Murdering justice
10th July 2017 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
As the nation, city of Baton Rouge, justice advocates and the family of Alton Sterling marked the one-year anniversary of the tragic, officer-involved shooting that claimed the life of the 37-year-old father of five, we are all still waiting for justice. Justice for Alton Sterling, justice for his family, justice for all innocent and unarmed victims of deadly force at the hands of police and justice for Black America as a whole.
Meanwhile, three Chicago cops were indicted last week on state felony charges of conspiracy in the investigation of the 2014 fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was killed by a white cop who stood over him and fired 16 bullets into his body.
Former Detective David March, and former Patrol Officer Joseph Walsh and Patrol Officer Thomas Gaffney were charged with conspiracy, official misconduct and obstruction of justice, according to a news release from Special Prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes’ office.
McDonald was killed in October 2014 when Chicago police Jason Van Dyke fired 16 bullets into the teenager. Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty to six counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts o aggravated battery with a firearm and has been suspended without pay.
We have seen far too often how little regard cops, prosecutors, jurors and judges have for Black and Brown lives and how often law enforcement officers get away with murder in America. One has to wonder why Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who kept a video of the brutal execution-style murder under wraps until after he was re-elected, has not also been charged with not only violating the constitutional rights of this young man and violating the public trust.
If you want to know why so many people have a hard time trusting the police and sharing information with law enforcement agencies, you don’t need to look any further than the blatant murder of a Black teen by a trigger-happy cop, the subsequent cover-up by fellow officers and the mayor’s manipulation of evidence about the shooting to secure his successful re-election. These same cops, administrators and elected officials wring their hands and wonder out loud why some members of the Black community are reluctant to step up and share information with police.
It happens in many cities, including New Orleans, where the mayor and others suggest that Blacks’ distrust of police is both irrational unwarranted and dysfunctional.
As we reflect on these shootings and their significance with regard to the history of people of color in the United States, we need to recommit to letting our dissatisfaction with the way things are be known to the powers that be and the entire global community.
Cops who see nothing wrong with marginalizing, criminalizing, profiling and exterminating innocent and unarmed Black men, women and children should perhaps consider that violence is the language of the oppressed. Over the course of history, we have seen all too often how the draconian and oppressive tactics and practices of those in power have spurred violent uprisings and responses. We’ve seen it with the riots in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1990s, in the French and American revolutions, in the revolution that led to the establishment of the Republic of Haiti and in the large, nationwide protests over the past few years in response to police killings of innocent and unarmed Black and Brown men, women and children.
Those protests over police use of deadly force boiled over last year when five law enforcement officers were killed by a Black gunman in Dallas and three cops were killed by a Black gunman in Baton Rouge.
Law enforcement agencies and elected officials must come to understand that the oppressive, unconstitutional practices of the past will no longer be tolerated by the people of the United States. It is therefore in the best interests of everyone involved that law enforcement agencies and government officials do everything in their power to ensure that all segments of the population are treated with dignity and respect and are protected by all of the rights guaranteed to them by the U.S. Constitution.
Otherwise, we will continue to see oppressed segments of the population who feel as though they have no stake in respecting the law or the rights of others and feel like their only option in response to being treated like criminals, war captives and enemies of the state is to fight fire with firewater.
Anyway, I got a few questions for y’all. Here we go:
• Isn’t it amazing that after all the deadly-force cases involving law enforcement in Louisiana for which the Louisiana State Police found that cops did nothing wrong and all of the complaints filed against the LSP for state troopers’ treatment of Black males in New Orleans, the thing that brought the statewide law enforcement agency to its knees and cost former LSP Col. Mike Edmonson his job was the discovery of overtime pay abuse?
• What else about the Louisiana State Police was being investigated before Col. Mike Edmonson decided to step down?
• Why do local law enforcement agencies and elected officials treat Black, Brown and poor people like animals and act like they are when some members of the community respond accordingly?
• Would you even consider voting for a mayoral candidate with the same financial backers as the current mayor?
• Should any members of the New Orleans City Council who plan to run for mayor be held accountable for the shortcomings of the New Police Department and the City of New Orleans’ routine neglect of residents of eastern New Orleans?
• Why would anyone vote to elect or re-elect any elected official who saw nothing wrong with building a community center for people of color and a new school atop the toxic landfill where Booker T. Washington and other buildings once stood?
• Do you recall New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu opening his mouth to utter a single word about the building of a new school atop the toxic landfill or the mistreatment of students of color at schools like George Washington Carver by charter school administrators?
• Do you believe that minority contractors no longer face discrimination when submitting bids with the City of New Orleans, as the mayor suggested during his State of the City address last week?
• Given the well-documented failures of New Orleans’ charter school system, including its inability to significantly raise student test scores, its mistreatment and neglect of low-income and low-achieving students and most of the system’s failure to accommodate special-needs students, how does the mayor fix his mouth to boast about the city’s charter school “experiment” like it is a feather in his cap?
• Given the poor record of the city’s charter schools and the misdeeds and ploys of the state-run Recovery School District, most of which have not been acknowledged or addressed by state or local elected officials, does anyone really believe that the business sector or elected officials care about public education in New Orleans?
• With all the furor over the four Confederate-era monuments beginning to die down, have you noticed that the mayor has not even attempted to tear down the systemic racism, economic injustice, mass incarceration and educational apartheid that have reigned in New Orleans since the city was founded in 1718?
• Why do you suppose the mayor didn’t even bother to mention the 200th anniversary of the 1811 slave revolt six years ago but can barely contain his excitement about the approach of the Crescent City’s Tricentennial Celebration?
• How many supporters of white supremacist monuments are employed by the local school system and the New Orleans Police Department?
• Why can’t elected and NOPD officials see that many in the community will never trust the police department until the police department, its top brass and City Hall officials prove that they are trust-worthy?
• Who thinks it is a good idea to have so many law enforcement officers from surrounding parishes that are mostly white and conservative patrolling the streets of majority-Black New Orleans?
• Don’t the residents of eastern New Orleans and the Lower Ninth Ward have a very strong case of taxation without representation to charge the City of New Orleans with, and why is there so much of a discrepancy about the amount of revenue generated by property taxes in those parts of the city?
• How many of the New Orleans mayoral candidates have a demonstrated record of standing up for equal justice, equal protection under the law, constitutional policing and economic justice, and against educational apartheid, mass incarceration, wage inequity, inadequate health care and housing discrimination?
• How many of the mayoral candidates’ campaigns will depend heavily on contributions from the same members of the white business community who are responsible in large part for current conditions in New Orleans?
This article originally published in the July 10, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
