The Post-Modern Police Force: ‘Shoot First and Ask Questions Later’ . . .

(or is this civil war in the United States?)

Francis Feeley

Professor of American Studies

Université Stendhal

January 7, 2015

Nobody knows how many Americans were killed by police in the past several years, nor is information available for the period of the past twelve months. Local, state, and regional records are simply not available. There are no reliable national statistics on police violence, nor do we know the global number of African American casualties of police violence in any given year. What we do know, however, is that a disproportionate number of black Americans are targeted regularly by police across North America and that a disproportionate number of police are white males.

It has been estimated that between 300 and 400 blacks are killed each year in the US by police officers. Various explanations have been offered for this high rate of casualties among African Americans.

The High Crime Rate Among Black Americans. The official police explanation is that blacks are more often involved in criminal activities that are the rest of the population. In New York City, for example, African Americans make up 23 percent of the population but were 73 percent of the shooting perpetrators in 2011.

According to former Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks, who is African American, blacks are more often crime suspects because this is the ethnic community most involved in criminal activities.

Now if you want to get into the essence of why certain groups are stopped more than others, then you only need to go to the crime reports and see which ethnic groups are listed more as suspects. That’s the crime data the officers are living with.

But critics of the official police explanation argue that police are more intrusive in African American communities, while ignoring crime in other communities. In New York City, for example, nearly 90 percent of blacks stopped by the police are found not to have been engaged in any criminal activity.

The Endemic Racism in US Police Departments. Another explanation for the high casualty rate of police violence against African Americans is the existence of endemic racial prejudice in police departments which practice ‘racial profiling’ in cities and towns across the continent, and even off-duty black police officers have been victimized by this racial bias. Reuters reporter Michelle Conlin reported recently on interviews with 15 retired and 10 active black NYC police officers. Of the 25, all but one reported having had at least one off-duty experience of racial profiling by fellow officers of the NYPD.

The officers said this included being pulled over for no reason, having their heads slammed against their cars, getting guns brandished in their faces, being thrown into prison vans and experiencing stop and frisks while shopping. The majority of the officers said they had been pulled over multiple times while driving. Five had had guns pulled on them.

One of these victims of racial prejudice was former NYPD captain Eric Adams who reported that he was stigmatized and retaliated against throughout his 22-year career for speaking out against racial profiling and police brutality. Another witness was Harold Thomas, a decorated NYPD detective who retired this year after 30 years of service; he actually attacked by two white police officers when leaving a birthday party at a trendy New York nightclub shortly before 1 a.m. in August 2012. He was wearing flashy jewelry, green sweatpants and a white t-shirt, as he walked toward his new white car when the two police officers approached him. Before the altercation was over, Thomas had his head smashed against the hood of his car and was thrown to the ground and handcuffed. “If I was white,” he told the reporter, “it wouldn’t have happened.” He has filed a lawsuit against the city over this incident.

These incidents of racial violence on the part of police toward their own black colleagues appear as only the tip of the iceberg. The violence, including lethal force, that police use against black Americans is widely practiced. Only a few of the recent police killings with impunity of blacks and poor people have made national headlines: include the infamous Travon Martin case in Miami, Florida, where a 17-year-old boy was murdered on February 26, 2012, by a self-appointed security guard, who later was able to evade conviction for his crime.

Then, on July 17, 2014, Eric Garner was placed in a choke hold by police and died after pleading no less than eleven times, “I can’t breathe”; he had just broken up a fight in his neighborhood in Staten Island, New York. The police shot to death John Crawford III in a Wal-Mart near Dayton, Ohio on August 5, 2014, when he was carrying an unloaded bb-gun in the store.The killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown occurred on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, when the unarmed black man was shot six time, according to witnesses, as he raised his hands in surrender and cried, “Don’t shoot!” when he received the fatal shot. Then, there was 12-year-old Tamir Rice who was fatally shot on November 22, 2014 by police in Cleveland as he played with a toy gun in a public park.

Institutional Racism and the Private Profit Motive. These facts, some have argued, have led critics onto a false trail, looking for racial prejudice as a causal explanation for police violence. Just as a disproportionate number of blacks are among the US prison population, the number of casualties of police violence far exceed the percentage of blacks in the US population. A third explanation in not psychological but structural racism.

