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When Police Brutality Goes Viral

When Police Brutality Goes Viral

One might find little reason to hope after seeing a video of a white police officer in suburban Dallas terrorizing a bunch of African-American high-schoolers at a pool party. It was the latest in a string of videos to reveal the gross misconduct and institutionalized bigotry among police officers that African-Americans routinely face. In light of yet more evidence, how could anyone hope for a future in which racism stopped being so destructive?

But there is reason, abundant reason, to hope.

Not too long ago, an episode in which a white cop manhandled an African-American girl and drew his sidearm on African-American boys would have boiled down to points of view: what the kids said happened and what the cops said happened. In past courts of law, as well as past courts of public opinion, deference was almost always paid to police officers, who, as we are reminded, lay their lives on the line every day in the name of duty.

That’s no longer the case.

The ubiquity of digital video cameras has worn down—in mere months—the monopoly on information, and high levels of public trust, that police departments have historically enjoyed. In years past, no one would have doubted that Michael Slager, a police officer in North Charleston, South Carolina, was forced to kill a black man in self-defense. But thanks to video evidence, we know Slager shot Walter Scott in the back in cold blood. He was indicted by a grand jury on a murder charge on Monday.

Over the weekend, social media networks erupted in outrage after video emerged of a police officer in McKinney, Texas, slamming to the ground a black teenager calling out for her mama, and pointing his pistol at black teenage boys fleeing in terror. On Monday, McKinney’s police chief denounced Cpl. Eric Casebolt’s behavior as “indefensible” and launched an investigation. On Tuesday, Casebolt resigned in disgrace. Depending on the results of the investigation, he may face criminal charges.

There’s more good news.

Casebolt was responding to a report of a fight breaking out at the pool. The fight is alleged to have been started by two adult residents of the McKinney subdivision, a white man who is reported to have told the African-American students to go back to the ghetto, and a white woman who was video recorded punching one of the teenage girls in the head.

BuzzFeedreported that the man, Sean Toon, had slandered the students before later claiming that he feared the worst (he won media attention for holding up a sign thanking “McKinney PD for keeping us safe”). The Guardian newspaper this week revealed Toon’s criminal history of assault with a deadly weapon and torturing barnyard animals for kicks.

The Dallas Morning News, meanwhile, reported that the woman accused of starting the confrontation, Tracey Carver-Allbritton, had been furloughed by Corelogic, a financial data firm that contracts with Bank of America, because it was embarrassed by her behavior. It told The Dallas Morning News that it “does not condone violence, discrimination or harassment and takes conduct that is inconsistent with our values and expectations very seriously. … We have placed [Carver-Allbritton] on administrative leave while further investigations take place.”

Video evidence has unveiled to white Americans what is blindingly familiar to nonwhite Americans. With each revelation comes new levels of distrust, even among white Americans, who historically have little reason to suspect being suspected; and with each viral video comes a new opportunity to forge multiracial alliances to effect political change.

And that change is coming.

Since Michael Brown’s death last summer, criminal charges have been brought against cops in South Carolina, in Baltimore and, most recently, in Cleveland, where a judge on Thursday found that probable cause existed to charge two city police officers with murder and negligent homicide, respectively, in the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.

In less dramatic though no less important circumstances, a state’s attorney in Cook County, Illinois, brought perjury charges against four police officers who claimed reasonable suspicion in arresting a 23-year-old man on drug possession charge. Video evidence, however, contradicted their claims, infuriating a circuit court judge. “All officers lied on the stand today,” she said. “All their testimony was a lie.”

In responding to a disturbance, Cpl. Eric Casebolt made a decision. Confront the white adults bringing violence to black high-schoolers swimming in the community pool or confront the black high-schoolers. Casebolt, like many cops before, took the path of least resistance.

For someone in a position of power, someone accustomed to having a monopoly on information, someone whose public statements are rarely questioned, it’s plainly easier to push around a bunch of black kids, whose word does not carry as much weight as his, whose accusations of police brutality would scarcely raise an eyebrow in the court or the media.

Confronting black kids, even drawing a weapon on them, is much easier than confronting white adults about their rank and ugly racism. And in the past, there was nothing for a police officer to lose. Not so now.

Thanks to a video taken by a white boy shocked to witness such hostility toward his friends, there is much at stake. In this new age of ubiquitous video, cops should think twice before choosing the path of least resistance.

