January 31, 2004
Why Can't Juries Find Cops Guilty of Beating Black Men?
Why is it so hard for juries to find police officers guilty of using excessive force against Black men?
Donovan Jackson, a Black teenager, was slammed into the hood of a police car and hit in the face while handcuffed and subdued by three police officers. Everything was caught on tape. Yet, the second jury to hear the case could not come to a unanimous decision regarding the guilt of the officers involved in the episode.
ABC News Reports:
"The judge in the retrial of a fired Inglewood police officer declared a mistrial today, after a second jury was unable to agree whether the white man assaulted a black teen under color of authority.The foreperson in the retrial of Jeremy Morse, 26, said the panel was divided 6-6 on the matter. The first time around it was 7-5 to convict.
When asked if further deliberations or a re-reading of testimony or anything else might help, the man replied: 'No, your honor. I think there's no chance whatsoever.'"
Each time an instance of police brutality against a Black man is caught on tape and the perpetrators go unpunished I believe that other officers feel that they can do the same thing without impunity. If a jury refuses to convict a cop when the videotaped evidence leaves little question as to what went on, why would they come to a different conclusion?
The whole thing is sickening. It's like Black life is not valued the same as others in this country. Why don't we ever see videotape footage of cops beating white men senselessly? Why don't we hear about White men dying from the shoot first ask questions later mentality like Amadou Diallo?
Race alone cannot be the sole factor. If we accept that race and the persistence of racism is enough to explain the disturbing trends, how do African-American officers fit into the picture? Something more intrinsic to law enforcement must be the reason.
Perhaps the deeper truth is that police, like regular people, get afraid when they encounter the unfamiliar and in their zeal to “protect and serve” they overreact.
A general perception exists that Blacks are more likely to commit crime. There is no reason to expect police officers to hold a point of view counter to that of the general public on this issue.
Problems arise when that belief becomes manifest when an officer is in an unpredictable situation involving Black Americans. Instinct dictates their action more often than not in these incidents. If an officer’s gut tells her or him that the person in front of them is more violent than others and has no respect for the law, then s/he is apt to act more aggressively in order to assert control of the situation. Combine this phenomenon with an imperative to enforce the law, a license to kill, and the intoxicating effect of power and you have potential for abuse.
Cops are not inherently bad people. Most of the women and men in law enforcement are admirable human beings who are committed to protecting the public from our country’s criminal elements. But even good people are susceptible to the lure of power. Philip Zimbardo proved Lord Acton’s axiom that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” in his classic Stanford Prison Experiment. In that study the noted psychological researcher asked the question: “What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph?” Zimbardo found that evil wins out.
So how do we change the culture of policing to make it less evil (in the Zimbardoan sense of the word)?
Posted by at January 31, 2004 06:45 PMDefense brought forth expert witnesses, prosecution brought forth expert witnesses. In the minds of the jurors, I believe, it came down to a decision of condemning police for a physical insult, or siding with the civil rights of Jackson, a criminal.
Did race have anything to do with the juror’s decision? Probably, on both sides of the deadlock. Is it possible to prove it? No.
We are a nation whose diversity is being allowed to divide us. There is a common sense in America, a majority viewpoint on most issues, but, our system favors extremes culturally, politically, and socio-economically. Unless the media, the politicians, and the economists are willing to adopt common sense, majority sense policies, programs, and rhetoric, we will remain a nation divided and the divisions will only become deeper from here. That’s my two cents.
Physical insult..come on now David. Did you see the tape? I would love to see if you’d call what the cops did to the kid a “physical insult” if it happened to you.
I’d add that he was not a criminal. He had no criminal record. He committed no crime. He simply asked the officers why they were interrogating his father. The cops claim that he made “suspicious motions” and grossly overreacted. Then the officers claim he resisted arrest. Even if you accept the claim that he was resisting arrest, another officer on the scene testified that he stopped resisting after he was put in handcuffs. I’d also note that the main officer in question did not even note his supposed need to use force in his initial report before the tape became public. And no charges were ever filed against Donovan Jackson.
Did race have anything to do with this case? YES Can it be proven? YES
Our system does not favor extremes, it favors those who the most vocal. Those two groups are not always one and the same. But what are you getting at with your last paragraph? Are you insinuating that vocal people of color like myself are dividing the country by calling out injustice and expressing dismay that our lives are valued less by the legal system?
Posted by: Vincent Jones at February 1, 2004 12:47 PMMy entire comment was addressed from the point of view of the jurors except for the last paragraph.
Physical insult, by definition is any harmful or painful blow to the body.
If racism by the jurors can be proven in this case, then make the case for proof. Without eye witness testimony of what a juror said, or an admission by a juror, racism can not be proved.
