Garner Case Shows Aggressive Cops Need Attitude Adjustment

The segment on 'Morning Joe' several days ago was noteworthy in singling out the Michael Brown incident  as a case where a hyper-aggressive cop (Darren Wilson) could have backed off or called for backup  - but didn't. He chose instead to be the "macho man" and confront an unarmed Michael Brown for swiping a whole pack of cigarillos, then shooting him eight times at near point blank range in the process. The point of the legal guests on 'Morning Joe' is that such an incident called for "talking down" and not "taking down". If one on one talking down was too much for Wilson (or he was too terrified of a guy he described as "bigger than Hulk Hogan" while he was "like a 5 year old"), he needed to get other cops who could.

The problem is that today, too many hyper-militarized cops only want to take down, not talk down. Also exemplified with the Eric Garner case, where Daniel Pantaleo jumped in to confront and wrestle down Garner with a choke hold - rather than use a talk down. After all, big as he was, Garner was still unarmed. In the best case of all, of course, the aggressive Pantaleo and his 'crew' could have left it alone. I mean, for chrissakes, bringing a guy down for selling loose cigarettes? (About which I will do a later post regarding too many damned laws, which provide too many excuses for violent police action. Reduce the number of laws and reduce the incidents!)

But the Garner case also brings up the issue of police power trips, especially by the most aggressive cops. If these guys are then already of a mindset to take down, they will not display the patience and communication skills to talk down. (Note 'talk down' is most often used with persons attempting suicide - but needs to be generalized for all lesser crimes!)    After all, to a Neanderthal or militarist macho authoritarian,  it's easier to tase, shoot or choke than to talk. They want only instant resolution without taking time or trouble  - a recipe for disaster in our ever more complex social world.

The problem is that projection of ego and absolute power is what demands the slave posture. But no citizen, who is unarmed and basically minding his or her own business, should be subjected to this over the top public humiliation - even if he gives a cop some backtalk. And it certainly shouldn't be met with lethal force! Writer Kimberle Crenshaw, in a salon.com interview, puts the power dynamic exposed by these aggressive cops in perspective:

"We look at that video [of Eric Garner] and we can look at what’s happening in Ferguson and see that what was going on was not about policing against particular harms or injuries, it was policing against certain bodies and attitudes that those bodies have. It was about Eric talking back, and not throwing himself, basically, on the ground in a “yes master” kind of position."

Get that? A "yes massah" position, like a slave! In other words, the only way poor Garner could have spared himself was to immediately drop to the ground, and adopt a submissive slave position to the 'massah' cop, Pantaleo (who let us be reminded - as Chris Hayes noted this evening - has already faced 3 lawsuits for use of excessive force.)

 This hearkens back also to the patriarchal, prejudiced attitudes of the southern cops in MS and AL during the era of Bull Connor and the civil rights marchers. When Connor and his imps turned their fire hoses on the mostly black crowd and yelled at specific stubborn marchers,  "Git down on yorn knees, boy!"

Subservience and slavery! The only postures that would be acceptable, to a power drunk, aggressive cop-  if one was not to be construed as "resisting arrest". Hence, the only available postures that could have spared Garner's life. 

Ms. Crenshaw goes on:

"It’s about the imposition of authority and control. And that is the highway through which racial power is colliding with these bodies. So when I think of a dam, I think about shutting down that highway altogether and redirecting that energy.

The idea of all power and control [in policing] is the same as the underlying way the military thinks of itself —  we shock and awe with our power and control. In community policing, that means an officer tackles people, puts a chokehold on someone or shoots someone during an encounter about selling loose cigarettes or walking in the middle of the street."

Again, a spot on observation, especially invoking the military analogy. The same way we as a nation, subjugate lesser nations with our power trips of shock and awe - so also power driven cops subjugate "suspects" with power moves like choke holds for a petty offense like selling "loose cigarettes".

This is power gone mad, as well as authority, in both cases.

