No accountability, no peace
15th March 2021 · 0 Comments
None of the police responsible for killing unarmed Breonna Taylor, Daniel Prude, Elijah McClain, Tamir Rice, Eric Gardner, Alton Sterling and others, have been criminally charged for murdering Black people. Usually, when charges are brought against the killer cops, grand juries decline to indict them.
Protest marches, calls for policing reform, and coronavirus lockdowns haven’t stopped white cops from killing unarmed Black people for no good reasons. According to tracking data, police in the U.S. killed 164 Black people in the first eight months of 2020.
With each murder, these killer cops have a ready excuse – i.e., a trumped up lie to justify murdering the target of their attacks. Dead men and women tell no lies. Plus, legal loopholes make it nearly impossible to hold white killer cops accountable. They just have to say they feared for their lives or they thought the person had a gun, or people were selling drugs or loose cigarettes, or resisting arrest, to justify killing a Black person.
Orange County sheriff’s deputies fatally shot Kurt Andras Reinhold last September, after stopping the reportedly homeless man for jaywalking. The deputies who stopped him were part of the department’s homeless outreach team, tasked with providing people access to services. The family is suing and calling for charges against the officers.
Too often, such cases are settled in civil court cases with monetary damages going to the families of the deceased. And too often, the killer cops aren’t criminally charged.
What this is, really, is American apartheid (apart, hate) and it has existed since enslaved Black people got here. The white supremacy and racist mentality are alive and well in police departments, district attorney offices, grand juries and all up and down institutions that wield authority.
However, with the murder of George Floyd last May, the chickens have come home to roost.
The video of white cops killing George Floyd while he called for his deceased mother and said he couldn’t breathe, went viral and touched off a summer of worldwide non-violent protests. Millions marched in the streets demanding police accountability and policing reforms. We saw, with our own eyes, the unjustifiable murder of an unarmed Black man.
Derek Chauvin, the ex-cop who killed Floyd is facing second degree murder and manslaughter charges, it remains to be seen if he serves any real jail time.
At press time, protesters are in the streets demonstrating against a Rochester, New York, grand jury’s decision not to charge white cops in the nearly three-year-old murder of Daniel Prude, a mentally ill man who ran naked in the streets. They put a spit hood on his head. An autopsy found he died of asphyxiation.
Following Floyd’s murder, Rep. Karen Bass, (D-Calif.), on June 8, 2020, introduced the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020. The bill lowers the criminal intent standard, limits qualified immunity as a defense, authorizes the Department of Justice to issue subpoenas in investigations of police departments for a pattern or practice of discrimination, creates a national registry – the National Police Misconduct Registry – establishes a framework to prohibit racial profiling at the federal, state and local levels; mandates new requirements for law enforcement officers and agencies, including reporting data on use-of-force incidents and training on implicit bias and racial profiling; and mandates body cameras. The bill passed the House. Supporters of the bill are hopeful that the Senate will finally pass the bill which has been sitting on Grim Reaper Senator McConnell’s desk since its passage in the House.
Nevertheless, the cycle of excessive use of force and murders of Black people by badge wearing whites must stop.
Civil rights groups and Black Lives Matter activists are waiting for Biden’s Justice Department to take action to stop the killings.
“Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd. These are just a few of the Black lives tragically cut short this year. They join a list of names that dates back more than 400 years in this country, and more will likely join this list before we, as a nation, do what it takes to end it,” Biden wrote during his campaign.
“We’ll address the use of excessive force, ban chokeholds, and overhaul no-knock warrants. We’ll ensure the U.S. Justice Department has the power needed to effectively investigate systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors’ offices – and reinvigorate community-oriented policing so officers are out of their cruisers and walking the streets, engaging with, and getting to know members of their communities,” Biden pledged in “Notes from Joe: Daddy Changed the World,” echoing Floyd’s little daughter’s comment about her dad.
The Biden DOJ will also resume the Consent Decree policy that former Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III discontinued.
True to form, the opponents of police reform, white cops, police unions, right wing media and Republicans seized on some protesters’ call for “defunding the police” to criticize and oppose any attempts at policing reforms and to ignore the 500 pound gorilla in the room – the unjustifiable killing of unarmed Black people. Clearly, for many of them, Black Lives Don’t Matter.
Today, Black people are still in danger of being killed by cops because of the color of their skin. Two weeks ago, Plano police arrested Rodney Reese, an 18-year-old Black Walmart worker, for walking in the street in the snow. They were there to do a wellness check after someone reported a man in a T-Shirt stumbling in the snow. The Black police chief dropped the charges, saying the arrest wasn’t consistent with the reasons the cops went there.
The teenager was traumatized by the event, saying, “Just ‘cause I’m Black, that’s it. It’s ‘cause I’m Black, I fit a description. It hurts, man. I don’t even think the call would’ve happened [if I wasn’t Black]. Honestly, I really don’t.” Reese was a victim of racial profiling motivated by racism. He lived to tell his story. Too many Black people haven’t.
This article originally published in the March 1, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
