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Tag: policing
Demand Justice, But Stand Up For Law And Order Too

Demand Justice, But Stand Up For Law And Order Too

The conversation started on a long Uber ride. The driver, originally from Colombia, said he knows a lot of Colombians living in the U.S. "without papers." He argued that they are good people paying taxes and should be left alone. I responded that I believe they are good people paying taxes but our immigration laws should be respected.

He then said, to my surprise, "I kind of like Donald Trump." Why, I asked. He went on heatedly about the riots that followed the killing of George Floyd. He thought Trump was more serious about restoring order.

The public really dislikes civic chaos. Democrats, you need to address this more forthrightly.

It matters not that only 6 percent of the racial justice rallies from May through October of last year saw violence. Nor is the intention to downplay troubling cases of police brutality. And let's not forget that the most outrageous incident of savage lawlessness, the Jan. 6 rampage on the Capitol, was staged by the Republican right wing.

It's just that the right talks a big game on maintaining law and order while some on the left leave the impression that Democrats don't care so much. The liberal media tend to give these radical voices outsized attention, which the right-wing media happily scoops up.

Thus, we hear stupid calls to "Abolish ICE" (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the agency tasked with stopping cross-border crime and illegal entry. And there are demands to "defund police," which President Joe Biden and the vast majority of Democrats totally oppose.

I recently had dinner with progressive friends who were angry over the violent demonstrations in the liberal strongholds of Portland and Seattle. They complained that the rioters' destructive behavior — and the apparent toleration of it by cowardly local officials — was helping elect Republicans opposed to their progressive values. And they were right.

The recurring mayhem in Portland has become a sport for punks. Though they may invoke the usual woke causes, they are performers out for thuggish "fun." And though they often riff on "identity politics," the few who get arrested are almost all young and white.

Earlier this month, May Day demonstrations brought another fresh round of havoc to Portland. Buildings were damaged and windows smashed. Garbage piling in the streets prompted The Oregonian to rename the city "Dumptown."

Seattle is still recovering from the fallout of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, several blocks that city leaders astonishingly made off-limits to police last year. Early on, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan naively told CNN, "We could have the summer of love." Not quite. The area was tormented by rapes, assaults, burglaries, vandalism and shootings.

The Economist recently pointed to a study strongly suggesting that last year's civic disorder cost Democrats support in November. Biden's share of the vote, it noted, was lower in and around Kenosha, Wisconsin, than in similar places in the state. The apparent reason were the ugly riots that followed the Kenosha police shooting of a black man.

A poll of New York City voters has crime as the No. 1 issue. More than 60 percent of those responding said they wanted to raise the New York City Police Department's budget and hire more cops. The top-polling mayoral candidate is Eric Adams, a former police officer and the current Brooklyn borough president. When his chief rival, Andrew Yang, bashed the movement to defund police, Adams countered that he himself had bashed the movement first.

In Los Angeles, meanwhile, Mayor Eric Garcetti recently swatted down the noisy activists, saying, "If you want to abolish the police, you're talking to the wrong mayor."

This is how people in America's liberal cities feel. It's time the rest of America knew it.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Why Philly Will Face More Protests Than Cleveland

Why Philly Will Face More Protests Than Cleveland

As the nation’s attention turns from Cleveland to Philadelphia for the latest episode in this year’s election cycle, protesters and police alike are preparing for what might be an explosive week in an already tense and violent presidential race.

During a summer that has already seen tragic incidents of violence both at the hands of and directed at police, the relationship between activists and cops has been under close attention at both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.

While Cleveland saw an aggressive police presence enforce civility between pro- and anti-Trump demonstrators—an LA Times reporter compared the scene to “a heavily militarized debate camp”—Philadelphia is expected to experience a much more active protest scene.

Even before the convention started, demonstrations were already taking place: An estimated 1500 Bernie Sanders supporters marched on Sunday from Philadelphia’s City Hall to Franklin D. Roosevelt Park—which organizers say will serve as a sort of protest headquarters this week—to celebrate the news that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz would be stepping down.

Anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 protesters are expected to swarm Philadelphia each day, with groups such as the “Bernie PeaceKeepers” preparing with civil disobedience training for the protests—and arrests—they’re planning for later this week.

Many commentators felt similar anxiety over how Cleveland might handle protests, fearing a repeat of violent incidents that had taken place outside a Trump rally in San Jose earlier this year. But activists from either end of the political spectrum failed to show up in Ohio. Bikers for Trump were scant, as were Black Lives Matter activists.

Only two major stories seemed to transpire off the convention stage itself: an attempted flag-burning by revolutionary communist Joey Johnson and a tense interaction between Trump surrogate Alex Jones and left-wing activists.

The reasons for the discrepancy in turnout seem to be both geographic and political: Many Sanders supporters are fired up after emails deriding their candidate were leaked—and with a convention city easily accessible from the population-heavy Northeast, these protesters can actually get there.  

Cleveland, meanwhile, is a far trip from either coast, and most GOP critics of the nominee opted not to attend the convention at all. The little protest that did transpire was controlled quickly by police.

Both the flag burning and the Jones incident in Cleveland were de-escalated by police inside the city’s newly-opened Public Square, a year-old 10-acre park a stone’s throw away from the Quicken Loans arena. In response, The Atlantic’s CityLab declared that “Cleveland Won the Republican National Convention.”

And following that city’s lead, the Philadelphia city government is purchasing over $250 million in insurance for potential damage—including $5 million in the case that a Philadelphia police officer is faced with a lawsuit, CBS News reported.

For some, this sort of heavy policing has its roots in the 2004 Republican convention in New York City, when then-mayor Michael Bloomberg capitalized on 9/11-fueled fears to crack down on Iraq War protests. 

“We’re cautiously optimistic things will go well,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross told The Wall Street Journal. “We have a responsibility to protect the First Amendment rights of everybody concerned.”

 

Photo: Protesters march in the street ahead of Monday’s start of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 24, 2016. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

State Of Emergency Ends In Ferguson, Missouri, As Violence Recedes

State Of Emergency Ends In Ferguson, Missouri, As Violence Recedes

(Reuters) — St. Louis County on Friday ended the state of emergency it had put in effect earlier this week for Ferguson, Missouri, and surrounding areas due to Sunday’s violent street protests.

Ferguson saw a fresh wave of demonstrations beginning last weekend, marking the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man shot by a white police officer last August.

The killing of Brown was found to be justified, but that incident and the deaths of other unarmed black and Hispanic men that followed in Baltimore, New York City, Washington state, and elsewhere inspired a national movement over policing and race relations.

Most of the protests in Ferguson were peaceful, but on Sunday night gunfire broke out and police shot and injured a black man, 18-year-old Tyrone Harris, who they say shot at them. Harris, who remains hospitalized, has been charged with assault on law enforcement, armed criminal action, and shooting a firearm at a vehicle.

In the days since then, other protests have continued in and around Ferguson. Dozens of people were arrested on Monday when they blockaded a St. Louis court house in an act of civil disobedience, and when they briefly blocked a local freeway. There have been no more arrests since Wednesday.

“After reviewing the events of the past four evenings, under the state of emergency, I am pleased to report our law enforcement officers have established order while preventing further acts of violence in Ferguson,” St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger said in a statement.

The state of emergency had given Stenger control over policing in the area, taking over from local police.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin and Fiona Ortiz in Chicago, Texas; Editing by Eric Beech and Susan Heavey)

Photo: Police hold a protester who was detained in Ferguson, Missouri, August 10, 2015. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Fear, Mistrust Linger In Ferguson Despite Reform Efforts By Police

Fear, Mistrust Linger In Ferguson Despite Reform Efforts By Police

By Carey Gillam

FERGUSON, Mo. (Reuters) — The scene outside the Ferguson Police Department in Missouri on Friday night was familiar: A crowd of 300 protesters, angry over last year’s fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teen, went toe-to-toe with a line of officers, screaming profanities.