Crenshaw's last point is most apt:

"When I think about training, I think about the people who can model police and community interaction outside the need to create total control and domination."

This again is relevant. It was also Buddhist philosopher Alan Watts who wrote ('Does It Matter?') that one is least served in gaining compliance by the use of outright force. Even if the subject is perceived to "resist" - force is absolutely the wrong way to go. One instead empathizes and puts himself in the subject's mind and position and then there can be a "talking down" instead of a taking down. The issue inheres in seeing the humanity in the person, as opposed to seeing him as a "beast" or "wild ape". Therein the problem resides!

As long as aggressive cops are on the loose, alas, the take down reaction won't cease and meanwhile the outcry and public protests and civil disturbances will grow - until they reach a level such as we beheld in the Ukraine in the spring.

It redounds to the benefit of police departments around the country to train their personnel to deal with unarmed citizens without using force as a first resort, or even last. Talking down should be the priority, and if a cop fails at this, he needs to be removed from the force as unstable and incompetent in complex social dynamics.

Brute force in dealing with people will no longer be tolerated by the rank and file of citizens, as the current wave of protests show. The sooner police get that into their noggins, the better off we all will be.

See also:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/04/1349342/--Comply-or-Die-policing-must-stop?detail=email#

Excerpt:

Tyrannical cops wear their entitlement disorder on their sleeves thus:

When I am on the job it's your responsibility to make my life as easy as possible and don't do anything that might get me angry or otherwise set me off:  Just do exactly what I tell you, precisely and without delay, no matter how unreasonable.  If I decide I want to frisk you, let me.  If I decide I want to arrest you, let me.  If this is the fifth time I've hassled you this month, let me.  My whim counts for more than your dignity.

NY Grand Jury Blows It In Eric Garner Murder Case: Would Body Cameras Have Made Any Difference?

Body camera worn by Denver police officer: But if visual evidence is ignored by a grand jury they won't be of much use.

"I honestly don"t know what to say.....I think what is so utterly depressing is that none of the ambiguities that existed in the Ferguson case exist in the Staten Island case and yet the outcome is exactly the same: no crime, no trial,  All harm, no foul - we are definitely not living in a post racial society. And I can imagine a lot of people out there wondering, how much of a society are we living in at all." - John Stewart


I just watched the video of the NY cop putting Eric Garner into a choke hold for the fifteenth time. It is as clear to me now as it was the first time, that Eric Garner's death was a homicide - as the autopsy showed.  And the cop doing it needed to have justice meted out - yet a comatose grand jury delivered a "no indictment" verdict.

Eleven times Garner screamed "I can't breathe!" as three cops wrestled him down and the main culprit  (Daniel Pantaleo) choke-held Garner on the NYC sidewalk, with the victim obviously in distress. Even if one is sympathetic to "the shield" and perhaps a former cop- it is incredible one would not see this behavior was way out of bounds and merited a finding of at least manslaughter by the grand jury.

Now, without a proper verdict- indictment or charge-  WHO will take care of Garner's family, his wife and six kids?  Or will they now be homeless or have to take to the streets to beg for money? It is a question worth asking, especially given that the cops came down on him for selling frickin' cigarettes without a license!  Murdered for selling cigs! What the hell is wrong in this country, especially with those who are supposed to "serve and protect"?

In my earlier post (Nov. 25) on the Ferguson grand jury case, I had written:

"had Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson been outfitted with such a miniature (body) camera - like the police in Laurel, MD - it is doubtful things would have gotten to the stage they did in Ferguson.  All the events would have been immediately accessible and there'd have been no "fatal span" of time within which witness accounts conflicted.  The grand jury, as opposed to only being exposed to Wilson's account and images of his injuries, could have also seen events as they actually went down. "

But as John Stewart observed in his Daily Show comment, a video record was available and has been replayed a million times of Garner taken down and choked. How bad does the vision of the grand jury have to be to indict?  If they can ignore this visual evidence, indeed, why would they take the visual records from body cameras any more seriously? They surely wouldn't and hence the outcome would be the same whether visual video evidence was available or not.