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John Stoehr (@johnastoehr) is a lecturer in political science at Yale. Follow him on Twitter and Medium.

There’s No Such Crime As ‘Driving While White’

There’s No Such Crime As ‘Driving While White’

The shooting of Walter L. Scott in South Carolina prompts the question:

When is the last time you heard of a white man in a Mercedes-Benz being pulled over for driving with a broken taillight?

It has probably happened somewhere, sometime, but there’s a better chance of your car being hit by a meteor.

Getting shot dead during a minor traffic stop also isn’t a prevailing fear among white males in America, no matter what type of vehicle they own.

Scott himself didn’t imagine he was going to die when he was pulled over. Unfortunately, he happened to be a black man driving a Mercedes, which is what got him noticed. He was behind on child-support payments and probably didn’t want to go to jail.

Something happened at the scene, Scott got Tased and then tried to run away. Officer Michael Slager fired eight times, hitting the unarmed 50-year-old in the back. The killing was caught on cellphone video by a bystander.

Slager told the dispatcher that Scott had snatched his Taser, but the video shows the officer dropping an object that looks just like a Taser near Scott’s handcuffed body. Slager has been charged with murder and fired from his job.

The shooting was shocking to watch, as the whole world has, yet the sequence of events leading up to it is sadly familiar to black men in this country. They can’t afford to drive around as carefree as us white guys.

In September, a South Carolina state trooper shot and wounded another unarmed black motorist after pulling him over because he allegedly wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.

I’ve got white friends who rarely buckle up, yet I don’t know of one who has been ticketed for it, or even stopped and warned. Maybe they’re just lucky.

The black comedian Chris Rock uses his Twitter account to record his traffic-stop encounters. In a recent seven-week period, he was pulled over three times (once as a passenger).

It’s possible he and his friends aren’t very good drivers. It’s also possible they’ve been targeted merely for “Driving While Black,” an unwritten offense that still exists in many regions of the country, not just the Deep South — and not just in high-crime areas.

The odds would be fairly slim for a black man driving a luxury car not to be pulled over at least once on a road trip between, say, Utah and North Dakota. Even in a ’98 Taurus he’d need to be watching the rear-view mirror for blue lights.

Generalizing about traffic stops can be problematic. The numbers often spike in certain neighborhoods at certain times of day, and a small number of officers can account for many incidents of racial profiling.

Still, the evidence that it exists is more than anecdotal.

Using a “Police-Public Contact Survey,” the U.S. Justice Department analyzed traffic stops of drivers aged 16 or older nationwide during 2011, comparing by race and weighting by population.

To the astonishment of hardly anyone, black drivers were about 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers, and approximately 23 percent more likely to be pulled over than Hispanic motorists.

A series published by the Washington Post in September reported that minority drivers had their cars searched (and cash seized) at a higher rate than white drivers. That jibed with the Justice Department’s conclusion that vehicle searches occurred substantially more often when the driver wasn’t white.

Another unsurprising fact: Compared to other races, white drivers were most likely to get pulled over for speeding. Black drivers were statistically more likely to be stopped for vehicle defects or record checks.

Which is what happened to Walter L. Scott in North Charleston.

Never in almost five decades of driving have I been pulled over for a busted brake light or a burned-out headlight, even though I’ve had a few.

It didn’t matter whether I was in a Dodge, Oldsmobile, Jeep, Ford, Chevy or even, for a while, a Mercedes SUV.

The only thing I’ve ever been stopped for is, like many impatient white people, driving too fast.

And every time a police officer walked up to my car, I knew exactly why he or she wanted to chat with me. It was no mystery whatsoever.

That’s not always the case for a black man behind the wheel of a car in this country. This is not just a perception; it’s a depressing reality.

If it had been me or Matt Lauer or even faux Hispanic Jeb Bush driving that Mercedes-Benz in South Carolina, Officer Slager wouldn’t have stopped the car. Not for a busted taillight, no way.

Which prompts another question: How long can this go on?

(Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for The Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, FL, 33132.)

Photo: Redjar via Flickr

Racial Pain That Just Won’t Quit

Racial Pain That Just Won’t Quit

The good news in race this week is that after a municipal election in roiling Ferguson, Missouri, the six-member city council now has three black members instead of one. But the bad news, on the 150th anniversary of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House, is beyond tragic.