The political economy is such that poor African American communities are ‘harvested’ regularly for state revenues. In Furgeson, Missouri, for example, where living conditions for the black population have been described as an Apartheid-like state, “where there is little hope, options, or opportunity.” Sixty-seven percent of the population is black; the average family income is $36,000 a year, and one in four families live below the poverty level. Although the majority of the population is African American, only 12 percent of those voting in municipal elections are black. Consequently, the white minority controls government policies, and only 3 of the 53 municipal police officers are black. The Furgeson police budget for 2013, was $450 million, and the municipal budget includes the annual revenue item of fines paid by a population of 21,000 residents to the amount of more than $2 million; a disproportionate amount of these fines are paid by black residents for trivial offenses.

If one of the major revenue sources for the city is profiling black residents and targeting them to pay numerous fines throughout the year, a major expenditure item in Furgeson, like 8,000 other towns and cities in the US is the acquistion of surplus military equipment, which was authorized by the federal government beginning in 1990.

According to an article in Newsweek magazine (August 14, 2014), by Taylor Wofford, entitled “How America’s Police Became an Army: The 1033 Program”:

America has been quietly arming its police for battle since the early 1990s.” In 1990, the US Congress enacted the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allowed the Secretary of Defense to “transfer to Federal and State agencies personal property of the Department of Defense, including small arms and ammunition, that the Secretary determines is— (A) suitable for use by such agencies in counter-drug activities; and (B) excess to the needs of the Department of Defense.” It was called the 1208 Program. In 1996, Congress replaced Section 1208 with Section 1033.

The idea was that if the U.S. wanted its police to act like drug warriors, it should equip them like warriors, which it has—to the tune of around $4.3 billion in equipment, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union. The St. Louis County Police Department’s annual budget is around $160 million. By providing law enforcement agencies with surplus military equipment free of charge, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) encourages police to employ military weapons and military tactics.

1033 procurements are not matters of public record. And the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which coordinates distribution of military surplus, refuses to reveal the names of agencies requesting “tactical” items, like assault rifles and MRAPs ("Mine Resistance Ambush Protected" vehicles were supplied to the Defense Department with a contract for Orders worth a total of no less than $8.2 Billion. Each vehicle weighs an impressive 49,000 pounds, stands 10-feet tall, and possesses a six-wheel drive capacity that can dive over landmines with no a problem.) — for security reasons, a spokesperson for the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) told Newsweek via email. One can only trace “tactical” items as far the county of the requesting agency. In the case of Ferguson, that means St. Louis County.

But are US military industries the only profiteers in this civil war conducted by the militarized US police departments? What is the systemic purpose of these aspects of police violence?

Round-up for the Prison Industry. Is the system broken? The answer to that question for many African Americans is a resounding “No!” The system is working as it was intended, to produce revenue for vested interests at a dire cost to the defensless poor, which includes most African American families. Many view this as nothing less than a war waged against poor people.*

The population of the United States today is about 320 million, of which over 13.6% (more than fourth-four million) are of African American ancestry.

Source: http://blackdemographics.com/households/poverty/

African American Income :

Black Median Household income: $33,460
(all races $50,502)
All Black Workers 2012 weekly earnings:$606
(all races $765)
Black Men weekly earnings: $633
(White men $854)
Black Women weekly earnings: $590
(White women $712)

Source: 2012 3rd Quarter: Bureau of Labor Statistics – 16 Years or Older & 2011 Census Bureau American Community Survey

These facts, some have argued, have led critics onto a false trail, looking for racial prejudice as an explanation for police violence. The answer may lie in the lucrative prison industry. Just as a disproportionate number of blacks are among the US prison population, so the number of casualties of police violence far exceed the percentage of blacks in the US population. There seems to be in interest in maintaining this source of prison inmates.

The population of the United States today is about 320 million, of which over 13.6% (more than fourth-four million) are of African American ancestry.

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), however, non-Hispanic blacks accounted for 39.4% of the total prison and jail population in 2009 (841,000 black males and 64,800 black females out of a total of 2,096,300 males and 201,200 females).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

*NOTE : The fatal shooting of the homeless white camper, James Boyd, by Albuquerque Police Department officers Keith Sandy and Dominique Perez on the evening of Sunday, March 16, 2014, in the foothills of New Mexico is evidence of the social class nature of police violence.

In final analysis, the question is raised today: Is racism but a form of class domination or is it rather is class domination a form of racism?

On Wednesday, January 6, 2015, the Republican Congressman from Louisiana, Steve Scalise, was appointed to the position of House Republican Whip, the third highest rank in the Republican Party. Scalise has a history of close relationships in his home state of Louisiana with KKK leader David Duke, and with the Neo-Nazi Party. The political success of Scalise at the national level was explained by Scalise himself as being “David Duke without the baggage”. What does this mean? A new form of racism has emerged, more subtle and more inclusive of a certain class of ethnic minorities waging war against the poor and vulnerable, which includes a disproportionate percentage of black youth.