Take the emotional and defensive interpretation of my remarks out, and the facts come through. What the jurors were told by police tesitmony was that he was interfering with police duty - that is a crime. I was not there, so I don’t know if he was guilty of that or not, probably not. But, again, I was presenting the case as it appeared to the jurors.
My last paragraph only makes sense if one does not assume they come from a biased position. The last paragraph makes the case for committing ourselves to making our diversity a strength in our system rather than the loathsome weakness it has been since our country’s inception.
I have control over the words I write, I have no control over how others will interpret them. Sorry if you misunderstood the point I was making. Hope this clarifies my position.
Posted by: David R. Remer at February 1, 2004 01:00 PMDavid,
I reiterate that the teenager was never charged with a crime nor did he have a criminal record. That said, even if one accepts the fact that he resisted arrest initially that was not the case when the “physical insult” occured. Another officer on the scene conceded that in his testimony. It is also supported by the videotape.
Even if the teen was a criminal, should we not find fault with the officer who punched him in the face and slamed him into the hood of a car while he was handcuffed and subdued?
And with all due respect, your clarification of your concluding paragraph still stands out to me. Especially when in the previous paragraph you suggest that I “take the emotional and defensive interpretation of [your] remarks out.”
I feel like you’re speaking in a code, as non-Black Americans often do when discussing race issues.
You say that “we are a nation whose diversity is being allowed to divide us” but what does that mean? Our diversity is what it is. “We” are not letting it do anything. From where I sit it looks like Republicans have been appealing to white racist and xenophobic tendencies for decades to advance politically.
When non-whites point out problematic episodes that seem to fit into a larger pattern of injustice, we are told to stop being emotional or that we are playing “the race card” or that the law is color-blind now. All that does is reinforce the divisions that Republicans work so hard to perpetuate.
Posted by: Vincent Jones at February 1, 2004 07:00 PMYour a white cop in a black community. A community awash in Crack. Go ahead, show some weakness, go ahead discuss the situation with the looky loos. Go ahead try to be understanding. You won’t last long before you will be on your back getting beaten to death. It’s a war, just like Baghdad except the cops have video cameras watching there every move in this country. Study up on the adrenillin released in a cops body during a bust. Some punk kid comes up to me during a bust of his crack smoking daddy I would do the same. Any sign of weakness and a cop could die. Haven’t you seen the videos of the perps getting the drop on the cops? Jurors don’t convict these cops because they understand what is needed on the streets of this country in order to maintain order. I suggest you volunteer to ride with the cops if they have such a program in your community. Or take a ride down to the hood, park you car some Saturday evening in July and take a stroll.
Posted by: jj at February 1, 2004 07:08 PMjj, you fail to recognize the difference between protective self-defense and depriving one of civil rights through physical assault on a person already handcuffed and subdued. That cop punished that young man. Punishment is not a role to be allowed for police. That is reserved for the courts.
This young man, regardless of what transpired before he was handcuffed and slammed on the car, gave absolutely no cause to be punched in the head afterward. This was a clear case of police brutality and there can be no question of that, in my opinion, by watching the video.
From the juries point of view however, the case you make was no doubt presented, and enough jurors sided with that point of view causing that policeman who deserves whatever he gets on the streets after being caught in the act. He should resign. But, he won’t. He no doubt feels vindicated. And that just compounds the injustice and adds to America’s bent on using diversity among its people to divide us, rather than to strengthen our society through all of the various contributions that can flow from diverse talents, perspectives, and goals.
Posted by: David R. Remer at February 1, 2004 07:23 PMVincent, I will let my response to jj stand as further explanation of my original message. You had a point of view on this incident as evidenced by your article and it appears that point of view resulted in your assessment of my original comment.
My personal response to what happened agrees with yours, but my comment was not intended to express my personal opinion, my comment was an answer to your question, Why can’t juries find cops guilty of beating black men. I explained why things are the way they are, I was not condoning the way things are. As a dues paying friend of the NAACP, I think you completely misread my original comment.
Appears bias runs both ways. We all have to keep this issue at the forefront of our political discussion and keep those video tapes running and admissable in courts as a measure to both protect good officers of false claims as well as victims of bad officers with abusive intent, like the one we saw in that video tape and in that courtroom.
Posted by: David R. Remer at February 1, 2004 07:35 PMSpeaking of the police, have y’all been reading about the 19-year-old kid, Timothy Stansbury, who was murdered by a police officer, Richard Neri, because Neri was startled to see a black kid at the top of a staircase in Brooklyn?
Un-freakin-believable.
Posted by: Robert Grebel at February 2, 2004 10:30 PM
