Not Marching

I am not rallying against the current spate of presumed police brutality against black men. Much of what I am seeing is uninformed histrionics: here’s what we think we know, here’s what we saw on TV, here’s what we heard, here’s what we’ve been told. For me, there’s too much emotion loose on the streets of the nation and not nearly enough intellect.

Our outrage seems mostly an anti-intellectual embrace of rhetoric over analysis, and the wrongheaded and deeply troubling determination to fight our legal case on city streets where no such cases are ever won. Simply failing to obey lawful instructions from a sworn officer is legal justification for the very tragedies we are rallying against. I’d rather fight the actual problem than flail away at a symptom of it.

Where was our outrage when some idiot gave a 12-year old *black* child an Airsoft pistol to play with in a city renowned for police overreaction? The news media keeps referring to the air gun as a toy. Airsoft pistols are not toys. It’s really not hair-splitting: BB guns are toys. AirSoft pistols are weapons, like a bow and arrow. This is how these guns have skated around the law requiring the bright orange cone over the end of the barrel: they’re not toy guns, kids should not be playing with them.

Did that make it right for Officer Timothy Loehmann, 26, to shoot twelve-year old Tamir Rice? Of course not. I think the officer panicked. I think the officer, as we are learning from the release of his previous personnel file, really didn’t belong on the street. However, just the fact that the officer panicked made it legal for him to shoot the kid. That’s the way it works: the bigger a punk the officer is, the more frightened he is, the easier it is to make a case for using deadly force. Not because his life was actually in danger, but because the officer likely peed himself; because he was afraid.

In such situations, cowardice is a cop’s best friend. I wasn’t there, I don’t know what happened that night in Cleveland. What I do know is a child is dead, and folks running around hollering and outraged refuse, absolutely, to take any responsibility at all for it. They blame the cop, but I blame whomever put that pistol in the hands of a twelve-year old and left him on the damned *street* of all places, unsupervised.

This is my problem: there simply is no accountability in Black America. All we want to do is blame White Folk. White Folk This, White Folk That.

What's Wrong With This Picture: $100 headphones, U.S. Polo Association jacket, but he needs to steal?

I Am Not Mike Brown

Amid the many protests across the nation are people holding signs which read, “I Am Mike Brown.” Well, I’m not Mike Brown. Which isn’t to say Mike Brown was a bad kid but that he seemed to be a typical kid and that some bad parenting or bad environmental issues were clearly evident in Michael’s behavior. None of which were grounds for Officer Darren Wilson to shoot him six times. He panicked. Or he was enraged. Either way, his emotional state provides the defense preventing a jury from indicting him.

Michael Brown was a thug. He was. I spent most of my childhood and adolescence running from thugs like Michael Brown. Brown was not Trayvon Martin, not minding his own business and murdered by a vigilante. He committed some petty shoplifting but, worse, threatened and intimidated the store clerk. Does that mean he deserved to be killed? Of course not. But it infuriates me that Black America continues to minimize our case for actual racial discrimination over these inflated events.

When am I going to hear Michael’s father confess that something went wrong in his son’s life? Do we actually believe that was the first time Michael not only stole something, not only boldly walked out, but turned and walked back in, aggressively threatening the shopkeeper? Am I supposed to believe that was the first and only time Michael did that? Look at the video, how practiced that move was: Michael using his size to intimidate. I’ve seen that move. I’ve been on the receiving end of that move. That’s what bullies do. I’ve seen this kid before; I’ve run from this kid, this kid made my life a living hell.

I assure you, there are kids, somewhere in that neighborhood, who are afraid to tell anybody that Michael intimidated them, that he beat them or threatened them. He was a scary guy.

Officer Wilson was likely scared, too. He’d been attacked, he’d shot this boy, and yet the boy was now coming after him. Did he have his hands up or was he charging the cop? I don’t know. I do know, had Brown not robbed the store in the first place, I wouldn’t be writing this.

