| News Report RACISM IN NY'S SCHOOLS ALLEGED
School Safety
History of
Police Brutality
Case
Studies of Police Brutality
Giuliani's
Ton Ton Macoutes
Resources:
Center for Constitutional Rights (800) 764-0235
National Coalition on Police Accountability (312) 663-5392
National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights 212 614-5355 rperez@boricuanet.org
National Peoples Campaign - 39 West 14th Street, #206, NY, NY 10011. (212) 633-6646;
(Fax) (212) 633-2889
Speak Out! - POB 99096, Emeryville, CA 94662 Phone: (510) 601-0182; Fax: (510)
601-0183; speakout@igc.apc.org |
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Violations of Civil
Rights
The problems posed by the illegal exercise of police power are an ongoing
reality for individuals of a disfavored race, class, or sexual orientation. Most
litigation in this area of the law has been processed in the federal courts under a
federal statute 42 United States Code l983 because, at least until now, that court has
shown a relative sensitivity to civil rights claims. The
assertion of a civil right should be understood to be an inherent part of progressive
social change in a democracy. On the one side we have the police who are responsible for
maintaining and enforcing the existing social and economic order, and on the other side
are those who challenge police authority. The courts are the final arbitrer to determine
through the jury system whether in fact the alleged conduct amounts to an abuse of a civil
right. Thus each time a police officer uses excessive
force, makes an illegal search or seizure, suppresses free speech, or participates in
other unconstitutional acts, that officer is impairing the individuals right and at the
same time is thwarting legitimate societal change.
Historically, racial minorities, especially blacks, have been the victims of police
brutality. Since the middle of the l9th century a dominant white society maintained race
discrimination through a police force ready and willing to use violence against those in
the minority. This violence expressed itself in the years immediately after the civil war
through, at the extreme, lynchings, to
harrassment in various forms. It was in response to the continued denial of civil rights
of blacks that Civil Rights legislation was first passed in the U S Congress. Commenting
on this legislation the Supreme Court in Owen v. City of Independence Mo. 445 U S 622
said:
"The central aim of the Civil Rights Act was to provide protection to
those persons wronged by the "misuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and
made posssible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state
law."
Even today among blacks there is a widespread belief that there exists in
this land of freedom, a "double standard" of justice, one for whites and one for
blacks and other minorities.
It is not easy to file, prepare and try a civil rights case, but it is
important in a progressive representative democracy that such actions be pursued for
several reasons. First the direct victims can gain money damages as compensation for the
wrongdoing which they have endured. Equally important police misconduct litigation informs
the public of individual acts of police abuse which would go unnoticed absent such
litigation. Further the evidence presented in such cases establishes that the alleged act
of bruality is not an unusual or rare event, but in fact is an institutionalized police
practice often repeated against innocent persons. In the last analysis it is society that
benefits the most from this litigation as police misconduct is brought out in the open,
exposed to public censure and review.
The Civil Rights Era
Selma, Alabama, March 7, 1965. The brutal beatings are indelibly imprinted
on our collective memory as a nation. Scores of civil rights activists intending to
peacefully march from Selma to Montgomery were seeking to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge
going out of town. They were met by a wall of mounted Alabama state troopers, There was a
brief stand-off. Then it happened - the billyclub ( a policemen's nightstick), beatings,
the stamping horses, the tear gas, and the frantic, running marchers. Television cameras
and still cameras alike forever captured that violent fragment of American history.
The television media played the scene over and over again. The print media
decried this unprovoked attack. The New York Times commented regarding the outrage.
"The scene in Selma resembled that in a police state. Heavily armed men attacked the
marchers. . . If this is described as law enforcement, it is misnamed . . . It disgraces
not only the state of Alabama but every citizen of the country in which it can
happen." The New York Times, "Incident at Selma," March 9, 1965. The
nation saw it and was repulsed. Rightly so. The unfortunate scene was repeated with slight
variations in other cities in that tumultuous, troubling decade.
But when we left the sixties and early seventies behind, most of us
thought we had left police brutality behind with them. We didn't. Beatings, kicking,
broken arms, dislocated shoulders, cuts, bruises, pain compliance come-along holds and
unbelievably, sexual molestation of women - all by uniformed police officers - have
resurfaced in our nation en masse. You mean you haven't heard the media outcry? Maybe it's
because there hasn't been one. In Atlanta the premeditated police brutality against
members of Operation Rescue began against nonviolent rescuers. |
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Major Burnette publicly stated,
"We're not going to allow Operation Rescue- as they say - to bring this city to its
knees. Somebody's going to be brought to their knees all right, but it's not going to be
the city of Atlanta . . . What we've told them, in no uncertain terms, is that they are
not welcome to come here and engage in unlawful activities. . . They've had their genteel
treatment. We're moving now toward treating them as the lawbreakers they are." Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, October 2, 1988, 1C.
