Here's another lesson in white supremacist privilege. If your skin is white, you can throw snowballs at a Black police officer's car and then chant and pelt him with snowballs even after he identifies himself as a police officer.
If your skin is brown, and you realize that you have pelted a white officer's car with snowballs, you will run when you realize that the man in the Hummer is a police officer. Even as you run, you will hope not to be shot in the back.
If your skin is brown, you'll understand that someone has to go to jail when there is a confrontation between Blacks and police officers. That's just the way it is.
So, what made these white college-student-aged youths in the video above believe they could throw snowballs at a Black officer who had his gun out, and continue to argue even as a second back-up police car arrived?
Their skin is white, pure and simple. The object lesson here about unequal justice in the United States is that police clearly have a different posture toward whites than Blacks. Whites are perfectly aware of this and that's why white youths can stand and argue with police and even through snowballs at them, while Blacks must turn and run.
Members of a militaristic looking Dolton Illinois police department using an armored personnel carrier during a standoff in 2008
There’s trouble in Dolton Illinois, and it may go beyond the highly publicized videotaped beating of a special needs student by a Dolton police officer with a worrisome past.
By now, most people are aware of the video showing Dolton police officer Christopher Lloyd assaulting 15-year-old Marshawn Pitts, a learning disabled student at the Academy for Learning school for special needs students, for nothing more than mouthing off about a dress code violation in May 2009.
Most are also now aware of officer Lloyd’s questionable past with the Robbins Illinois police department where he was involved with the questionable shooting death of his ex-wife’s husband and that he is currently sitting in a Lake County Indiana jail on charges of sexual assault.
However, the question people are still asking is how an officer like Lloyd was hired and placed in a high school with learning disabled students while he was still on unpaid leave from the Robbins Illinois PD over the the shooting death of his ex-wife’s husband when he was hired by Dolton in January of 2009?
According to the Washington Post, a Black "D.C. police detective angrily confronted a group of (some white) snowball fighters, at one point even drawing his weapon, after they pelted him and his Hummer with snowballs near the intersection of 14th and U Streets NW Saturday, witnesses said." Responding in part to this and other videos, D.C. police said the detective, who they have declined to identify, has been assigned to desk duty pending the outcome of an investigation into the matter.
Are police officers as intelligent as they should be, and do they show good judgment?
When someone with a camera and a microphone asked the detective whether he had pulled his gun at the snowball fight, the detective responded, "Yes, because I got hit with snowballs."
Asked twice, "What's your badge number, Sir? What's your badge number?" the detective asked in response, "For what?!"
Why do game wardens appear to be so much more intelligent and caring than police officers? When game wardens become aware that a bear or a large alligator is walking through the middle of a small rural town, they engage in all sorts of careful and artful maneuvering to convince the animal to go back into the woods or swamp, or to get him into the back of a truck so that he can be let loose in the wild. If necessary, they shoot the bears and moose with a tranquilizer dart.
Police, on the other hand, have an entirely different ethic: all force, all the time. Rather than understand, as game wardens do, that the animal is just going about his business as he sees it, or hunting, because that's what animals do, police see all but the most submissive human behavior as a direct threat to their authority, which in most officer's minds seems to be absolute. Even to the extent of attempted murder, or electrocuting and executing human beings on the street, without the benefit of trial, police seem to believe that they can do as they please, with virtually boundless impunity.
In Oakland this week a police officer concluded that the best way to handle a shouting bipolar patient was to throw the patient, and the officer himself, through a plate glass window. Congratulations, officer! You have just proved once again, that those professionals who corral thousand-pound bears and alligators -- at least the ones who get the most publicity -- are considerably more intelligent and reasonable than those who corral surly human beings.
OAKLAND, CA (KGO) -- Another BART police officer is on YouTube and it has triggered more controversy about the BART police force. Once again, use of force is the issue.
A video of the arrest of a BART passenger over the weekend shows the officer and suspect both crash into a plate glass window at the West Oakland station, shattering it on impact.
BART is once again defending itself.
BART is expected to hold a news conference some time Monday evening. The agency is also trying to track down witnesses so they can be interviewed on what happened at the West Oakland station platform that evening.
