers unfairly targets blacks. All that is needed are the numbers to prove it.

But those numbers do not exist. And because of that, the current national debate over the role of race in police killings is being conducted more or less in a vacuum.

Researchers have sought reliable data on shootings by police officers for years, and Congress even ordered the Justice Department to provide it, albeit somewhat vaguely, in 1994. But two decades later, there remains no comprehensive survey of police homicides. The even greater number of police shootings that do not kill, but leave suspects injured, sometimes gravely, is another statistical mystery.

Without reliable numbers, the conventional wisdom is little more than speculation. Indeed, some recent research suggests that it may not even be correct: One study of police data in St. Louis concluded that black and white officers were equally likely to shoot African-American suspects, while another experiment found that both officers and civilians in simulated situations hesitated significantly longer before firing at black suspects than they did at whites.

“It’s shocking,” said Geoffrey P. Alpert, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina. “For 20 years, we’ve been trying to get the government to do something. We don’t have a clear picture of what’s going on in the use of lethal force. Are young black males being shot at a rate disproportionate to their involvement in crime? Are white officers shooting black males in areas where they’re not expected to have those sorts of interactions? Is this an aberration, a trend, routine, something going on for a long time? We don’t know.”

Not only do we not know the racial breakdown of police homicides, we don’t know with any precision how many homicides occur, period.

The F.B.I.’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program tabulates deaths at the hands of police officers. So does the National Center for Health Statistics. So does the Bureau of Justice Statistics. But the totals can vary wildly.

By the F.B.I.’s figures, there were between 378 and 414 police homicides in the five years ending in 2012, the most recent year available. Those numbers, however, include only justifiable homicides without reference to race; mistaken or unjustified killings are not reported. Years of academic research indicate that the actual total is considerably higher.

A 2012 study by David A. Klinger, a former police officer and professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, compared 13 years of internal reports on homicides by Los Angeles police officers and sheriffs’ deputies with the figures published by the F.B.I. The result: the 184 homicides reported by the F.B.I. were 46 percent fewer than the 340 logged by the departments themselves.

The lack of reliable data has ramifications that go well beyond merely keeping tabs on one’s local police department. “There is a long list of important research questions — not arcane ones, or of mere interest to the academic research community — that we currently cannot study or systematically analyze because there is no data,” said Richard Rosenfeld, another University of Missouri-St. Louis criminology professor.

Beyond measuring racial inequities, he said, researchers could use data to ferret out differences between homicides and nonlethal shootings, the nature of communities where shootings generally occur, and the character of police departments whose officers are more likely — or less — to be involved in shootings.

Whether or not racial bias is a significant factor in police homicides is very much an open question.

Studies have long concluded that police killings are more common in cities with more violent crime and larger minority populations, yet some researchers have found no positive association between race and killings. Others, however, have concluded that fewer black suspects were killed in cities with black mayors, and, in one city, that blacks made up a greater share of police homicide victims than of arrests overall.

But all those studies used the government’s imperfect data and measured only homicides, excluding the greater number of shootings in which suspects survived. A more comprehensive analysis exists: Dr. Klinger and Dr. Rosenfeld, among others, examined all 230 instances over 10 years in which officers of the St. Louis police fired their weapons (the city’s police, in contrast to the county police involved in Ferguson).

Their conclusions, presented last November at the American Society of Criminology’s annual meeting, were striking. Officers hit their targets in about half of the 230 incidents; in about one-sixth, suspects died. Of the 360 suspects whose race could be identified — some fled before being seen clearly — more than 90 percent were African-American.

But most interesting, perhaps, was the race of the officers who fired their weapons. About two-thirds were white, and one-third black — effectively identical to the racial composition of the St. Louis Police Department as a whole. In this study, at least, firing at a black suspect was an equal-opportunity decision.

In laboratory experiments, meanwhile, subjects who see pictures or videos of threatening activity, and then punch “shoot” or “don’t shoot” buttons befitting their evaluations of the threat, consistently “shoot” black suspects more often than white ones.

But a different experiment last year at Washington State University in Spokane suggested that the opposite might be true: In realistic simulations of confrontations, subjects armed with laser-firing pistols acted in ways that left black suspects less likely to be shot at — not more.

The experiment’s 102 subjects, a mixture of police officers, combat veterans and civilians, were run through a random sample of 60 scenarios drawn from actual police encounters. The scenarios, using white, black and Hispanic actors, were projected in life-size high-definition video on laboratory screens.