In many instances of such visual evidence, as in the case of the LA cop that wrestled a homeless elderly black lady to the ground several months ago (for crossing a highway) and punched her several times in the face - idiotic explanations and pseudo-justifications reign. "She was resisting! Didn't you see it? She was putting up a fight!" Errr....no, she was not! She was supine on the ground, and you had your meaty legs straddling her arms so she couldn't move and you were punching the fuck out of her face.  What? Do these renegade cops think we're blind? Or stupid? Fortunately, the LA cop had to face the music (on further investigation) and the dept. disposed of that bad egg.

Look, no one is saying ALL cops are bad! Indeed, the sight of the Portland police officer hugging a crying black kid ought to resonate with all of us, e.g.



So let's not get it into our heads that all cops are evil, or fascist storm troopers just because of the incidents in Ferguson and Staten Island and the impotent verdicts of the grand juries in each case.  But at the same time, police departments need to help themselves in an era of burgeoning citizen distrust by ridding themselves of as many "bad apples" as possible. Like the bad apples in the military these jerks do the various precincts no good and can give them a bad name - not to mention paying out millions in damages, as has occurred  in Denver (recently documented by The Denver Post.).

Kudos then to the valiant and decent police around the nation, but brickbats to those creeps that pollute their departments and poison community relations while destroying the essential trust of citizens!

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/04/doj_releases_scathing_report_on_cleveland_police/

Preventing Another Ferguson Incident: The Body Camera!

A Denver Police officer tries out the miniature camera.

Could the upheaval and violence in Ferguson, MO all have been prevented or at least minimized? These are questions now being asked, and very often the response is 'Yes, it could!'  To understand why we note the observation in a recent TIME article ('The Tragedy of Ferguson', Sept. 1, p. 22) that:

"the heart of it all lay two or three minutes just after noon on Saturday, August 9, a fatal span that brought Brown and Wilson together on a stretch of Canfield Drive."

Meaning that within this time interval assorted people reported their separate observations of what transpired and the officer his own. Alas, no settled accounts of the time sequence or actual events exist. This could all have evidently been avoided. How?

Via the use of special miniaturized digital body cameras worn on the side frames of officers' glasses or sun glasses. The tiny cameras record every last detail in any encounter with the public for any reason, and hence provide a firm and accurate document of the officer's actions and the perp's responses or crimes. Basically, it is insurance to protect police from false allegations of excessive force, and also suspects from overly aggressive police actions. The body camera ensures literal, visible accountability. According to Denver Police Chief Robert White :

"The body camera will clear up those moments of conflict"

This was revealed in an NBC News spot last night which focused on the police force in Laurel, Maryland,  where officers have been authorized to use these cameras as a standard operating procedure for the past 18 months.  The result? Crime has dropped 46 percent and the police force has seen accountability for all arrests enhanced by virtue of everything being on record. (In a few cases, as noted in the Denver Post, p. 5A), "people making allegations against the police have withdrawn complaints when they learned their encounters were recorded.")

One instance shown in the Laurel, MD segment involved an officer stopping a speeding vehicle. The entire transaction was recorded including when the officer asked to see identification and the perp floored her accelerator and left the scene - soon later apprehended down the highway.

The benefits from this digital camera system are self-evident. It's no longer a case of the officer's word against anyone else's because he can always provide the evidence in the form of the digital recording. Did he really fire six times into a suspect's body? The camera won't lie and will record all the action from his perspective. If he fired, that will be shown, as well as any reactions by the suspect.

Thus, had Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson been outfitted with such a miniature camera - like the police in Laurel, MD - it is doubtful things would have gotten to the stage they did in Ferguson.  All the events would have been immediately accessible and there'd have been no "fatal span" of time within which witness accounts conflicted.

Clearly, these devices need to be dispensed throughout the U.S. to all police departments,  and I would say as a vastly higher priority than dispensing militarized gear like Humvees.