The officer involved in this case is very new to the BART police force. He just transferred there six months ago from the Contra Costa Sheriff's Department.
Attorney John Burris is calling the officer's arrest of a mentally-ill man "excessive force." He has already got a $50 million wrongful death suit against BART for the New Year's Day shooting death of an unarmed passenger. Now, he plans to sue again for this case.
"You would have thought that this officer would have learned from the Oscar Grant case that you don't immediately rush in," Burris told ABC7. "You try to calm the situation down." http://abclocal.go.com/kgo
Maybe game warden are not aroused by the brown or black color of bears to hate, fear and attempt to murder them.
There's a new blog that's following the police pre-trail, extrajudicial shocking and electrocution deaths of Latinos, called Tasered While Latino. Although the scientific word for death by electrical shock is "electrocution", the blog uses the name "Tasered" because Taser International is the largest supplier of these portable waist-holstered electric chairs to police departments and others.
Washington (CNN) -- Six people, including four police officers, were indicted in the fatal race-related beating of a Latino man in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
The three indictments include federal hate crime charges, as well as obstruction of justice, conspiracy, official misconduct and extortion charges, authorities said. A federal grand jury handed up the indictments last week, and they were unsealed Tuesday.
Luis Ramirez was in a coma on life support before he died two days after he was beaten
Derrick Donchak and Brandon Piekarsky are charged with a hate crime for beating Luis Ramirez in July 2008 while shouting racial epithets at him, prosecutors said. Ramirez died two days later.
"Following the beating, Donchak, Piekarsky and others, including members of the Shenandoah Police Department, participated in a scheme to obstruct the investigation of the fatal assault," the Justice Department said.
Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor is charged in two separate indictments with conspiring to obstruct justice, multiple counts of extortion and civil rights violations, authorities said. Tasered While Latino
This is but one example of the lawlessness of some police officers in all of the police departments of the United States of America. In this case, it seems as though the US Justice Department may try to bring a measure of justice to the dead, as well as retribution and deterrence to the living police officers.
All-too-often, when the initial shock and outrage wears off, police plead murder charges down to disorderly conduct and are allowed to resign with pensions from one police department, only to begin working for another, like the pedophile priests who were shuffled from abusing children in one congregation to abusing different children in another.
With the advent of the Tasered While Latino blog, the pre-trial, extra-judicial attempted murders and executions of Latinos may receive the attention that the same lawless police behavior has received when it is directed toward Blacks.
This comes from Rippa, who has a keen sense of injustice and absurdity, at the Intersection of Madness and Reality Blog. Although this blog focuses on police brutality (and atrocity), it's really about manifestly unequal justice in the United States of America. A black person would be burned at the stake (charged with assault and battery and spend three or four years in jail) for cutting off a white child's blond locks, but the teacher in this case was merely given a ticket for "disorderly conduct," says Rippa. That's unequal justice in the law enforcement system and that concerns the Police Brutality Blog.
The worst thing in the world is the possible loss of innocence of a child at the hand of an adult. I just read the story of 7 year-old Lamya Cammon in Milwaukee, WI and now I'm left to wonder just how this would impact her life as she moves forward from this incident:
OK, first off, I watched another video on the story and Lamya said the teacher told her to come to her desk to get some candy and then cut her braid. I'm sorry, but that negates the whole "I'm sorry, but I was stressed out," bullshit claim. Sure she may have been bothered by what this kid was doing with her hair. But it's quite apparent that she put some thought into just how she was going to "punish" Lamaya, so miss me with that bullshit teacher lady. Yes I understand that the teaching profession is a thankless job. But damn maybe this woman needs to re-evaluate her career choice and go to barber school instead.
Secondly, what the fuck is up with the District Attorney not filing charges on this teacher? Yep, why did it take the police the department to hold her accountable via a ticket for disorderly conduct? And further, why in the hell does this teacher still employed? Why not at least paid administrative leave? What's next? Does she have to put a gun to a students head before someone decides to take action or lord forbid hold her accountable for her actions? I don't know what in the world is going on in Milwaukee and these District Attorneys. Apparently this is no big deal to them as is being a state social worker and tricking your client into having sex just so that she can keep her kids. Intersection of Madness and Reality Blog.
