I'm not usually one to get upset. At least not for more than five seconds before I turn sarcastic. These past few days, I've been upset. There have been no signs of improvement in my condition, so I've resorted to desperate measures(writing).
The chain of events in Ferguson and the happenings in Cleveland, among many others, are, in short, ridiculous. I have done my best to give each side the benefit of the doubt, and to wait and see the publicly available evidence. My conclusion: Justice is not possible under our current law enforcement system. Not just because of racism, but because of how we currently equip our officers. Because of their training and equipment.
A few notes: First and foremost, I'm an African-american.Any thoughts that I have with regard to something that is even remotely related to race are going to be colored by that fact. Secondly: I am not a police officer and I'm not a lawyer so any insights to be given on that front are going to be colored by that fact. Lastly: I wasn't there. I am at the mercy of my news sources. So, the evidence that I regard as valid from my point of view may well be concocted and/or invalid.
Ferguson
Let's start with Ferguson, since there is significantly more information available. In 1970 99% of the residents were White. By 2010 that percentage had slipped significantly. To 29.3% White and 67.4% African-american. The police department contains 3 African-american officers equating to ≈5.6% of the total force. These numbers can be interpreted a few ways, but they brought two major thoughts to my mind. Black people are not overly interested in becoming cops. The department is not overly interested in having black people become cops. I suppose these aren't independent possibilities but, either way, the stage was set for something like this to happen.
I'm going to jump forward to the confrontation between Officer Wilson and Michael Brown. The statement he gave to the grand jury is available online, but I'm going to briefly summarize. Wilson was advised that a robbery had taken place at a local convenience store. The suspect being an African-american male. He then encountered Brown and a friend walking down the middle of a street on the double yellow line. He tried to convince them to move to the sidewalk, they declined and continue walking while speaking with him. Wilson opens his door and Brown slams it shut. Brown is standing next to the Tahoe and Wilson tries to open the door again, and uses it to push Brown back. Brown closes the door again. Brown then punches Wilson.Tells his friend to hold the stolen cigarillos. While he's telling his friend to hold the cigarillos Wilson grabs hold of Brown's right arm. He tries to open the door again and is hit by another punch. Rules out mace, asp, and flashlight as options for defense and goes for his gun. Brown immediately grabs the gun and drives it into Wilson's hip. Wilson tries to get a shot off but the gun clicks twice. The third goes through the door panel and shatters the glass.Wilson sees blood on the back of his hand. Tries to fire again, it clicks. He racks the gun and it goes off. When he looks up he sees a cloud of dust behind Brown. He runs in pursuit, and calls for more cars. Tells him to get on the ground and Brown begins to charge. Left hand fist, right hand goes under his shirt in his waistband. He shoots a series of shots, at least one hits. Brown hasn't slowed down, so Wilson begins backpedaling. Shoots another series of shots.He's now 8-10 feet away, head down like he's charging for a tackle. The final shots hit Brown in the head and he dies.
Now, I find this testimony completely ridiculous, but I'm going to assume, for the sake of argument, that it's 100% true. But first, I skipped over a lot of information that makes the testimony even more ridiculous. To name a few: Wilson is 6'4" 210 pounds. Brown is also 6'4" and about 290 pounds. He describes holding Brown's arm like being a 5 year old holding onto Hulk Hogan. Johnson, Brown's friend, replies "We are almost to our destination" when told to move to the sidewalk. I don't know where you're from, but there is not a single person who has said that. Ever. Unless secretly does voice acting for a portable GPS company. Wilson describes thinking, "What do I do to not get beaten inside my car?" I don't know, you could drive away. Stop opening your door. Roll up your window and call for help since clearly you have time to do other things like grab the top of your gun and rack the slide while struggling with someone. I digress. The autopsy was consistent with someone being shot in the arm from the back, from the front. And then shot in the chest and head while falling to the ground. Brown was 35 feet away from Wilson initially and he made it to 8-10 feet. It seems to me that Brown had a death wish, most people who aren't wearing body armor do not run towards people shooting at them with lethal rounds.
Okay, so I got through about half of the stuff that I found off in Wilson's testimony. But what's more important is that there was no indictment. A grand jury made it through the testimony and decided that there was no need to go to trial. Before Wilson's statement,the assistant prosecutor passed out a statute about officer's use of force in an arrest. The statute stated that it is legal to shoot fleeing suspects. That statute had been ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme court in 1985. The prosecutor simply presented the evidence to the grand jury, rather than going after Wilson during cross-examination. Everything about this reeks of making sure that Wilson doesn't get indicted. And yet, I don't think anyone was surprised when he wasn't.