I believe the officer panicked. I believe it was a bad call. But just the fact the officer panicked is enough to qualify him for a pass: if he feared for his life, he was permitted to use lethal force. And that rule, The Coward Defense, is the real problem: far too many sworn officers are just freaking cowards, far too many sworn officers are scared of black people and consider blacks more hostile than whites. Why? Because we are.

That's the real problem, everything else is theater. This is not a problem that can be fixed on the street by yelling at cops who had nothing whatsoever to do with this mess. This is  a problem than can only be addressed by the courts and by the ballot box, two avenues the black community routinely take for granted, preferring instead to shoulder no responsibility for these tragedies whatsoever but to suit up and threaten violence; thus reinforcing the very stereotype that fuels these tragic incidents.

Yes, this mess is certainly about race, but it is even more about truth. Until both sides start telling it, I won’t be marching anywhere.

The Other Side of The Box: "Fuck The Police."
What does that say about us? What are we teaching our kids? clevescene.com

De-Escalate

Would I have shot Michael? It’s unfair to say because I was not, and likely would not have been, in the emotional state Wilson was in. As I see it, the root cause of racism and homophobia is fear; we fear what we do not know. Most racist whites I know personally do not have any black friends at all. Zero, none. Having no personal reference to draw from, these people typically invent what they *think* black people are about based on whatever foolishness they’ve seen on TV.

I have no way of knowing if Darren Wilson has any black friends or not, but I’d have assumed if he did, at least one of them one have stepped up by now. As a result, I believe Wilson was policing by assumption, like the keeper at a zoo, feeding the monkeys. I don’t know for a fact, but I suspect the times when Wilson parked his radio car and just strolled—became part of the community—were likely rare.

As I write this, I am thinking of at least three black cops I know, any one of which would likely have resolved the Michael Brown scenario simply and peacefully. For one thing, they would have known Michael, surely by face if not by name. Michael would not likely have attacked a black officer, especially my friends who would likely have reminded Michael of his own dad. Henry, a six-foot-six 250+ sergeant and 25-year US Army veteran, is not to be fucked with. He's fair and reasonable, but clearly not to be fucked with (excuse my language). You don't reach into Henry's squad car. You don't charge at Henry. Henry don't need no gun; he can handle himself on the street. He doesn't panic and shoot people. Henry would not have been afraid of Michael Brown, Brown would have feared Henry. More important, Brown would have respected Henry because of the way Henry carries himself: he earns the public trust.

For their part, these black officers likely would have been stern with Michael but not insulting. Brown, unarmed and standing some 40 feet away, would have posed absolutely no threat whatsoever to these officers, as he posed absolutely no threat whatsoever to Officer Wilson. Even if Michael had, for whatever reason, chosen to charge at my black officer friends, knowing these guys, they'd not have been afraid to go toe-to-toe (fight hand to hand) with the boy if needed. They'd more than likely have let him charge and, moments before impact, simply stepped out of the way and allow the kid to plow into the car door.

Brown didn't have a gun. Wilson could have, effortlessly, moved out of the way. The entire defense is utter nonsense except for The Coward Rule: Wilson was afraid and, therefore, entitled to fire at an unarmed teen 40 feet away from him who posed absolutely no threat to him whatsoever.

I assure you, none of the cops I personally know would have fired a single shot at Michael Brown. That may be because it would have been extremely unlikely for Michael Brown to have attacked an officer who reminded him of his own father or, in the case of one Lieutenant I know, his own mother. This female supervisor, who headed her department's internal affairs division, would have shamed Brown like a mother and marched him back to that store to apologize.

Black people were, likely, scary to Darren Wilson in ways they obviously would not be to me. One look and I could have told you Trayvon Martin was a kid. He dressed like a thug, but that’s the style: black boys trying to be men by looking dangerous (and, my opinion, stupid with those sagging jeans and so forth).

One look at Tamir Rice and I’d have immediately assumed the gun was a toy. I surely would have invested longer than three seconds in determining what was going on. There’d been a report of a kid with a gun, not shots fired, which would have been different. There was a half-pint kid malingering at a park shadow-fighting with invisible people or, as white folks call it, playing.