Whether officers, veterans or civilians, the subjects consistently hesitated longer before firing at black suspects and were much more likely to mistakenly shoot an unarmed white suspect, the researchers found. And when they failed to fire at an armed suspect — a potentially fatal mistake — the suspect was about five times more likely to be black than white. The study’s 36 police officers were the lone exception in failing to fire: The suspect’s race wasn’t a factor in their decision not to shoot. “The findings were very unexpected given the previous experimental research,” said Lois James, an assistant professor who conducted the research.

“The notion that cops want to shoot anybody is a lot of baloney,” said Dr. Klinger, who has interviewed some 300 officers involved in shootings. “But white officers are much more reticent to shoot a black man than a white man because, all things being equal, they know the social context in which they’re operating.”

By that theory, officers are more careful when confronting black suspects because they know a fatal shooting will open them to controversy.

Which studies reflect reality? Hard to say. But perhaps the death of Michael Brown will help researchers find out.

Michael Wines is a national correspondent for The New York Times. Alain Delaquérière contributed research for this article.

11499: A Biased Bite Out Of Crime…?

From The Los Angeles Times…

Bites from sheriff’s K-9 units increase for blacks, Latinos

Bites from K-9 units rose 33% for blacks, 30% for Latinos from 2004 to 2012, study finds. This year, 100% have been to Latinos and blacks.

By Ruben Vives

The number of minorities bitten by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department canines has increased in the last few years, according to a study released Monday.

The annual number of dog bites of whites, Pacific Islanders and Native Americans remained low from 2004 through 2012, but similar incidents involving African Americans and Latinos increased in the same period, according to the report.

Researchers noted that the vast majority of canine deployments occurred in high-crime areas. However, authors of the semiannual study have previously recommended that the department focus on the disparities.

The study is the 33rd semiannual report released by Merrick Bobb, president of the Police Assessment Resource Center, a nonprofit group. Bobb was retained as a special counsel to the county Board of Supervisors after a 1992 report highlighted a series of problems in the department.

The report released Monday also examined disciplinary procedures regarding sheriff’s deputies.

The latest study, according to the monitor, was prompted by the increasing number of people who were apprehended during a canine deployment.

“In the first six months of this year, 100% of the dog bites were of blacks and Latinos,” the report stated, adding that a total of 17 dog bites had been reported up to June.

According to the report, the number of Latinos bitten by dogs increased 30% from 30 bites in 2004 to 39 in 2012. Similarly, the number of blacks bitten increased 33% for the same time period, from 9 to 12.

Researchers reviewed the department’s canine deployment policies, use of force reports for dog bites and accidental bites that resulted in monetary settlements.

The report showed that five sheriff’s stations — Century, Lennox, Compton, Lakewood and City of Industry — had the highest number of bites, more than all the other 21 stations combined. The stations with the lowest dog bites were in more affluent areas, such as Marina del Rey and West Hollywood.

The report cited a lack of supervision of the department’s canine detail as one reason for the increase.

Researchers recommended that the department improve canine deployment policies, employ alternative use-of-force measures, and track bite incidents for individual dogs and handlers.

10220: Rodney King (1965-2012).

From CNN…

Rodney King dead at 47

By the CNN Wire Staff

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Rodney King, whose beating by Los Angeles police in 1991 was caught on camera and sparked riots after the acquittal of the four officers involved, was found dead in his swimming pool Sunday, authorities and his fiancee said. He was 47.

Police in Rialto, California, received a 911 call from King’s fiancee, Cynthia Kelly, about 5:25 a.m., said Capt. Randy DeAnda. Responding officers found King at the bottom of the pool, removed him and attempted to revive him. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital, DeAnda said.

There were no preliminary signs of foul play, he said, and no obvious injuries on King’s body. Police are conducting a drowning investigation, DeAnda said, and King’s body would be autopsied.

“His fiancee heard him in the rear yard,” he said, and found King in the pool when she went outside.

Kelly was a juror in King’s lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles in 1994.

King’s beating after a high-speed car chase and its aftermath forever changed Los Angeles, its police department and the dialogue on race in America.

King was 25 and on parole after a robbery conviction in April 1991. In an interview in 2011, he recalled he had been drinking and was headed home from a friend’s house when he saw a police car following him and panicked, thinking he would be sent back to prison. So he attempted to flee.

