Police Shootings Will be With You Forever
I was doing some research on a Harlan County coal mine strike that happened in 1974 and ran across various internet articles on other subjects as well from that time. A weekly magazine had a 1974 article which was relevant to the news out of Ferguson, MO and other places concerning police shooting.
The magazine happened to be the Workers Vanguard, issue # 50, August 2, 1974. If that sounds vaguely socialist, you are correct. It is published by an organization called the Marxist Working Class, the bi-weekly of the Spartacist League. Just quoting from the article will probably get me placed on some US government fav list, but I will take that risk.
The article is titled Cop Terror, Legal Executions on the Rise.
https://www.scribd.com/...
According to the article, in Atlanta in the year and a half previous to the date of August 1974, 22 people were killed by police, all but one was black.
David Jack was a 19 year old black youth who allegedly took a fake roll of dollars from an undercover policemen impersonating a inebriated “wino.” The youth fled when the policeman identified himself, and Jack, who was unarmed, was shot in the back and killed.
Spokesperson Detective F.H. Sutton was asked by the press why the officer did not fire a warning shot. He replied that it was department policy to not fire warning shots, and that officers who did so could be suspended for one to five days. “We are told to shoot to kill or wound.”
Although David Jack was dead, shot in the back while running away, the seventies were certainly a more innocent time if police were given the option to “shoot to wound.” That option doesn’t exist today.
Nor did that seem to help the other 21 persons shot and killed by police in Atlanta during that time period, all but one of them black.
Atlanta Police Chief Inman, considered by many to be blatantly racist, was eventually fired by Mayor Maynard Jackson, but refused to step down. He obtained a court injunction and somehow kept his job for a time.
Also, in Atlanta, seventeen year old Brandon Gibson was being held by two other officers when a third policeman shot him in the head at point blank range. Gibson was unarmed.
In the days after the shooting, a crowd of 4-500 mostly African American demonstrators who were protesting the shooting death were brutally attacked by the police. Fourteen demonstrators were arrested and seven were hospitalized.
But the killings in 1974 didn’t just happen in my state of Georgia.
In California, fourteen year old Tyrone Guyton had allegedly stolen a car. As he abandoned the car and was fleeing from the police, he was shot and killed. He was unarmed.
Also, the following tidbit from the Worker’s Vanguard is interesting.
In San Francisco California, during the “Zebra Killer” crime spree, in the 1970’s Mayor Joseph Alioto instituted a “Stop and Search” policy aimed at detaining and searching practically all the cities black males walking the streets. Sound familiar? There really is nothing new under the sun.
Speaking of New York City, in 1974 officer Thomas Shea shot and killed ten year old African American child Clifford Glover, who was unarmed, naturally. The plain clothes officer was initially charged with a crime, but was acquitted by a Queens Court under the excuse of “self defense.”
In 1974 in Boston, James Wilds was an African American who was shot and killed while fleeing from a police encounter in which it was alleged he was driving in a car used in a prison escape in New Hampshire.
In 1974 Walter Robey was an African American who was shot allegedly during a struggle with a policeman over the policeman’s gun. The weapon discharged, wounding the officer in the leg and Robey in the stomach. The policeman was taken to the hospital and treated, while Robey was thrown in a jail cell and left to bleed to death. According to the article, he was not given any medical treatment.
Letting the victim die without medical treatment ensures that only the officer’s version of the events will be heard.
The left wing Workers Vanguard obviously had an ulterior motive to paint the police in the worst light. Still, it hardly matters if all the facts they present in these instances are not 100% accurate, when there are so many killings every year. These and other killings of mostly unarmed African American men in 1974, forty years ago, were mostly never prosecuted. But they are just the tip of the iceberg. These same unjustifiable police killings happened before 1974 and happened since.
These incidents inform Americans why the frustration and anger among Black citizens in Ferguson is so palpable. Michael Brown is just one more casualty of an American police force that is out of control and inappropriately trained to kill first and to ask questions never. The police also never answer any questions as to why, except the usual suspects, “I feared for my life,” and “he tried to grab my gun.”
On October 21, 2014, blogger rjd9999 (his friends call him 9999) in a reply to Shaun King’s post, “15 Questions for Darren Wilson” wrote that Officer Wilson’s statement that Michael Brown was attempting to take his pistol and use it against him seemed doubtful if not completely untruthful.
