People protest in Times Square after it was announced that the New York City police officer involved in the death of Eric Garner is not being indicted on Dec. 3, 2014, in New York. Photo: Julio Cortez/The Associated Press WASHINGTON – Police across the United States have come under heavy fire from all sectors of society for practices that have resulted in what many Americans believe is an unwarranted use of lethal force compounded by racial profiling that targets blacks and other minorities.
Protests again erupted in major cities around the United States after a New York grand jury decided not to indict a police officer for using an illegal chokehold that led to the death in July of Eric Garner, 43, an unarmed black man. Garner was simply selling individual cigarettes on a Staten Island street.
To quell public outrage at the no-indictment decision, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio immediately announced Thursday a series of changes in police training and procedures.
“The relationship between police and community has to change,” he said. “The way we go about policing has to change. It has to change in this city. It has to change in this country.”
“People who feel aggrieved are asking for something simple,” he continued. “They are asking for the notion of a society in which every one is treated equally.”
U.S. President Barack Obama echoed de Blasio when he said Thursday at a college opportunity summit that “too many Americans feel deep unfairness” in the criminal justice system.
Only a week ago, protests turned violent in Ferguson, Missouri, after a grand jury refused to indict a police officer for the August shooting death of an unarmed black teenager.
Following a night of protests in New York, de Blasio begged citizens to remain calm, citing the Garner family’s plea for peaceful demonstrations. “The message from people who are being hurt the most is that violence will do no good. It will only set back the cause of reform,” he said.
The Garner killing follows more than a decade of increasing racial tensions over a highly controversial and some say illegal New York City policy that allows police to stop and frisk any person deemed to be suspicious no matter how small the violation.
In some cases, people have been arrested and hauled off to jail simply because they have objected to what they believe is an unwarranted search.
This was the case with Garner, who expressed frustration at police harassment before six police officers jumped him. Officer Daniel Pantaleo, 29, held him in a chokehold and despite his cries of “I can’t breath” refused to release him. Pantaleo testified before the 23-member grand jury that he didn’t know he was choking Garner. He is still under a federal justice department investigation.
Protesters took up Garner’s cry of “I can’t breath! I can’t breath!” and “These are our streets” as they marched through the streets of New York, Washington, D.C., and many other cities across the U.S.
Since 2002, more than five million people in New York have been subjected to police stops and interrogations, a legacy policy of the Michael Bloomberg administration.
According to a study by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) union, about 90 per cent of these people were innocent of any crime. But what is of equal concern to many critics and civil rights leaders is that the vast majority of the targeted individuals are minorities — black or Latino.
Police statistics show that the program, which continues to this day, peaked in 2011 when police stopped and questioned New Yorkers 685,724 times.
Only nine per cent of those stopped were white, while blacks made up 53 per cent and Latinos 34 per cent. (Whites make up 45 per cent and blacks 26 per cent of New York City’s population).
The city claims that the program has reduced violent crime. But the NYCLU says there is no evidence of this, noting that other major U.S. cities had much larger declines in violent crime without the stop-and-frisk program.
Also on Thursday U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder released the results of an 18-month justice department investigation into the Cleveland Police Force that concluded the force “engaged in a pattern and practice of using excessive force” and used “poor and dangerous tactics.” In addition to lethal force, officers struck people – including the mentally ill – on the head with their gun butts.
A stark illustration of this conclusion was found in the release Thursday of the personnel file of rookie Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann, who last month fatally shot Tamir Rice, 12, an
African-American playing in a Cleveland park.
Loehmann was dispatched to the park after a caller said someone was waving a gun that was “probably fake.” A video shows that he and his partner pulled up within a few feet of Rice. Loehmann opened his door and shot the boy within two seconds of arriving at the scene.
Prior to joining the Cleveland police, Loehmann had briefly worked for a suburban police force in Independence, Ohio. His personnel file, which was released by the Independence police, reveals that Loehmann was forced to resign from the department because he was deemed emotionally unstable and “his handgun performance was dismal.”
He was hired in March by the Cleveland Police Department, which now claims it never saw the file. The department is investigating Loehmann for the use of lethal force.
In 2012, Cleveland police were involved in a car chase during which they fired 137 bullets and killed two innocent people.
wmarsden@postmedia.com
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