Did Officer Loehman see only black skin? Did he actually believe this little squirt was a gangsta? And, was he stupid enough to think a real gangsta would just stand there, or approach his car like that? If real Cleveland bangers wanted to hurt Loehman, they’d have called in some phony pedestrian accident and ambushed Loehman and his partner when they got out of the car. Nobody can explain why Tamir Rice is dead; it’s completely inexplicable outside of Loehman simply being an unhinged individual who shouldn’t have been on the street in the first place.

One look at Michael Brown, and I would have seen a big kid and, likely, a bully. But a kid nonetheless. I would not have seen him as an animal, but as a big boy, immature and dumb, who needed a Dad Figure to thump him behind the ears. Brown allegedly stole a handful of cigars, he didn't clean out the register at gunpoint. Ergo, he was a kid. My goal, had I been the cop, would not have been to collar up so much as to try and keep Michael Brown out of the system.

First of all, I’d have approached those boys as a father and not with, what Urban Legend reports as, “Get the eff out of the street.” If I was a cop, if I worked those streets, I’d have worked harder to get to know some of those people. A big guy, a player like Michael, I would have made it my business to know. People, places, the things they do, the times they do them: that’s a cop’s job. Darren Wilson was a terrible cop. For all I know, all he saw was color. I would not have seen Michael’s color, I’d have seen a kid making his own life tougher than it needed to be.

So, I can’t really put myself in Officer Wilson’s shoes because I’m not white, not a cop, and when I see young thugs on the street, I don’t immediately hate them. I know these are somebody’s sons, somebody’s daughters. I would speak to them respectfully and challenge their thinking a little.

Once I learned about the cigars, I’d have tried first to negotiate: “Son, I need you to go back there and apologize to that man. This happens again, I’m locking you up.” I’d have paid for the cigars myself if that would help the neighborhood solve its own problems.

Officer Wilson was, on all counts, an incompetent, lousy cop in a city filled with incompetent, lousy cops; the department chief most obviously of all. To my observation, the Ferguson cops showed absolutely no evidence of any competence at neighborhood policing. They behaved, instead, like prison guards, creating adversity and escalating when they should have been de-escalating. Officer Wilson should have created an “out” for Michael, Option One or Option Two, and de-escalated the situation. Instead, it was, “Get the eff out of the street.”

But I’m not marching for Michael. Fitting Michael for a halo just makes the situation worse because whites see our hypocrisy. Whatever other things he was, Michael Brown was a thug. We need to own that and stop making a bad kid a martyr. Brown was not, in any conceivable sense, Trayvon Martin, who paid for his Skittles and Iced Tea before being stalked by an unhinged, racist vigilante.

Brown’s parents, through their grief, should find the inner capacity to admit their own responsibility in this. I promise you, they knew their son had a temper. They knew their son was likely a bully or certainly bullied upon occasion. And they knew, absolutely, their son could become aggressive when provoked. Put *that* into the mix, and maybe I‘ll suit up and march. But I won’t march for a lie.

A Common Theme

The common theme among most of these shootings, including Eric Garner, busted for selling “loosies” outside of a bodega, is blacks responding aggressively to police. I need you to write this down someplace: they’re police. If you act aggressively toward them, they will hurt you. We behave as if we don’t know that. It is our civic duty to cooperate with law enforcement. The place to fight our battle is not on the street, but in court.

Why Officer Daniel Pantaleo jumped on Garner is anybody’s guess: the man was clearly agitated. Why not try and de-escalate, get him to calm down? Were the cops late for lunch or something? What was the time limit that forced police aggression over something so trivial?

Yes, Pantaleo put Garner in a headlock but, so far as my uninformed eyes could tell, it wasn’t that headlock, the infamous Sleeper Hold banned by the NYPD. I’ve seen that move, this wasn’t it. That may have been the reason the grand jury failed to indict. Garner was overweight and in poor health and had been a nuisance to local shop owners who had repeatedly complained about him.