Susan Jones, named changed, a thirty-five-year-old women who lives with
her husband in Philadelphia, states, "[The police] lost control of themselves in the
situation and just started throwing people out of the way, picking us up by our waists,
dragging us away by our heels, by bending our arms, and by picking us up by our ears. . .
[As I waited on the pavement near the police bus,] I felt a body slammed
into my back and looked up and it was father . . . ; and after he slammed into me, the
police picked him up by his collar - they were choking him. His eyes were bugged out and
it looked like he couldn't breathe as they picked him up and threw him into the bus. There
was a woman who has been dragged by her feet to the bus and her blouse was up over her
neck and she had horrible scrapes up and down her back.
Reverend Cary almost died from his injuries, but the low point of police
behavior came from the man who originated the threats, Major Burnette. There were too many
rescuers descending on the Hillcrest abortuary, doing the Atlanta crawl, for the police to
keep all of them from slipping under the barricades and making their way to the door. As
the rescuers approached the door on all fours, Major Burnette walked in front of one male
rescuer and lifted his upper torso so that he sat erect on his knees. He then stepped back
and kicked him. From the angle of the video, it is unclear whether Burnette's foot caught
the man's face or upper chest. Nevertheless, the major's stand for justice sent the man
tumbling backwards.
Major Burnette later commented, "I used my foot on occasion to stop
someone who was illegally in the process of assaulting a legally operating business, I
make no apologies for that." Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 7, 1988,
1A. John Stossel of ABC's "20/20" responded to Burnette's claims, "Wait,
They weren't assaulting your police officers. They were crawling." "20/20,"
October 28, 1988. Public Safety Commissioner George Napper firmly supported his troops:
". . . overall I think we've done a hell of a job." Gwinnett Daily News,
October 6, 1989, 1A.
Neither Major Burnette nor any other officers were disciplined in any way
for their behavior. The police never publicly apologized or admitted that they had acted
wrongly. No internal investigation ever occurred. So much for justice.
Mrs. Farris, in Brookline Boston, Mass had the joints in her jaw
shattered, her shoulder dislocated, and required surgery for a prosthesis implant after
Major Burnette took his show on the road to discuss his tactics with the Brookline Police
Department. Following the visit of Major Burnette, the Brookline police became absolutely
brutal. (Read the complete story, including letters from jail in: Accessory to Murder, The Enemies, Allies, And Accomplices To The Death of Our Culture, by Randall
A. Terry, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publisher, Inc. Brentwood, Tennessee.)
The use of excessive force by the police was brought to the forefront in 1991 by the
Rodney King beating. Charges that such beatings are not the exception but rather common
practice, expecially against minorities, has prompted calls for change. Diverse directions
for change have been advocated: more community policing; better internal investigations of
misconduct complaints; more prosecution of offending officers; and stricter laws. There
are some, however, who question whether police brutality is indeed a serious problem or
just a minor problem exaggerated by the media and others for political reasons.
Without a doubt, communities of Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous, Arab people,
immigrant and non-immigrant, are more and more the target of racist killer cops.The rights
of poor people are increasingly being taken away at the same time that the police are
being given a freer hand to brutalize and murder us. Across the country, victims like
TyRon Lewis, Aaron White, Preston Barnes, Aaron William, Yang Xin Huang, Anthony Baez,
Anthony Rosario, Hilton Vega, Jose Librado Sanchez, Richard Singleton, Nathaniel Gains,
and many others have died in a wave of police murder. The government claims that
"crime must be dealt with" and so more cops are "needed." But which is
worse-the individual acts of desperation among poor people, such as robberies and drug
peddling, or government decisions that force these desperate acts?
Why is there such bipartisan agreement on expanding police power? The answer lies in
the function of the police. Cops don't arrest bosses when they lay off workers. They don't
arrest politicians who take health care and food away from children. They don't arrest the
KKK or right-wing militias who promote and commit racist violence. The politicians and
their corporate bosses are anticipating an explosion of justifiable anger in response to
their cutbacks. So they want more cops to keep the poor in check while they intensify
their economic oppression. |