In North Charleston, South Carolina, a white police officer was charged with murdering a black man after a video shot by a bystander showed that the man was running away from him. And in Princess Anne, Maryland, carbon monoxide from a generator was found to be the cause of death for a divorced black father and his seven children.

This is the week that the Confederacy, and slavery, suffered permanent defeat. Yet the back stories in these cases are reminders of both the nation’s original sin and the prejudices, pathologies, and policy failures that continue to haunt us.

Walter Scott, 50, the South Carolina victim, was stopped for a broken taillight and shot eight times. Officer Michael Thomas Slager’s detailed account of the incident was contradicted by the video, leading to the murder charge. Scott had four children, a fiancée, and a job. He had been arrested 10 times, according to the Charleston Post and Courier, mostly for failing to pay child support and show up at court hearings. The only indicator of violence, the newspaper said, came 28 years ago when he was convicted on an assault and battery charge.

Rodney Todd, 36, the Maryland man, was trying to keep his children warm after the local utility removed a stolen electrical meter from his rental home late last month. According to The Washington Post, Todd had a troubled, violent history with his ex-wife, the children’s mother, and served a year in jail. But friends and relatives said he had turned his life around, gotten a job at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and become a proud, conscientious father.

Before Scott and Todd, there was Ferguson — not so much the killing of Michael Brown, but the devastating Justice Department report about police and court bias against poor black residents of the two-thirds black town, who were fined constantly for offenses like jaywalking and then jailed when they couldn’t pay those fines, producing cascading effects such as lost jobs and fury at the police and power structure.

Before Scott and Todd, there was also Eric Garner, the Staten Island, New York man put in a chokehold by police who were trying to arrest him for selling untaxed cigarettes. The chokehold was the main cause of death, aggravated by obesity and asthma.

Our history and our failures are flashing before our eyes in all of these cases. The statistics don’t lie. From the Congressional Research Service: Children living with single mothers are four times as likely to be poor as those in married households. From the Kids Count Data Book of 2014: Two-thirds of black children live in single-parent families, nearly twice the national average; one in three live in high poverty areas, more than twice the national average; and nearly one-third don’t graduate from high school on time, compared with 19 percent nationally. From the Pew Research Center: In 2010, black men were six times as likely as white men to be behind bars. And in 2013, after the Great Recession, white households had 13 times the median wealth of black households — the largest gap since 1989. From Gallup: Obesity and asthma are much more common among poor people.

Now add the shocking Justice Department reports on police violence and bias against black residents of Cleveland and Ferguson, and the reports to come from the agency’s continuing investigations of other police departments. And finally, if you are white, think about your white friends and family, your white self. How many of us have been stopped for a broken taillight or an expired inspection sticker and were — or pretended to be — surprised by that news? And not having missed child support payments or court dates, not fearing jail, we did not flee. And having the money and job flexibility to fix the problem, we simply promised to get it done. And instead of being killed or even ticketed, we were let off with a warning.

The North Charleston police chief says all officers will now wear body cameras. That’s progress, but not enough. It’s time for policymakers to put ideology, fixed ideas and electoral concerns aside, look at the data on what works, and start disentangling a Gordian knot that only seems to have gotten tighter and more toxic since that defining moment 150 years ago.

Follow Jill Lawrence on Twitter @JillDLawrence. To find out more about Jill Lawrence and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

AFP Photo/Mladen Antonov

Here’s What Police Were Saying About Walter Scott’s Death — Before The Video Came Out

Here’s What Police Were Saying About Walter Scott’s Death — Before The Video Came Out

On Tuesday a South Carolina police officer was charged with the murder of an unarmed black man, Walter Scott. The Post and Courier originally reported that the police were characterizing the shooting as a “traffic stop gone wrong.” But the event was captured in all its brutal clarity with a cellphone camera held by an anonymous bystander, and the video tells a different story.

Think Progress has compiled a list of all the statements issued by the North Charleston, SC, police department and the officer, Michael T. Slager (via his attorneys), between the shooting on Saturday and when they became aware of the video. The statements paint a harrowing, though not surprising, picture of the spinning gears of a system that typically spares white officers culpability for their use of lethal force.

According to Slager’s narrative, “the dead man fought with an officer over his Taser before deadly force was employed.” The grisly video, which first appeared on the New York Times website, plainly shows Slager take aim and fire eight shots at Walter Scott as he flees.

(ViaThink Progress.)