So, we jump forward to the public release of the decision. The protesters get mad and start looting and burning things. There are protests across the country, but I'm mainly concerned with Ferguson itself. The people of Ferguson proceed to destroy their own town.Everyone seems to have the same general criticisms of this. That it's not a positive response, not a constructive response. And similarly, that acting in that manner makes you appear to deserve to be treated like a second class citizen. While I agree with both of these criticisms, to a degree I agree that things need to be burned. What happened was monstrous and deserved a monster. But I think there are pieces of the situation that people aren't burning things about when they should be.
Unfortunately, racism exists as part of the fabric of America. It is not something that is going to change in the next 10 years, it is not something that is going to change in the next 100 years, perhaps not ever. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work against it,but I think people need to deal with the problems that can be solved. How we train our law enforcers, and, more importantly, how we equip them.
Wilson's decision to draw his gun instead of hitting Brown with a flashlight or driving away, I can only account for with poor training. Then to pursue Brown on foot, equally poor.Last time I checked, mounted units tend to do better than foot soldiers. The series of decisions made by Wilson, if they were all in line with what he was trained to do, were proof that how officers are trained is in need of an overhaul. Now, I don't want to generalize that fact to officers across the country, but obviously there is something wrong somewhere.
Beyond that, we have reached a stage technologically where lethal force is no longer the most effective way to neutralize threats. By giving law enforcement lethal weaponry, we are granting them the ability to dispense justice on the street instead of in a courtroom. Now, of course, my first thought is our legal system is corrupt and ineffectual too. Yes. Absolutely. But executing people in the street. That's worse. Wilson in his statement said, "I normally don’t carry a taser. We only have a select amount. usually there is one available, but I usually elect not to carry one.It is not the most comfortable thing. They are very large, I don’t have a lot of room in the front for it to be positioned." Usually there's on available but I usually elect not to carry one. Maybe we should make tasers that aren't "very large" and officers can "have room on the front to position." It honestly doesn't seem that massive a task considering the huge difference between lethally shooting someone and tasing them.
Well, wait, police are dealing with people who could potentially be armed with lethal weaponry. Shouldn't they be armed equivalently? I don't think they need to be.It's about threat neutralization, not threat destruction. Police officers are not paid to kill people. So why give them the power to do so. As long as they have the power to neutralize people without the power to kill them. The potential for abuse of the system, the potential for needless death is reduced significantly. In network security, you only give people the access they need and nothing more. Why? Because it reduces the risk of a breach. This is no different.
Cleveland
On to Cleveland. There's a bit less to say on this front. But it fits in perfectly with what I've already said. I don't want to make the event about race, because at this stage I have no conclusive evidence that it was. But, it was. Young black males are 21 times more likely to be shot dead by police officers than young white males. Do you think that black males are 21 times more likely to be threatening criminals than white males? Take a guess, you have a 50/50 shot.
A 12 year old boy, Tamir Rice, was shot and killed by Cleveland police. He was playing with a fake gun. An air-soft pistol that looks like a real one. Now, I think he bears part of the fault for it, his parents as well. You're playing outside with a toy that looks like a weapon. Stupid. But he wasn't threatening anyone. He didn't have any hostages, there was no one in his immediate vicinity when the police arrived. But 2 seconds, 2 seconds after the cruiser appears he is shot. The video is online. The police stated that they told him to show his hands up three times before opening fire. It was a rookie that shot him, a 26 year old. They had received a call from the person seen sitting in the gazebo during the earlier parts of the video, including the information that the gun was likely a fake. A detail that wasn't passed along to the responding officers.
The first big issue for me here is that yet again, the first option is to shoot the threat. Not tase them, not hit them with a beanbag weapon, shoot them with a lethal round. That shouldn't be the first option. Secondly, it didn't appear that there was very much time for Tamir to react to the arrival of the officers. He wasn't looking their direction. It seems probable that he didn't realize that they were even talking to him before they were on top of him. Third,how could a 12 year old possibly be mistaken for 20. I don't care how big a 12 year old you are, you don't look 20. And finally, why was the possibility that the weapon was a fake not passed on. That tiny bit of information could have meant the difference between Rice being shot and not being shot.
On every level, this entire situation could have been avoided if equipment and training were different. From using the cruiser's speakers from range to tasing him.Even a single change could have meant the difference between life and death. We haven't even reached the stage where the grand jury decides not to indict the officer(s). But hey, all of this is good for the media right. We can paint the officer as a racist. We can paint the kid as a delinquent. Who needs the truth when you have a great story.
So, can we just start tasing people and shooting them with beanbags more. Since, if our system is really about Justice, we should be searching for it in a courtroom rather than on the street. I don't really have much else I want to say right now. Congratulations if you made it this far. I'm feeling marginally less upset...maybe. So /rant