“I had a job to go to that Monday, and I knew I was on parole, and I knew I wasn’t supposed to be drinking, and I’m like ‘Oh, my God,’” he told CNN.

He realized he couldn’t outrun the police, but looked for a public place to stop. “I saw all those apartments over there, so I said, ‘I’m gonna stop right there,’” he said. “’If it goes down, somebody will see it.’”

An amateur cameraman caught the scene as four white police officers struck King more than 50 times with their wooden batons and used a stun gun on him.

King said as the officers beat him, they yelled, “We are going to kill you, n***er,” although the officers denied using racial slurs.

The video shows King cowering on the ground and attempting to crawl away as he is surrounded by a crowd of police officers. Four of them used their nightsticks to strike him.

King was beaten nearly to death. Three surgeons operated on him for five hours.

The video of the beating appeared on national television two days later, focusing attention on the issue of racially-motivated police brutality. b “We finally caught the Loch Ness Monster with a camcorder,” King attorney Milton Grimes said.

Four LAPD officers—Theodore Briseno, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind and Sgt. Stacey Koon—were indicted on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force by a police officer.

But following a three-month trial in the predominantly white Los Angeles suburb of Simi Valley, three of the officers were acquitted of all charges. The jury, which had all white members, deadlocked on one charge of excessive force against Powell, and a mistrial was declared on that charge.

Powell’s attorney, Michael Stone, said earlier this year the unedited video worked against King and helped prove the officers’ case.

“Most of the nation only saw a few snippets where it’s the most violent,” Stone said. “They didn’t see (King) get up and run at Powell.”

But African-Americans in Los Angeles exploded in outrage. Rioters ran through the streets—looting businesses, torching buildings and attacking those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The violence was responsible for more than 50 deaths and $1 billion in property damage.

On the third day of rioting, King emerged from seclusion to make a plea: “People, I just want to say, can we all get along? Can we get along?”

The violence ceased, but the debate did not.

Nearly a year later, the four officers stood trial in federal court on civil rights charges. Two African-Americans were picked for the jury, and King testified. He hedged, however, on whether police used racial slurs during the beating. He told CNN in 2011 that slurs were used, but said he vacillated on the stand because his mother had told him to avoid talking about race.

Koon and Powell were found guilty and sentenced to 30 months in prison. Briseno and Wind were acquitted.

“It was like … I just hope we just get one,” King said. “I hope we just get one on that. If we get one, we’re good. So to get the two, I was really happy.”

King also sued the city of Los Angeles.

“Half of them had no sympathy whatsoever,” Kelly, his fiancee, told CNN earlier this year about her fellow jurors. “… They just didn’t care. Like, ‘He broke the law. He deserved what he got.’ I told them they were crazy. It was about justice for what happened to him. No one deserves to get beat like that.”

The other jurors came around, and King was awarded $3.8 million in damages.

In later years, King had several more run-ins with the law, including a 90-day jail stint in 1996 for a hit-and-run involving his wife at the time. On the 20th anniversary of the beating in 2011, he was pulled over and ticketed for a minor traffic violation.

“The trouble that (people) see me in is a part of my life that I’m working on,” he said in 2011. “I’ll always have an issue when it comes to alcohol. My dad was an alcoholic. The addiction part is in my blood. What I’ve learned to do is arrest my addiction—arrest it myself, so I don’t get arrested.”

In 2008, King appeared on the VH1 reality show “Celebrity Rehab.” He also released a memoir, “The Riot Within,” in which he describes his difficult upbringing and his reflections on the beating and its aftermath.

The ranks of Los Angeles police are much more diverse than they were at the time of King’s beating. Changes have also been made—some compelled by the courts—in the way certain neighborhoods are patrolled and how complaints are handled.

King said earlier this year he has forgiven the officers who beat him.

“Yes, I’ve forgiven them, because I’ve been forgiven many times,” he said. “My country’s been good to me … This country is my house, it’s the only home I know, so I have to be able to forgive—for the future, for the younger generation coming behind me, so … they can understand it and if a situation like that happened again, they could deal with it a lot easier.”

9981: Talking The Talk.

From The Los Angeles Times…

For black parents in Pasadena, shootings give fresh relevance to ‘The Talk’

The fatal shootings of Kendrec McDade in Pasadena and a black teen in Florida renew the painful generations-old discussion about the need to swallow one’s anger and pride when dealing with the police.

