- 1. (of a situation or debate) involving clearly defined opposing principles or issues."there is nothing black and white about these matters"
- 2. (Informal) a police car.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I have made a point of defending police officers online against mindless tides of derision and worse over the years. There are many "good cops" in my family, and I love them all and respect the often thankless job they do. My father (now thankfully long retired) tops my list. Here's a cop who never fired his service weapon on duty though his entire career (he received a commendation for that). He's known far and wide as a person who serves his community, who genuinely cares. And on any given shift, his job could turn from routine to deadly in an instant. I will never forget riding along with him when he pulled a speeder over. "Now if anything happens, Macaw", he said, "press this button. It'll put you in touch with North Bay [at least two hours away at top speed, probably closer to three]. Give the cruiser number and describe the situation."
Nothing happened.
But it could have,
Now, I know for a fact my father didn't disproportionately pull over or arrest anyone. The Canadian equivalent in terms of racial prejudice would be the First Nations, and reservations dot the area he patrolled. (He didn't often venture on to them: they have their own police forces. One of the few things we got right in our treatment of aboriginals, in my view). But I know my father. Like the majority of police officers, he is a fair and just man, and what's going on in Ferguson, Missouri is not his idea of policing.
Indeed, that police action has more in common with a police action than anything I'd expect of a police service. What does it tell you when the peace officers declare and prosecute a war?
Canada is not immune from police behaving badly. The three incidents that immediately spring to mind are the Robert Dziekanski fiasco in Vancouver, the totally unjustified killing of Sammy Yatim on a streetcar in Toronto, and the utter insanity of the G-20 protests, which put a mob of protestors against a mob of police officers. Like every other G-anything, this didn't go well.
There are doubtless many other rogue cops in Canada, and many cases of police insanity. This should not obscure the fact that most police officers are truly motivated to "serve and protect", to "maintain the right".
You get to wondering if this holds true south of the 49th parallel.
Again, I'm sure that there are countless police officers down there who have their communities' best interests at heart, and who act responsibly at all times. But there are enough bad apples that cynics might feel perfectly justified appending "...as long as you're white" to that sentence.
Black people live in a different world. Whether it's in Ferguson, Missouri, New York, New York, or just about anywhere in between, a black boy learns very early on to distrust, fear, and hate the police. And why is that? Because the police in America routinely target blacks and Latinos, far more than whites. Take a look at these stats for Illinois, for instance. White motorists are 49% more likely to have contraband material in their vehicles than blacks, and 56% more likely than Latinos; yet police search nearly twice as many cars driven by blacks and Latinos. Similar discrepancies hold true across most jurisdictions I have looked at. I don't want to bog you down with stats. Suffice it to say that if you're black or Latino, you're a target.
And why is that? Well, in New York City, at least, it's done to create a culture of fear: to let the black man know at at any time, he can be stopped by police. Keeps him in his place, see? The NYPD has quotas for this. (You almost have to laugh: In 2011, more young black men were stopped by police than there are young black men in New York City. )
Despite its blatant unconstitutionality, stop-and frisk wasvigorously defended by the two previous mayors and the current police commissioner, who has no intention of ending the program, saying "you can't police without it".
Don't think for a second this is limited to NYC.. The attitude behind stop-and-frisk: that any young black man is ipso facto suspected of something, and the use of petty peccadillos like jaywalking to stop and detain young black men...that leads us into
----------------
Michael Brown.
It is a fact that Michael Brown broke the law. He stole a box of Swisher Sweet cigarillos from a convenience store. Darren Wilson was unaware of this when he first confronted Brown and his friend: their offence, so far as Wilson was concerned, was "blocking the street".
I will repeat that.
As far as the police were concerned, Michael Brown was guilty of the offence of "blocking the street".
Now, I am an inveterate jaywalker. It drives Eva nuts: I like to diagonalize my way across streets, on as shallow an angle as safety permits. Saves time. Hasn't got me killed yet. I've been doing this for a very long time and no police officer has ever looked twice at me, let alone stopped his cruiser, backed it up, and told me to "get the fuck off the street". I can't say for certain that this is because I am Canadian and white...but I'm beginning to think that might be why.