But unlike last summer, when police responded to even peaceful protests with batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets in the aftermath of rioting and arson that tore apart the St. Louis suburb of 21,000 people, this time officers watched quietly but did not respond.

“They were in our face, but we didn’t react,” said Ferguson police Sergeant Dominica Fuller, clad for Friday night’s police work in a polo shirt bearing the phrase “community engagement team” rather than the body armor and riot helmets common in the unrest following the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9, 2014.

“Our job now is to listen,” said Fuller, one of five black officers on the 50-member police force who in May became the city’s first black female police sergeant.

Brown’s fatal shooting by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson was one of a series of police killings over the past year that provoked an intense debate on race, justice, and policing in the United States.

The scenes of protests marked by periods of violence that played out in Ferguson last summer and again in November when a grand jury found Wilson had broken no laws in shooting Brown were repeated in cities including New York and Baltimore following similar killings of unarmed black men by white officers.

The depths of Ferguson’s policing problems were laid bare in a scathing Justice Department report issued in March that accused the department of illegal and discriminatory enforcement actions that particularly exploited African-Americans.

Friday’s restrained response by Ferguson police served as an illustration of what city leaders said are their efforts to improve relations between the still majority-white police force and the city’s population, which is two-thirds black.

Anthony Gray, a lawyer for the Brown family, said he was pleased to see a number of changes at the police department, particularly the appointment of an African-American chief of police, even though it is only an interim appointment.

“They’ve made some good positive steps in the right direction,” Gray said. “Ferguson seems to be taking the attitude that they want to do some internal adjustments to kind of meet those community needs.”

Despite a range of reforms that include de-escalation and anti-bias training, minority recruitment and promotion efforts, and pleas by supervisors for officers to “be professional at all times” many Ferguson residents say they still fear and distrust the city’s police.

Andrea Walker, 25-year-old black Ferguson resident, said she thinks fear of the police is worse now than it was a year ago. She said she believes many police officers are trying to overcome those fears, but face an uphill battle.

“Every black person I know has a fear of police,” said Walker, a married mother of two.

She was one of roughly 20 Ferguson residents interviewed in recent days who described themselves as wary of police. Many declined to be named, out of fear of attracting unwanted police attention.

Walker said she was recently pulled over for speeding by a Ferguson police officer and was surprised when the officer seemed to go out of his way to be non-threatening and let her off with a warning.

But she still advises her 13-year-old stepson never to agitate a police officer for fear of what the officer might do.

Recruiting Troubles

Fuller, who has spent 17 years on the Ferguson force, said the department is well aware that it will take time to heal the deep wounds.

“A lot has changed. But there’s still people that are still hurt and angry. It’s not going to be overnight for healing,” she said. “It’s going to take some time. But we’re working on that.”

One key effort at reform – the recruitment of minority officers – is largely failing, she admitted.

At least one black officer quit the force after Brown’s shooting and others have shied away due to the negative attention the department has received, said Fuller. The city has started a program to pay for black police candidates to go through the police academy, but has struggled to find any takers, she said.

“There’s not a lot of minorities that want to be police officers, let alone in the city of Ferguson,” said Fuller.

Officers are being trained to be more “compassionate,” to offer warnings instead of traffic tickets if the circumstances allow for it, and to spend more time at community events.

On Saturday, as a crowd marched for miles, police monitoring the demonstration handed out water bottles and popsicles to the protesters.

They are also inviting area teens on “ride-alongs” to learn what is involved in policing and have started distributing literature about community programs at a farmer’s market.

Mary Chandler, a 37-year-old black Ferguson resident, said she has seen a “180-degree change” for the better in the city’s police.

“It used to be aggression, zero tolerance,” said Chandler. “Now they are more tolerant. They are listening to us.”

Angelique Kidd, a 42-year-old white Ferguson resident, said she has seen Ferguson police mistreat the city’s black residents for years, but was heartened by the changes she has seen.

“It’s a start,” she said.

(Reporting by Carey Gillam; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker)

Photo: Protesters lie down in the street in a “die-in” outside the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, August 7, 2015. REUTERS/Rick Wilking