Garner’s case is, likely, the most perplexing of all, killing a man over the equivalent of a parking ticket. The aggression was incredibly disproportionate and you can’t sell me on the idea of the officers being frightened for their safety: Garner was making no aggressive moves. The cops could have waited him out, everybody back to their corner for a few breaths. Instead, they just jumped him. Why? It was *incredibly* bad policing. I didn’t see a single officer on tape calling for the others to back off; they all joined in, they all deserve to get fired.

As with Ferguson, we have no way of knowing why the NYC grand jury declined to indict, especially given the frankness of the medical examiner’s report which indicated the choke hold as directly contributing to Garner’s death. Had those been robbers and not cops, every one of them would have been charged with Garner’s death because any death occurring during the commission of a crime would have been charged to all involved. Those men could not possibly have feared for their lives. All of the cops, not just Officer Pantaleo, should have been charged with manslaughter, and let a jury decide instead of a prosecutor.

So, should I march for Garner? Again, we are not taking any responsibility for any part of this. The guy was breaking the law. The guy had been warned more than once before; the New York cops had given Garner a way out—something Wilson failed to do. Eric Garner had to know the cops were likely just trying to hassle him to get him to stop; had he just gone along with the arrest, he’d likely have been given a Desk Appearance Ticket and sent home. But that’s not what we do, we fight it out with the cops, when our fight really is not the cops but with the *system.* The place to fight the system is in court. Garner was knowingly breaking the law and resisting arrest, and I’m not marching for him.

62 Cleveland Police vehicles chased Timothy Russell, 43, and passenger Malissa Williams, 30. through city streets for 23 minutes before 13 officers pumped 137 rounds into their vehicle, executing them like Bonnie and Clyde. Timothy Russell was shot 23 times and Malissa Williams was shot 24 times. Do I march for them, perhaps? Why were they running from what was, reportedly, a routine traffic stop? Who does that? I need an answer to that question before I march.

Do I think every last cop involved in that mess deserves to be fired? Absolutely. A cop, standing on the hood of the car, firing and executing the couple inside is a murderer. This man could not possibly, under any objective circumstance, have been in fear for his life. There were no gunshots, none, coming from the car; the cops could have just dragged them out and cuffed them. The man is a murderer who, thankfully, has been indicted. But, before I march for Russell and Williams, I‘ll need a plausible explanation of what the heck they were thinking in the first place. Russell had a criminal record including convictions for receiving stolen property and robbery. Williams had convictions for drug-related charges and attempted abduction (Huffington Post). Did that earn them 137 rounds? Of course not, but don't ask me to march for a lie.

Never Out Loud

No black people want to say this out loud but, in most of these cases, the victim was breaking the law and resisting arrest. Most of these folks would be alive today had they cooperated with the police and fought their battle later. No black people want to say this out loud, but, there is a severe parenting crisis going on in Black America. I don’t see anybody marching about that.

We don't vote, we don't raise our kids properly, we make excuses for bad behavior and we defend the indefensible. Then, when tragedy occurs, we become outraged.

Making the cops—all cops—our enemy is, frankly, cowardice. There’s always been bad cops. There’s always been incompetent cops. But the vast, overwhelming majority of good cops will only grow jaded and defensive when their integrity is impugned and their work made harder by the anti-intellectual histrionics demonizing them every night on the news.

We’re making this racial, making it about black lives, but the consistent pattern I am seeing is black people fighting a legitimate fight, but fighting it with the wrong party. The abusive cop is a symptom of a greater problem; let’s fight the problem, not the symptom.

This rallying of America is heartening, but it is a dishonest conversation. We need to come clean about our own failures as a community, and then the march makes sense. Even better, Don't march, vote. Don’t burn down your own neighborhood, small business owners who have nothing to do with this, vote. But we didn’t. Nor did we properly train or supervise our children. And now there's a riot. There we are, red faced and screaming—all the Opera only reinforcing black stereotypes.

I want to see us taking responsibility for us. I want to see some rationality. We’re all guilty. I am every bit as aggrieved and upset as everyone else, but don’t recruit me for propaganda.

Christopher J. Priest
8 December 2014