Reports from here on out conflict. The police report states that Brown became aggressive and tried to get his hands on Wilson's gun, He was shot several times in the fracas.
That's what the police say. Numerous eyewitnesses say otherwise: the general picture seems to be that
Wilson nearly ran over Brown, opened his cruiser door so violently that it bounced off Brown and ricocheted shut, and that Wilson then reached out and tried to drag Brown through the window. Brown struggled--wouldn't you?--and Wilson, still inside the cruiser, shot him. At that point, again according to numerous eyewitnesses, Brown fled, and Wilson exited his cruiser and shot him several more times. In the final seconds of his life, Brown reportedly turned around to face Wilson...and was shot again.
You're supposed to believe the police officer in cases like this...and the chief of police, who oddly enough waited almost a full week to release Wilson's name (and when he did, he mentioned the robbery for the first time, as if to say "he had it coming!") Let's just say that given the way the Ferguson PD conducts its business, I'm disinclined to believe a word they put out. Especially given that the autopsy on Brown showed no signs of struggle.
It's worth noting here that that two thirds of Ferguson residents are black...and 94% of its police officers are white. It's also worth noting that this police force has a token two dashboard cameras...and has never bothered installing them.
The initial incident was reprehensible enough. How the Ferguson PD has behaved since is beyond the pale and it opens up a whole other topic: the police as occupying army.They have arrested and detained journalists for nothing more than recording police activity (which is one hundred percent legal). Two days ago, they threatened to mace and shoot members of the media doing their jobs. They have deployed tear gas (banned in warfare by the protocols of the Geneva Convention, somehow legal for use in quelling riots...or, you know, just firing into crowds for shits and giggles.) The same tear gas used in Ferguson, Mo. was used in the West Bank the week prior by the Israeli Defence Force. Which is interesting, because the police chief of St. Louis County, Mo, spent a week in Israel learning counter-terrorism measures.
Terrorism is such a big problem in St. Louis County, you understand.
Last night they shot two people, used flash grenades on a "peaceful but tense" group of protestors, and once again fired tear gas into the crowd. I have the horrible feeling that events are running ahead of this writing, and that worse will happen tonight.
Did you know it's common procedure in some jurisdictions that SWAT teams are deployed to execute warrants, often with tragic results? Did you know that Tiffin, Ohio (population 17,800) has procured for its police department a nice seven-ton armoured vehicle? They paid a dollar for it: a larger department was upgrading its equipment. That larger department made a buck on the deal, since vehicles and other military materiel is provided free of charge to any police department who asks for it, courtesy the Department of Defence and Homeland Security. I'm amazed a country's populace lets this happen. It just boggles my mind. What's even more incredible, to me, is that these police forces are given all this military excess gratis WITHOUT TRAINING ON HOW TO USE IT..
Incredible.
Four years ago, I wrote about the G20 riot in Toronto, and back then I took the side of the cops. In similar, entirely predictable protests and riots, I will usually take the side of those trying to maintain or restore order. G-anything protests are pointless. They happen every time world leaders get together and they don't accomplish a damned thing. Likewise, when your team wins (or loses) the Stanley Cup--I'm looking at you, Vancouver--there is no reason other than pure idiocy to smash store windows and set cruisers on fire. Further, when force is used against peace officers, they have every justification to use force right back.
Michael Brown is different. Anybody with half a brain and a tenth of a heart can understand exactly why people have chosen to protest this. And when peaceful protests are met with tactics straight out of a war zone, well, that's grounds for a much more violent protest, as far as I'm concerned.
Police are supposed to be peace officers. Not soldiers. But it looks for all the world as if war has been declared on the residents of Ferguson, Mo. And if you are at war, especially through no fault of your own, it's only reasonable that you fight. Not to do so is to accept living in a police state.
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