I’m an old codger who attended segregated schools in East Texas and was a Vietnam draftee. When asked about Ferguson and Michael Brown, I said, “I don’t know what happened. There are too many conflicting witnesses; I know that Mr. Wilson was too confrontational. I want to concentrate on my city and my neighborhood, where we have many problems, including trigger happy police.”
I expected a trial for the police who killed Eric Garner, because of the video evidence. I knew that chances of convicting any police officer were very low. It was worse than I expected.
Last year a bear got into a neighbor’s backyard. Police helicopters broadcast a message to stay inside with doors and windows closed. The bear was not shot, it was allowed to escape.
What’s the difference between how we treat bears and how we treat uncooperative black men and even many cooperative people who are stopped? Police stepped back from the bear, whereas they stepped forward to confront Brown, Garner and many like them.
Police in Fullerton, CA beat a homeless uncooperative white schizophrenic man to death in 2011, stepping forward to teach him a lesson. Two policemen were indicted, one for second degree murder, but they were acquitted, just as jurors acquitted police officers charged with the videotaped beating of Rodney King.
Don’t tell me that all policemen are monsters. I know some very decent Pasadena police, black, white and Latino. Don’t tell me that a chokehold is like a seat belt or that ‘carotid restraint’ is safe in an angry struggling man. Los Angeles paid out millions for chokehold deaths while lovely old Police chief Daryl Gates complained “in some blacks when it is applied, the veins or arteries do not open up as fast as they do on normal people.” By 1990, there were 16 chokehold deaths accepted as such by the LAPD, 12 of them being African-American. The LAPD stopped using any kind of chokehold. I review medical facts about chokeholds below.
Don’t tell me that Brown or Garner were waving firearms whereas a bear will never use a firearm. When somebody says “but he reached for his waistband…” I know that BS is coming, just as when a politician says “The American people…” If police can shoot everyone who might have a concealed weapon, then our cities are free fire zones.
The use of grand juries to investigate possible police misconduct is worthless. Grand juries by their nature work closely with prosecutors who want to stay on the good side of the police and can easily confuse grand jurors with extraneous witnesses and facts. Why did Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch suggest that the St. Louis County grand jury consider an indictment of 1st degree premeditated murder? That wasn’t remotely conceivable.
Don’t tell me that a person who runs for office on a ‘get tough on crime’ platform would reform the police. A civilian review board is not sufficient; it won’t have the power to make any changes. Minorities who don’t vote are part of the problem, but white voters like me must keep up a steady pressure on elected officials to create state agencies to investigate all cases of possible police misconduct and act to correct the problem. We must persuade our neighbors that letting police officers go free after terrible behavior hurts us all. We must also de-militarize the police. We don’t want or need storm troopers.
Some interesting facts about chokeholds, sleep holds etc.
Chokeholds or pressure on the neck have been known to often cause loss of consciousness since classical times and have been used in judo competition. The effects of neck compression in seated healthy volunteers have been studied since the 1930s. A recent study from Calgary (Mitchell, et al, Mechanism of loss of consciousness during vascular neck restraint, Journal of Applied Physiology, 112:396, 2012) concluded “When properly applied, the typical subject loses consciousness within 5–11 s, followed by a full recovery with no lasting medical complications (15, 16).” The article provides no information about who paid for the study. There is recognition of help from the Calgary police, “The authors extend a special recognition to the Calgary Police Service for encouraging the advancement of scientific knowledge in the area of subject restraint and allowing its members to participate in this study.”
Twenty four young healthy police volunteers (3 female) seated in a chair had their carotid arteries compressed by a police instructor from behind- they could signal to have the pressure released. The airway was not compressed.. Most volunteers lost consciousness (fainted); all recovered quickly. Reference 15 is a smaller study in which 5 seated police volunteers had similar treatment without harm. Reference 16 tells of a drastic procedure with 126 prisoner volunteers, males aged 17-33, who were seated while a mechanical cuff was quickly inflated around their neck to 600 mm Hg. This cut off all blood flow to the brain plus all air flow. All lost consciousness and most had convulsions, but supposedly none had permanent sequelae. This was in the early 1940s, these prisoners hoped to obtain early release- clearly an unethical study, which followed similar studies in Nazi Germany. However, Mitchell and the Calgary investigators ignore another paper from the author of their reference 15, the chief medical examiner of King County, WA, Donald T. Reay (Death from law enforcement neck holds, American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, 3:252, 1982J. The conclusion is “the potential for a fatal outcome is present each time a neck hold is applied” (p 257). This is because of violent struggles by the person being choked, unlike the calmly seated volunteers. Reay says that the risk of fatal complications is greater in
1. men over 40 (e.g. Garner)
2. persons with epilepsy
3. mentally disturbed persons
4. persons using street drugs, alcohol and some prescription drugs.
The LAPD cases, like those in Reay’s paper had hemorrhages into the soft tissues of the neck, fractured cartilage and other signs of great injury. This would probably apply to Eric Garner. Would you have expected him to sit quietly while a chokehold was applied, like Mitchell’s police volunteers? It’s wrong for police union spokesmen and news people to say “carotid restraint has been proven to be safe”.
America has major problems, partly from our history of crushing Native Americans and enslaving Africans- too much fear of poor people, too much mindless support of police who try to teach uncooperative citizens a lesson. White supremacy is only part of the problem. Our habit of categorizing people as winners and losers doesn’t help. M
ore brutal policing means a less cooperative public and more trouble. We need respect for all citizens. Police should treat uncooperative people by
stepping back, not stepping forward to confront them, and calling for back up unless they have a visible firearm or are actively hurting someone. We need state agencies to investigate police misconduct and an end to all chokeholds. They are too dangerous as the LAPD learned.