The recent report of the DOJ’s review of the San Francisco Police Department is disturbing on its own and should be a wake-up call, but it should not be shocking. Not to anyone even slightly aware of the history of policing in this country.
The SFPD finding is just the latest in a long list of disturbing reports about police departments nationwide. We should be long past the point of being horrified at what is being done in our names. We should be demanding action. We should be screaming and hollering for change in how our police departments are interacting with the public they are paid to served. There should be a demand to rid our police force of the KKK-types who have thus far found a welcoming home in our law enforcement communities. (As an aside, note that not one newspaper has endorsed Donald Trump, but the police unions and the NRA have. What does that say about those organizations, I wonder?)
To understand where we are at today, to understand why we have police killing over 800 people year-to-date — a significant percentage of them unarmed black and brown people — let’s look at what the DOJ finds when these PDs are put under the microscope.
San Francisco
After six months investigating the San Francisco Police Department, the U.S. Department of Justice has found disparities in traffic stops, post-stop searches and use of deadly force against African Americans, as well as implicit and institutionalized bias against minority groups.
In the report’s executive summary, Ronald Davis, director of COPS, said, “We found a department with concerning deficiencies in every operational area assessed: use of force; bias; community policing practices; accountability measures; and recruitment, hiring, and promotion practices.”
The DOJ identified 94 findings and provided 272 recommendations for improvement within the SFPD. The investigation found serious deficiencies in the way the SFPD collects, maintains and analyzes data related to officer use of force. Additionally, the DOJ suggests that the use-of-force policies currently in place are out-of-date.
The review found that the SFPD reserved its use of force almost exclusively for African Americans. Shocked, right?
Baltimore:
From the Executive Summary of the DOJ Review [pdf]:
BPD engages in a pattern or practice of: (1) making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests; (2) using enforcement strategies that produce severe and unjustified disparities in the rates of stops, searches and arrests of African Americans; (3) using excessive force; and (4) retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression. This pattern or practice is driven by systemic deficiencies in BPD’s policies, training, supervision, and accountability structures that fail to equip officers with the tools they need to police effectively and within the bounds of the federal law.
The review of the Baltimore Police Department found a pattern of abuse of the city’s African-American community.
BPD deployed a policing strategy that, by its design, led to differential enforcement in African-American communities
Ferguson
The murder of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson forced the DOJ to review the practices of the Ferguson Police Department. What they found was no news to Ferguson’s black community who have been screaming about over-policing and abuse for decades. The police were, simply put, an occupying force in that city. The Washington Post summarized the DOJ findings here:
- The 67% of African Americans in Ferguson account for 93% of arrests made from 2012-2014.
- The disproportionate number of arrests, tickets and use of force stemmed from “unlawful bias,” rather than black people committing more crime.
From October 2012 to October 2014, every time a person was arrested because he or she was “resisting arrest,” that person was black.
Arrest warrants are “almost exclusively” used as threats to push for payments.
Chicago
The release of the videotape showing the murder of Laquan McDonald forced the DOJ to open a “pattern or practice investigation”into the Chicago Police Department (CPD.
The department’s investigation of CPD will seek to determine whether there are systemic violations of the Constitution or federal law by officers of CPD. The investigation will focus on CPD’s use of force, including racial, ethnic and other disparities in use of force, and its systems of accountability.
Now, do you think apologists and enablers will admit that we have a problem?
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What to do with our Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act:
- Print out the Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act and send it your representatives.
- Email the law to your representatives and to civil rights organizations.
- Tweet the law to your representatives and to the Democratic presidential candidates.
- Call your representatives and ask what are they doing about police brutality in general and implementing our law in particular.
Contact your United States senator and contact your representative in the United States Congress. Call their office. Talk to a staff member. Call every week. Set up meetings. Organize a group to go to a meeting with your congressperson.
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About Support the Dream Defenders
Members of the Daily Kos group Support the Dream Defenders launched four ongoing projects:
1. We came together to support the Dream Defenders in Florida and their mission, our first project and the origin of our name. The Dream Defendersdefend the Dream of Martin Luther King Jr. by "develop[ing] the next generation of radical leaders to realize and exercise our independent collective power; building alternative systems and organizing to disrupt the structures that oppress our communities." Please donate here.
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4. Our Law Enforcement Documentation Act of 2016.
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