By Christopher Goffard and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times

When Martin A. Gordon talks to his 19-year-old son about the history of race relations in America, he invokes the Black Panthers, Martin Luther King Jr.and the watershed moments of the civil rights era. It’s a story of hard-won rights that fills the ‘60s-era activist with pride.

Then the conversation turns urgently personal, survival its theme: On the wrong street, at the wrong time of day, he tells his son, pride might be his undoing. “I know my son can be a moment away from being killed if he acts the wrong way, if he’s arrogant,” Gordon said. “He started to learn about this as a child.”

Gordon was speaking in a Pasadena church, blocks from where an unarmed black college student, Kendrec McDade, was fatally shot March 24 by two white police officers pursuing two men who they mistakenly believed were armed robbers. Police say the incident began when the 19-year-old McDade and a friend stole a backpack from a car, and the owner lied to police, telling them the thieves were armed.

The incident, which remains under investigation, followed the controversial shooting death of an unarmed black teen in Florida by a neighborhood watch leader. For many black parents, the shootings have given fresh relevance to a painful generations-old conversation. “The Talk,” some call it.

“Certain things are a reality for him — he needed to understand that early on,” Jim Collins, a longtime Pasadena resident, recalled of his conversation with his son. “The Talk is because they have to know what to do and not do.”

Parents say some version of the conversation, ubiquitous in African American life, is necessary regardless of how high they climb on the socioeconomic ladder. It is about learning to say “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” when a policeman pulls you over, no matter how unjustified the stop seems. It is about keeping your hands on the steering wheel and giving officers no cause for panic. It is about swallowing your anger and pride and coming home alive.

Gordon, an activist with the Pasadena Community Coalition, said he worries when his son stays out late. “If I wake up and he’s not there, I go, ‘Oh, boy,’” Gordon said.

He said he speaks at seminars, instructing black youths about how to handle themselves around police. He wants them to know their rights, but also to be respectful.

“Just because you asserted your rights doesn’t mean you won’t get your butt kicked,” Gordon said. “You can be dead and no one’s there to speak for your rights. That’s what scares me most.”

Read the full story here.

9594: Unconstitutional Policing In Arizona.

From The New York Times…

U.S. Finds Pervasive Bias Against Latinos by Arizona Sheriff

By Marc Lacey

PHOENIX — In a strongly worded critique of the country’s best-known sheriff, the Justice Department on Thursday accused Sheriff Joe Arpaio of engaging in “unconstitutional policing” by unfairly targeting Latinos for detention and arrest and retaliating against those who complain.

After an investigation that lasted more than three years, the civil rights division of the Justice Department said in a 22-page report that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which Mr. Arpaio leads, had “a pervasive culture of discriminatory bias against Latinos” that “reaches the highest levels of the agency.” The department interfered with the inquiry, the government said, prompting a lawsuit that eventually led Sheriff Arpaio and his deputies to cooperate.

“We have peeled the onion to its core,” said Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, noting during a conference call with reporters on Thursday morning that more than 400 inmates, deputies and others had been interviewed as part of the review, including Sheriff Arpaio and his command staff. Mr. Perez said the inquiry, which included jail visits and reviews of thousands of pages of internal documents, raised the question of whether Latinos were receiving “second-class policing services” in Maricopa County.

Mr. Perez said he hoped Sheriff Arpaio would cooperate with the federal government in turning the department around. Should he refuse to enter into a court-approved settlement agreement, Mr. Perez said, the government will file a lawsuit and the department could lose millions of dollars in federal money.

A separate federal grand jury investigation of Sheriff Arpaio’s office is continuing, focusing on accusations of abuse of power by the department’s public corruption squad.

Sheriff Arpaio was singled out for criticism in the report, which said that he had used racially charged letters he had received to justify raids and that he helped nurture the department’s “culture of bias.”

Asked at a news conference about Sheriff Arpaio’s role in the department’s problems, Mr. Perez said, “We have to do cultural change and culture change starts with people at the top.” Mr. Perez made a point of reaching out to Sheriff Arpaio’s underlings. “These findings are not meant to impugn your character,” he said to the department’s deputies.