If this were my child, I'd circulate a petition demanding the teacher's dismissal to get the community involved.
Legally, I'd file civil claims against the teacher for assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, not only on behalf of my child, but joining all of the willing Black and white children in the class as plaintiffs, and with the school principal, the superintendent and the city as defendants.
It seems to me that this teacher also may have committed the crime of false imprisonment, since she had to hold the child against her will, with no legal authority or justification for doing so, while the teacher was cutting off the child's braid. This is also assault with a deadly weapon, since a foot, a boot and a pair of scissors can all constitute deadly weapons in some US jurisdictions.
I agree (without knowing) that this was most likely a white teacher; cutting of one of her braids was an act of color-aroused violence. Even if the teacher had brown skin, cutting of the child's braid could be an act of color-aroused violence, since no Black teacher would ever, ever, dare to cut off a white child's blond hair. The teacher engaged in this behavior with a Black child because she thought she could get away with it with little or no punishment. She might ultimately prove to be right, depending on the determination of the parents and the community, as well as the police, district attorney, judges and others.
To put pressure on the city, the school system, the principal and the teacher, I would request that police pursue assault and battery charges. Did the teacher take the braid from the child? If so, then she also may have committed the crime of robbery, taking a belonging from the child by force without the intention of returning it to her. In fact, this could easily be characterized as "assault with a deadly weapon" (the scissors) and armed robbery, since the teacher was armed with scissors when she took the child's braid.
So, even if the teacher was Black the crime may have been motivated, at least in part, by the knowledge that the teacher could act this way with impunity when dealing with a Black child. Even if the skin colors of the teacher and child were similar, that might not necessarily preclude a discrimination claim, since Black people can discriminate against other Blacks.
I would file a police report about an armed (the scissors) assault and battery and robbery (the braid cut off) with my child as the victim, and I would include the names of all of the children in the class as potential witnesses.
The police must at least accept and process the request that charges be filed, even if the DA does not ultimately seek charges.
When the principal, the superintendent and the city fail to fire the teacher and allow her to potentially continue such behavior, they become complicit in and ratify, in my opinion, the color-aroused treatment of Black children in this school.
I would also be willing to bet that there is statistical evidence that Black children in this teacher's classroom don't do as well as whites. That's not an argument that federal courts have been interested in over the past twenty years, but nonetheless such evidence would put added pressure on the school system.
It seems to me that the parents of this child would have to exhaust their administrative remedies before filing a discrimination and assault and battery case in federal court, so they should immediately file formal complaints with the school system, the city and/or Human Relations/Equal Opportunity commission, otherwise the doors to federal court may be closed to them. Nonetheless, they might get a quick and symbolic win in Federal Court by requesting a restraining order requiring that the child be placed in a different class, receive child psychological intervention, and new braids that would rectify, to the extent possible, the damage done to the child's hairstyle and her self-esteem.
Is this an example of the USA's antagonism toward Black people's natural hair styles? Would the teacher have cut off this girl's hair if it were long and straight? Was the teacher antagonistically color-aroused by the beads in the child's hair, in the way that whites reacted negatively at first to Venus and Serena Williams' braids and beads?
Even if the teacher was Black, I would be interested to know if she had cut off the long straight hair of white students in the past.
Since seeing a child brutalized in this way by a teacher who has control over ALL of the children is an inherently emotionally distressful event.
I'm not a practicing lawyer, but this question could easily appear on a law school torts final exam (bad, unlawful acts). The exam would ask law students what the various causes of action were, who the potential plaintiffs were and who the potential defendants were. In Civil Procedure, they would ask where the potential causes of action should be filed (what the forum court would be, whether state, federal, or both, and against whom, and what filings would be required within the next months in order to maintain the child plaintiff's right to file.
The parents are also potential plaintiffs with intentional infliction of emotional distress claims, since it was certainly foreseeable that the child would return home, tell her account to her parents, and her parents would become sick to their stomachs.
