SHOOTINGS IN TULSA & CHARLOTTE, ARE JUST THE TIP OF THE PROBLEM

…Police shooting of a black man in Tulsa with his hands up

 

African Americans account for 24% of those fatally shot and killed by the police, despite being just 13% of the US population.

 

I guess enough has been happening in our country that it’s time for some discussion on the subject of local policing.

 

This wasn’t something that I just decided to comment on due to the latest police shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Charlotte, North Carolina.

 

It was instead because of these shootings, as well as the killings of Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling and, even the 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was killed by the local police while playing on a local playground in Ohio.  All of these deaths were black individuals judged and killed in seconds by local police officers.

 

The reality is that white people make up roughly 62% of the US population, but are only 49% of those who are killed by police officers. African Americans, however, account for 24% of those fatally shot and killed by the police, despite being just 13% of the US population.  As The Washington Post noted in a new analysis recently published, black American males are 2.5 times as likely as white American males to be shot and killed by police officers.

 

A big part of this is because of perceptions and attitude of many of our Men & Women in Blue, regardless of their ethnicity.

 

As an example, a comment made and recorded by a Tulsa police officer in a police helicopter hundreds of feet in the air was, “That looks like a bad dude”.  This was a white police officer’s attitude about Terence Crutcher, as he walked toward his stalled vehicle.  Crutcher was an unarmed African American man with his hands in the air.  Seconds later, officers used a Taser on Crutcher; less than five seconds later, an officer shot and killed him. As he lay on the pavement bleeding, the officers backed away, offering no medical assistance. Crutcher’s hands were still up, raised on both sides of his head.  No attempt was made to keep Mr. Crutcher alive until help arrived, he was allowed to just bleed out and die.

 

Now the female officer that shot Crutcher has been arrested and charged with Manslaughter.  But this was also just as Keith Lamont Scott was shot in Charlotte.  Scott was waiting in his car, as he was known to do, to meet his son’s school bus.  That was when police officers, including a plainclothes officer who ended up shooting him, pulled up across the road in an unmarked car.  Something that we now know is that Mr. Scott was a disabled man with traumatic brain damage (TBD) from a motorcycle accident and was probably very confused by the yelling police officers.

 

According to the police, Scott exited the car carrying a gun. While Mr. Scott was not known to own a gun, or to even have a gun permit.  But even if he was holding a gun, North Carolina is an open-carry state.  Seeing a man emerge from a car across the road from your child’s bus stop is precisely the kind of potential threat that open-carry proponents would suggest justifies their need for an armed citizenry. 

 

 

But Mr. Scott was black.  And so, because of that, it was unlikely that he would be regarded by the police as a citizen exercising his open-carry and Second Amendment rights. Just as what the Tulsa police in the helicopter assumed about Terence Crutcher, Mr. Scott was assumed to be “a bad dude”, and both he and Mr. Crutcher ended up dead by a police officer.

 

Once more, we are dealing with the nightmare of dash and body camera videos of police killings of African Americans.  And based on the comment from the officer in the helicopter in Tulsa, specifically his immediate assessment of Crutcher.  This is an important window into the way bias plays a powerful role in how some local police officers view African Americans.  All too often, this attitude ends with fatal consequences for some black individuals.

 

Today, from both the white and the black communities, there is the justifiable fear that the officers who killed these men will suffer no punishment.  This has become a familiar outcome in almost every recent high-profile police-involved killing. Accountability in these shootings is critical.  With the help of these new camera and video technologies, the public is fast losing confidence in the integrity of the “rule of law” as applied to police officers who kill with impunity. The swift response with a manslaughter charge for the shooting in Tulsa that killed Crutcher may signal the beginning of an important shift in what has been a tradition of impunity for police-involved killings.

 

But the basis and root of the problem goes into the racial profiling and bias in basic law enforcement.  Why else would a black male be 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers?

 

Steps need to be taken for demanding that local police participate in a national regime of mandatory training, including proper supervision and assessment of the current bias among police officers.  Where necessary, discipline and/or the actual removal of officers from street patrol of those who demonstrate strong and unmanageable indicators of bias.

 

Police officer friends of mine have made it clear that “those on the force know exactly who those questionable police officers are, but it isn’t a subject that is outwardly discussed.”

 

Many people say this is such a local issue, how can it be dealt with if it’s the responsibility of each and every state, county, city or town?

 

As expected, the answer to this has to do with federal funding.

 

The federal government has the power and obligation to impose a nationwide solution. Annually, the US government offers at least $2 billion in federal grants to US police departments around the country. Tulsa alone has received $14 million since 2010; Charlotte has received $4 million. Larger jurisdictions receive considerably greater amounts. The Chicago Police Department has received $40 million since 2010.

 

The federal role of funding is the most efficient way to change policing practices in the more than 18,000 jurisdictions around the country.

 

Federal grant money could be cut off for jurisdictions that refuse to adopt serious and sustained anti-bias training.  While those that take the issue seriously and that show improvement should be recognized and rewarded even more.

 

There has been federal laws on the books for years, starting with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Under that act, the federal government has an obligation to ensure that federal funds are not conferred on programs that engage in discrimination. Title VI of the act was instrumental in compelling school districts to begin desegregation, especially in the North, where desegregation was largely driven by the fear that districts would become ineligible for critical government funds.

 

Unfortunately, federal legislation creating police grant programs includes language purporting to exempt them from obligations that might threaten funding.

 

This loophole should be closed immediately. No state or local agency should be allowed to make an end run around the obligations against racial inequality in our hard-won federal civil rights laws.

 

The federal government should require police departments to keep data regarding stops, arrests and use of force, and listed by race. It should also compel them to carry out anti-bias training, as well as training in de-escalation and managing encounters with the mentally ill, the disabled, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the young.  Many police forces in Europe and Israel have training in de-escalation and encounter management as opposed to some American police forces that seem to have a “shoot first, & ask questions later” attitude.

 

Terence Crutcher was a citizen having car trouble. Keith Lamont Scott was a disabled dad waiting at a bus stop for his son. There was no reason for anyone to look at them and think: “Bad dudes.” And yet they are dead.

 

In the recent demonstrations in Charlotte, I saw a large sign being held up by a young black male.  All the sign said in large spray-painted letters was, “AM I NEXT?”

 

Unfortunately, it a very appropriate sign and question.

 

Copyright, G.Ater