Sheriff Arpaio, 79, who calls himself “America’s toughest sheriff,” brushed off the criticism in a news conference as politically motivated. He said he was particularly upset by an announcement by the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, a former Arizona governor, that as a result of the findings of discrimination, the federal government would no longer allow sheriff’s deputies to check the immigration status of inmates in their custody.

“This is a sad day for America as a whole,” Sheriff Arpaio said, suggesting that the federal government’s action was tantamount to setting up a neon welcome sign for illegal immigrants. “We are proud of the work we have done to fight illegal immigration.”

Long a lightning rod for controversy, Sheriff Arpaio looms large over Arizona and beyond. His turf, Maricopa County, with 3.8 million residents, is one of the country’s largest counties in terms of both area and population. Republican candidates at all levels clamor for his backing, aware that he has become a potent symbol of the antipathy many Americans feel about illegal immigration.

Before he endorsed Gov. Rick Perry of Texas for president last month, Sheriff Arpaio was courted by much of the Republican field, including Representative Michele Bachmann, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Herman Cain, a businessman who has since suspended his campaign.

The inquiry’s findings paint a picture of a department staffed by poorly trained deputies who target Latino drivers on the roadways and detain innocent Latinos in the community in their searches for illegal immigrants. The mistreatment, the government said, extends to the jails the department oversees, where Latino inmates who do not speak English are mistreated.

“The absence of clear policies and procedures to ensure effective and constitutional policing,” the report said, “along with the deviations from widely accepted policing and correctional practices, and the failure to implement meaningful oversight and accountability structures, have contributed to a chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations.”

The report said Latino drivers were four to nine times more likely to be stopped in the sprawling county, which includes Phoenix and its environs, than non-Latino drivers. The expert who conducted the study called it the most egregious racial profiling he had ever seen in this country, said Mr. Perez, the prosecutor, without naming the expert.

The report said that roughly one-fifth of the traffic-related incident reports generated by the department’s human smuggling unit contained information indicating the stops may have been conducted in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable seizures.

The report also suggested that Sheriff Arpaio’s well-publicized raids aimed at arresting illegal immigrants were sometimes prompted by complaints that described no criminal activity but referred to people with “dark skin” or to Spanish speakers congregating in an area. “The use of these types of bias-infected indicators as a basis for conducting enforcement activity contributes to the high number of stops and detentions lacking in legal justification,” the report said.

Sheriff Arpaio has insisted that he is just enforcing the law and has mentioned in previous interviews that he has an adopted grandchild who is of Mexican descent. He has responded defiantly to past criticisms, with more raids. In the last three years, he has sent deputies into 56 Phoenix-area businesses, resulting in several hundred arrests for identity theft.

Asked at the news conference on Thursday whether he cared about the Latino community, the sheriff said, “I do have compassion, but enforcing the law overrides my compassion.”

As a result of the report, John Morton, director of immigration and customs enforcement, sent a letter Thursday to Maricopa County officials saying that the federal government would no longer provide the immigration status to deputies for anyone involved in a traffic stop, civil infraction or other minor offense.

The report is likely to increase calls for the resignation of Sheriff Arpaio, whose fifth term ends next year. He has vowed to run again. The sheriff, who has won election by wide margins even while frustrating his critics, has seen opposition to his leadership increase in recent months with reports that his department misspent county money and failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sexual-abuse cases, many involving illegal immigrants.

On Wednesday, Sheriff Arpaio’s critics took their case to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which controls the sheriff office’s purse strings. The board heard a heavy dose of criticism of the sheriff, but also present were some of his backers, who praise his no-tolerance approach toward illegal immigrants. “Police officers make mistakes,” said Jerry Sheridan, Sheriff Arpaio’s chief deputy, in defense of the department.

The Justice Department report quotes from some people characterized as victims of the department’s overzealous ways. It cites the case of a Latino driver who won a $600,000 legal settlement after a deputy intentionally struck him with his patrol car during a traffic stop.

In another case, an inmate was not allowed to use another inmate as an interpreter to tell a detention officer that her sheets were soiled. She was told she had to make the request herself in English, even though she did not speak the language well.

After Sheriff Arpaio received a letter complaining that employees of a McDonald’s in Sun City, a retirement community, did not speak English, the sheriff forwarded the letter to a top aide, who mounted an immigration raid in the area.

Salvador Rodriguez contributed reporting.

7619: NOPD—Rotten Apples Or Rotten Orchard?