I would advise that the child be taken immediately to a child psychiatrist (psychiatrists are doctors with more training than psychologists, so they serve as better expert witnesses) and the psychiatrist would provide treatment for the child as necessary and write an analysis for the courts of the psychological effect(s) this has had, is having, and will have on this child in the future.
In order to have a chance at success with intentional infliction of emotional distress claims with the parents as the victims, the parents should also immediately see psychiatrists and continue to do so as this case works it way through courts, since their visits to a psychiatrist are an indication of the seriousness of the psychiatric harm and also prepare for expert testimony by their psychiatrist.
I'm not practicing law anymore, but this is what I would do if it were my child.
To put additional pressure on the school system, I would seek to depose every child in the class as a potential witness. That would get parents involved and furious at the school system.
In July of 2008, a suicidal Black man, Phillip McDuffy, was out on the ledge of a bridge threatening to jump off. Little did he know, it was not necessary to jump, since the police were more than happy to push him with two or more electrical shocks from a 50,000 volt pre-trial, extra-judicial death penalty electrocution and execution gun. At the time, the Police Brutality Blog called it a "death penalty attempt" by the Columbia, MO police.
Now, according to the Columbia Tribune, the city has made a rare admission that police were wrong to shock the Mr. McDuffy under the circumstances:
City Finance Director Lori Fleming said that avoiding a potentially lengthy and expensive jury trial merited the outlay of taxpayer dollars.
“We obviously believe it is in the best interest of the city in the long run,” Fleming said.
“Given the courts and what can happen, it was best to just get this issue behind us, ” the finance director said.
Hopefully, this settlement will show other cities the financial risks involved with electrically shocking members of the public under circumstances that would also shock a jury. The Columbia Tribune reports:
The man injured after falling 15 feet from a highway overpass when police shocked him with two Tasers has reached a cash settlement with the city of Columbia.
The city Finance Department agreed last month to pay $300,000 to 46-year-old Phillip McDuffy to settle a claim he made out of court. About $66,450 of that settlement will go to the Family Support Payment Center to cover back child support that McDuffy owes.
McDuffy’s attorney, Todd Johnson of Kansas City, had proposed a $500,000 settlement to close the matter, indicating in a December 2008 letter to the city that Johnson would receive 40 percent of the settlement for his work. Neither Johnson nor McDuffy could be reached this morning for comment.
City Finance Director Lori Fleming said that avoiding a potentially lengthy and expensive jury trial merited the outlay of taxpayer dollars.
“We obviously believe it is in the best interest of the city in the long run,” Fleming said.
“Given the courts and what can happen, it was best to just get this issue behind us, ” the finance director said.
On July 25, 2008, McDuffy walked along the outside ledge of a pedestrian overpass on Providence Road and threatened suicide by jumping to the Interstate 70 pavement below.
Standing outside the fenced-in walkway, McDuffy refused to leave his perch during a 90-minute confrontation with police. The episode brought traffic on Providence Road and I-70 to a halt in both directions, drawing a large crowd of onlookers.
In an attempt to end the incident, two Columbia police officers fired Taser devices at McDuffy, who was shocked and fell limply to the ground. McDuffy spent eight days in intensive care at University Hospital and had three surgeries, including two that required pins to repair broken bones.
Last year, Johnson said, McDuffy’s medical bills totaled about $167,000, but the lawyer said that total did not include physical therapy. Johnson also claimed McDuffy was experiencing stress headaches and double vision.
An internal investigation by Columbia police found the Taser use was proper.
However, the incident and others in the region prompted Columbia police to adopt new, more restrictive guidelines for Taser use. Still, critics say, the settlement should be a warning that the devices are more trouble than they are worth.
“How much more money is the taxpayer going to have to pay before they realize that when we weigh the pros and cons of this weapon, it’s just not worth it,” said Mary Hussman of Grass Roots Organizing, which has been critical of Columbia police Taser use. “We’re accepting a tremendous liability when we allow these weapons in the hands of our police officers.”
Hussman said McDuffy is disabled and unable to work. He previously held a job at a fast-food restaurant.
