Policing the police
13th October 2014 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
The more I watch top in JAX Florida cash advance the evening news, the more I understand why people burn down buildings, loot businesses and throw rocks at police.
With every passing day, it becomes abundantly clear that there are so many bad apples in the nation’s various law enforcement agencies that it would make more sense to start building new police departments from scratch rather than expect rogue cops to unlearn their unconstitutional policing.
Two incidents in particular — one in South Carolina, the other in Indiana — are a sobering reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The -Columbia, South Carolina incident involves a Black motorist, Levar Jones, who was shot in the leg by a state trooper after being pulled over near a gas station and asked to provide identification.
The trooper, Sean Groubert, was charged with assault but clearly didn’t think he did anything wrong.
The second incident involves Lisa Mahone, a woman in Hammond, Indiana. who was pulled over by the cops with her two children and a male friend in the vehicle. The entire episode was recorded with a cell phone by the woman’s 14-year-old son. The aggressive behavior of one of the cops prompts Lisa Mahone to dial 911 and report that she feels like her life is in danger. After refusing to step out of the vehicle, Jamal Jones, the male friend, is Tasered by the cop who busted the passenger window and pulled him out of the car.
Lisa Mahone filed a federal lawsuit against the cash loans las cruces nm Hammond, Indiana police department last week.
Thank God for cellphone, dashboard and body cameras, all of which have caught these trigger-happy, abusive cops in the act.
One can only imagine how many cops get away with using excessive force or violating somebody’s rights because they took away a civilian’s cellphone or turned off a dashboard or body camera.
One can also only wonder what would make a law enforcement officer think he or she has the right and the power to break the law and violate the constitutional rights of law-abiding civilians without just cause.
But then you remember that this is America and the word Black is synonymous with “guilty.”
You also remember that even though the horrific beating motorist Rodney King received at the hands of the LAPD was videotaped, the cops who beat him while he was handcuffed and on the ground were acquitted.
These cops are not only breaking their oaths to protect and serve or taking innocent lives — they’re terrorizing an entire segment of the U.S. population, robbing us of our dignity and violating the constitutional and human rights of law-abiding, tax-paying citizens.
Why are they doing it?
Because they can.
And because they’re emboldened by the lack of public outcry about these attacks and the refusal of the judicial system to uphold the law.
In the eyes of many judges, district attorneys, prosecutors and cops in the criminal justice system, Black men, women and children are all Dred bad credit loans dickson tn Scotts with no constitutional rights that they are bound by law to respect. It doesn’t matter if we have a Ph.D. like Harvard’s Dr. Henry Louis Gates, command a six-figure salary or are president of the United States.
In these parts, we’ve seen cops gun down unarmed civilians crossing a bridge to look fork food after a major disaster, a district attorney’s office with a long, sordid history of framing Black men and women for crimes prosecutors knew they did not commit, a federal judge who said during a public lecture that Blacks and Latinos are predisposed to commit violent crimes, and numerous political candidates using white fear of crime and Blacks to dramatically improve their changes of getting elected. The latest example of this involves a candidate for St. Bernard Parish district attorney whose name is not even worth mentioning.
We’ve seen cops gun down unarmed men in their homes, cops conveniently turn off body cameras before shooting suspects in the head, cops gun down unarmed teenagers in abandoned houses and cops claim that handcuffed suspects somehow managed to use an imaginary gun to kill themselves while in police custody.
When it comes to cop shootings, there always seems to be an imaginary gun that warrants the use of deadly force. In the case of the Danziger Bridge shootings less than a week after Hurricane Katrina, a higher-ranking officer was more than willing to provide a gun to corroborate the cops’ version of what happened.
With an explosion of these cop killings does it hurt your credit to get a cash advance from coast to coast, these fatal encounters are the new lynchings. The motive for these brutal crimes is the same and the deadly use of force sends the same chilling message to Black people who think they have constitutional rights: Stay in your place.
These acts of domestic terrorism are designed to spread fear and a sense of powerlessness among communities of color.
Just as doing and saying nothing was not an option when Black men, women and children were being lynched across the United States in the 19th and greater part of the 20th century, we can’t afford to remain silent or inactive on this issue today.
We must present our case charging the United States with genocide to the United Nations and make it clear that we are being systematically oppressed, exploited and exterminated by a government that taxes us but offers us little or no relief, protection or representation.
It’s up to us — all of us — to speak out against excessive force and unconstitutional policing in all its forms, whether it is administered by a Black, white, brown, red or yellow law enforcement officer. It’s also up to all of us to demand justice and equal protection under the law and treatment and recognition as free and equal human beings in this society.
We have to do that for ourselves and make that happen by any means necessary.
This article originally published in the October 13, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