From The Times-Picayune…

The New Orleans Police Department’s rotten orchard: An editorial

By Editorial page staff, The Times-Picayune

Whenever members of the New Orleans Police Department are accused of misconduct or convicted of crimes, Superintendent Warren Riley and police associations have asked New Orleanians not to judge the department based on the actions of “a few bad apples.”

But the recent string of criminal charges and guilty pleas involving police officers, and abominable revelations in some of those cases, demonstrate that the department’s problems are more serious than just having a handful of bad officers. The rotten orchard exposed on the police force has seriously undermined the public’s trust in the department and hurt the many brave and honest men and women on the force who are trying to make the city safer. That’s why prosecutors must complete a thorough cleanup of the department.

This week alone, two officers were accused of committing crimes.

On Thursday, state prosecutors charged Detective Herman Franklin with public payroll fraud for allegedly working private, off-duty details while he was being paid to investigate crimes for the Police Department. Similar abuse by Detective Franklin was first alleged in an internal department investigation revealed last year, which concluded that he had broken state law.

But state prosecutors and top police officials declined to bring criminal charges, instead cutting a secret deal that sent Detective Franklin to a diversion program. That allowed him to keep a clean record and remain on the force.

Detective Franklin’s attorney, Kevin Boshea, said his client has already been sanctioned for the payroll fraud and that the new charges amount to double jeopardy.

Prosecutors said the new charges stem from separate instances of alleged payroll fraud. Filing criminal charges is the right avenue when such abuse is suspected—and it’s good to see prosecutors are doing so now.

Sadly, these were not the most serious criminal allegations made against a police officer this week.

On Friday, federal prosecutors filed charges against Officer Robert Barrios, who was accused of conspiring to obstruct justice in relation to the police shooting at the Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina.

The charges allege that Officer Barrios conspired with other officers to cover up the shootings, which left two civilians dead and four wounded. He also provided false information to investigators, court documents allege.

The charges appeared in a bill of information, which typically signals the defendant is cooperating with the government and is expected to plead guilty. That would make Officer Barrios the fourth NOPD member to admit to crimes related to the Danziger Bridge incident and the second to do so among the officers who were present during the shootings.

One of those previous guilty pleas, from Officer Michael Hunter last week, described NOPD officers coldly shooting civilians Officer Hunter said were unarmed. The two other officers who also have pleaded guilty in the Danziger probe admitted to being part of a cover up for what they called a “bad shoot” of innocent civilians.

This is the second time Officer Barrios has faced charges in the bridge shootings. In late 2006 a state grand jury charged him with four counts of attempted first-degree murder, for allegedly firing at civilians on the bridge. That case included charges against six other officers as well, but fell apart in 2008 because of prosecutorial misconduct under then-District Attorney Eddie Jordan.

New Orleanians, however, still remember one image from that failed prosecution: The officers charged, included Officer Barrios, wading through a crowd of NOPD members who showed up to embrace the accused as heroes when they reported to Central Lockup on Jan. 2, 2007.

Many officers who demonstrated their support may feel betrayed now that some of their colleagues have admitted to numerous crimes.

Some of the other officers who participated in the Danziger shootings have been identified as targets of the federal probe, though they have not been charged. Their attorneys have said their clients committed no crime, and the officers are entitled to their day in court if they are accused of crimes.

Based on the grotesque corruption described by those who have pleaded guilty so far, New Orleanians expect investigators to aggressively seek justice against anyone who may have committed a crime.

Only then can the department begin removing the stain left by these horrible abuses.

7201: DWSE—Driving Without Speaking English…?

From USA TODAY…

Dallas police dismiss 39 cases of ‘driving without speaking English’

Dallas police say they will dismiss 39 cases from as far back as three years in which police officers ticketed motorists for driving without being able to speak English, The Dallas Morning News reports.

The ticketing procedure came to light after 48-year-old Ernestina Mondragon came forward to complain after being stopped for making an illegal U-turn Oct. 2.

In addition to the moving (and speaking) violations, Mondragon, who has been a legal U.S. resident since 1980, got a ticket for not having a valid driver’s license.

Her daughter, Brenda, says that her mother in fact has a valid license, but had left it at home in a rush to get a second daughter, 11 year-old Vanessa, to school.

She says the officer did not speak Spanish and Vanessa was not asked to translate, the newspaper reports.

Dallas police say the linguistic charge is on a menu of the police department’s in-house computers, but applies only to commercial operators like bus, truck and limo drivers, the newspaper says.