He writes, “police use holsters that are designed such that it is difficult for anyone, other than the wearer, to extract their weapon. Assuming that Wilson is right handed, Brown would have had to lean most of his torso through the window to even reach the holster. Once he did this, he would have had to (a) find the method of release, (b) extract the gun from the holster, and (c) punch Wilson with his free hand, all while leaning through a window in a very tight space…. Frankly, this isn't plausible.”
I agree with rjd9999 that the more likely scenario is that “Wilson extracted the weapon himself” either “while struggling with Brown,” or just as likely, when he called Brown over to the car and, according to witnesses, grabbed Brown and pulled him through the window. If there was any struggle, Brown was probably only trying to free himself from Wilson’s grasp. Brown was simply acting as anyone would do when they are being attacked by an armed man, and Brown actions were a rational act of self defense. Especially so if Officer Wilson, in an obvious state of rage, was in the process of or had pulled his weapon.
According to witnesses, Wilson was acting in a rage, driving recklessly, shouting at Brown and grabbing Brown by the arm while sitting in the driver’s seat.
Knowing how little police in Ferguson and elsewhere value the lives of African American men today and historically, Brown naturally would attempt to pull loose and run away. I submit that Wilson pulled his weapon in order to intimidate or shoot Brown, and if Brown did reach for the gun, it was only to keep Wilson from shooting him in cold blood. He had no motive to take the gun and shoot the officer, he only wanted to get away and save his own life.
There is a very good chance that some of the cases where citizens are shot while "struggling" over a policeman’s weapon are cases where, often as not, the citizen is merely trying to keep from being shot by a policeman in a murderous rage.
Probably acting in a rage, Wilson did fire his weapon twice in the car, hitting Brown in the hand with one bullet. That was when Brown, afraid for his life, used all his strength to pull free and run for his life.
We know the rest.
by rjd9999 on Tue Oct 21, 2014 at 04:15:27 PM PDT
Shaun King’s post is here:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Back to the present day, another such outrageous incident happened recently in the North Augusta, South Carolina area which did not get much national attention.
According to an article written by Jeffrey Collins for the Associated Press and printed in the AJC on Monday, October 6, 2014, a particularly troubling shooting happened to an African American man. Ernest Satterwhite was a 68 year old retired mechanic who had a dozen traffic violations but no violent criminal offenses.
The action that inexplicably led to his death was his habit of not stopping for police when they attempted to pull him over. Probably because he was afraid of being pulled from the car and being beaten by a policeman exercising street justice, or maybe because he didn’t want to get shot on some lonely stretch of road by a racist policeman.
On February 9, 2014, North Augusta Public Safety Officer (sic) Justin Craven tried to pull Satterwhite over for a suspected DWI and a slow-speed chase ensued. The “chase” went on for nine miles, out of North Augusta’s city limits, and across the Edgefield County line, two miles from the victim’s home.
A lawsuit alleges Craven ignored County Deputies instructions to break off the chase and allow them to take care of the problem, but Craven refused. When Satterwhite pulled into his driveway, the Sheriffs Deputies said Craven ran up to the car and fired through the car door five times at point blank range, hitting the victim with four bullets. Craven’s defense was the usual, that the victim “tried to grab his gun.” It would be interesting to learn whether Satterwhite's car window was open or closed.
This case was so egregious that a prosecutor tried to charge the officer with voluntary manslaughter, which if the officer had been found guilty, could have resulted in a prison sentence of up to thirty years. But the grand jury disagreed, indicting the officer on a misdemeanor, ”misconduct in office,” specifically “using excessive force and failing to follow and use proper procedures.” The case is pending.
Finally, the officers “yanked the mortally wounded man out of the car, restrained him and left him on the ground unattended until paramedics arrived.” The behavior of police who leave wounded victims handcuffed on the ground seems irresponsible and heartless, but since it is so common, there must be a reason.
The reason might be that in our litigious society, rendering first aid to the man you just shot might get you sued for medical malpractice if he dies. That’s my guess. Or as I stated before, having only one version of the events would help to justify the policeman’s account of the shooting of an innocent, unarmed man.
While it may seem that illegal police shooting of innocent, at least until proven guilty, African American men has been more frequent since President Obama was elected, the problem has been present for decades. With no one ever being held accountable, with policemen joining ranks to protect the criminals among them, the problem with continue. Expect more deaths, the inevitable riots and demonstrations, and police denials and repercussions.
Jim McMeans
Danielsville, GA