This weekend, Dallas City Council member Steve Salazar thanked the Mondragon family for raising the issue and also apologized for the incident.

“Dallas is a diverse city with many languages,” Salazar said. “This was a charge that should not have been in the system.”

Update at 7:50 a.m. ET: The Dallas News says that records show that at least 20 Dallas police officers from five patrol divisions were involved in wrongly citing motorists for not speaking English since 2007.

The paper says almost all of the 38 people cited were Hispanic. The News says the officers involved ranged from rookie to a 13-year veteran.

The newspaper quotes Senior Cpl. Glenn White, president of the Dallas Police Association, as saying the response from the public and the department is overblown.

“Now there is going to be a big internal affairs investigation into what?” he said, according to the newspaper. “They’ve corrected the problem; they’re going to make it go away or refund the money. It’s done.”

7184: Profiling And Police.

From USA TODAY…

In a switch, police invite scrutiny of racial profiling

By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

DENVER — By the time police Sgt. Robert Motyka responds to the disturbance call at a local hospital emergency room, the man at the reception counter is clearly agitated.

His speech is unintelligible. He becomes frantic as the officer slowly approaches, urging him to calm down. In a blur of flailing arms, the man reaches for something in his back pocket.

Motyka has no time to consider the possible consequences of one of the most potentially combustible scenarios in America: a confrontation between a black man and a white officer.

When the man pulls a knife and lunges forward, Motyka drops him with four quick pops from his 9mm Beretta. But there will be no public second-guessing of the 13-year veteran’s actions. No racially charged demonstrations by civil rights activists. No calls for a review of police dealings with minorities.

In this case, Motyka was reacting to a large-screen, video simulation designed to test officers’ judgment when using lethal force and scrutinize their dealings with minorities. In the end, the officer acted appropriately, according to his examiners.

The live-ammunition exercise, confined to the department’s shooting range, is part of a growing body of research and training in nearly a dozen law enforcement agencies across the country aimed at eliminating persistent racial profiling by police. Researchers are examining virtually all facets of police behavior, from officers’ interactions with new immigrants to car stops and the use of lethal force. More unusual, criminal justice analysts say, is that police officials are inviting the increased scrutiny, representing a generational change in law enforcement in a country that is now 34% minority.

If the July White House “beer summit” was supposed to offer a simple teaching moment after the high-profile arrest of a black Harvard scholar by a white Cambridge, Mass., officer, the research in Denver and elsewhere could provide some of the most instructive case studies on the intersection of race and law enforcement, some police analysts say.

“Law enforcement’s willingness to confront issues of race represents a huge shift in modern policing,” says Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement think tank. “I think you would be hard-pressed to find another institution in America more challenged by race than police. Coming out of the civil rights era, most departments were viewed (by minority communities) as occupying armies.”

Read the full story here.

7168: The Cons Of Snitching.

From The Chicago Tribune…

Snitch and you’re a dead man

By John W. Fountain

Snitching can get you killed.

That much I understood growing up in the ‘hood. In kindergarten, I was taught not be a tattletale. But to tell on bad guys, on the criminally minded, especially those who breathe bloody murder, is a more serious matter than being a tattling toddler.

Lately, particularly in light of the senseless violence that continues to claim innocent lives in Chicago, I have heard the lambasting of the good people of terrorized neighborhoods for not readily coming forward with information on murders. I have seen some shaking their heads, shrugging their shoulders and essentially blaming those unwilling—at least reluctant—to tell, as being in some way complicit.

Some even seem roiled that someone might witness a murder and be reluctant to come forward to police. And, in fact, they convey the sense that those unwilling to be witnesses are somehow less human, less feeling and less willing to assume responsibility, less eager to play a role in helping turn their neighborhoods around.

In my experience growing up in an impoverished Chicago community like those under siege, it boils down to an issue of trust. And many who live in the city’s most murderous neighborhoods—who have also witnessed police and political corruption and a trail of broken promises—simply don’t trust the authorities enough to come forward. By doing so, they could be laying their lives on the line.

It isn’t that people don’t want to tell. They do. And it isn’t that they aren’t concerned about their neighborhoods. They are. But to come forward is to risk everything, even in a world where “safety” is always relative.

In poor black neighborhoods, we have seen the revolving door of criminal justice. We have come to understand that there is a new breed of serial killer—young men who kill and kill and kill again. And we also know this: that when the feds seek witnesses in high-profile cases to bring down notorious mobsters and crime families, they at least have the good sense to offer witness protection. They understand what’s at risk for those who come forward.

In my old West Side neighborhood, “body snatchers” are real. There, I have known of masked gunmen to creep upon their prey in the still of night as they sit on a porch unsuspectingly, to kick in doors and hold people at gunpoint, to kidnap, maim and murder. From a child, I have witnessed gunplay and gangs and drug dealers and pimps in shiny Cadillacs, glaring like the sun, and the police drive by street corners—where hustlers hawk their wares—and do nothing.

The Law—the police—in certain neighborhoods isn’t necessarily the law. Once the flashing white-and-blues disappeared, we understood that we were at the mercy of the lawless, left to protect ourselves by any means necessary. For some, our insurance was God. For others, it was the gun. For others still, a little bit of both. But seldom did we consider the police.

Some students have alleged that a police squad car arrived at the scene of the recent beating death of 16-year-old Derrion Albert, though no officers intervened to save him. If that is true, what measure of protection can anyone who witnessed it expect they might receive as a “snitch”?

Given the historic marginalization of black and brown life—and death—why would one think that losing their life for having been brave enough to speak out might somehow make the difference? Why wouldn’t they simply become like the scores of murder victims whose names don’t even make the newspaper’s police blotter?

And yet, I have heard them—politicians, police and pundits—reviling the people of these neighborhoods for not coming forward. And I think to myself, “Easy for them to say. Let them lay aside their bodyguards, their chauffeur-driven limousines and their legal sidearm, and let’s see just how brave they’d be.” Instead we all leave the ‘hood and go safely home.

Whenever gunfire thundered in the night in my old neighborhood, I was grateful when the scene was blocks away, relieved that any blood spilled had not come nigh my front door. Except in a way, I always realized it was never that far away. That every evil that happened in my neighborhood, in one sense or another, always happened to us all.

I also remember wishing there was someone we could tell, someone who might be ready, willing and able to do something to end the violence and crime, in essence, to be able to snitch in a way that would not jeopardize our lives and our family’s once the bad guys learned we had ratted them out.

What would happen if we diminished the risk and created a greater sense of assurance that the law would do its job in actually making the streets safe as well as protecting those who decide to turn killers in?

They still might not be lining up to testify. But I’ll bet you’d find some willing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

John W. Fountain is a professor of journalism at Roosevelt University and author of “True Vine: A Young Black Man’s Journey of Faith, Hope and Clarity.”

6861: Everyone’s A Hustler.

Kicking it with a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• A California cop initially gained semi-positive notoriety when videotaped kicking a gang member in the head after a high-speed chase. Then it was revealed that the officer also runs a business on the side—selling “authentic jailhouse wear” online. The clothing includes t-shirts with gang symbols. Maybe he was kicking the banger after he failed to pay for some gear.

• Um, haven’t the fast feeders learned their lessons regarding free food giveaways?

6860: Enforcing Diversity.

From The Los Angeles Times...

All the colors that make blue
Police Academy graduation spotlights changes in the department since the arrival of Chief William J. Bratton.

By Sandy Banks

It had the hallmarks of a typical graduation ceremony—awards, speeches and hordes of excited families.

But these graduates were not in caps and gowns. They wore blue uniforms, white gloves and holstered guns.

And from my vantage point on the Police Academy lawn, the 44 cadets who graduated into the Los Angeles Police Department on Friday looked impressively tough—and impossibly young.

At the morning ceremony, I was invited to join the procession of officials passing down the row of cadets, checking the “function and lubrication” of each graduate’s gun. But I looked past the Glocks and into their eyes, studying the name tags pinned to their chests.

Sosa and Singh, Doherty and DelGado, Maynard, Moya and Vaidhayakul.

I heard accents that tied some to foreign countries. And saw a hint of street swagger in some of their marches.

There were veterans with military ribbons. And diminutive women, hair tucked under their caps, with “Sharpshooter” badges.

Some came to the LAPD straight out of college. Others left careers to join: accountant, musician, locomotive conductor. One—the wife of a cop—was 34. A young man from Florida had just turned 21.

And for all we joke dismissively about the “melting pot,” it was a pleasure to see, through their ranks, what our city—and our police force—has become.

Read the full story here…