The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Another Police Killing

Re: Another Police Killing

Arafat Thayeb — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 11:12:57 -0000

Couldn?t be written any better. Reading this post reminds me of my old
room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this
article to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for
sharing!

wedding photo gallery

Re: Another Police Killing

maestra531 — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:45:15 -0000

As an elementary school teacher, it is my responsibility to teach my students about community leaders...that includes police officers. While what happened took place on the East Coast, it could have happened in East Oakland, CA where I teach as well. It is a tragedy every way you look at it. A young man lost his life for no reason. A young man's first response was physical. A police officer shows no respect for one's home by not informing them of his presence. A police officer's first response was to pull a gun. How do I tell my students that you have to respect a police officer when this happens?

Re: Another Police Killing

Glenn Kenny — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:31:36 -0000

I'm sorry, Ta-Nehisi, but as Glenn Reynolds, Mickey Kaus, and perhaps even your "friend" and colleague Megan McArdle will take pains to inform you, YOU are the real racist here for even bringing this up. Shame on you.

Re: Another Police Killing

mfcotter — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:59:16 -0000

Gah. I am seriously disturbed that I have only heard about this here. Has the MSM just bailed? Yeah, thought so.....

Re: Another Police Killing

DaveinHackensack — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:38:14 -0000

Marcos,

I'd be lying if certain aspects of "The Fast and the Furious" movies didn't pop in my head when I saw perp's photo and name in the paper...

Re: Another Police Killing

dallasal10 — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:41:51 -0000

Please double check, but I believe the police office may have also been black - so maybe no hate crime. However, drub busts can go bad and do - and the record of accomplishment for the 'war on drugs', the way it has been fought for 3 decades, may be an abysmal failure. Maybe we finally need to realize that the antiquated 'prohibition' approach to stopping drugs is not working...and do something radically different. The War on Drugs is another example of a multi-billion dollar'War Machine' that 'crime fighting bureaucracies' get rich on.

Re: Another Police Killing

Marcos El Malo — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:37:33 -0000

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1499 (AH).

Re: Another Police Killing

Marcos El Malo — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:25:15 -0000

Dave,

The situation you describe at the Sonic is ripe for humorous racial stereotypes (and if I was counsel for the defendant, I might try to work that angle). (IANAL, but if I was, I'm sure I'd be shameless.)

Re: Another Police Killing

FOARP — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:34:10 -0000

Damn, didn't know that "Institutionally racist" was originally a Stokely Carmichael rif:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism

Re: Another Police Killing

FOARP — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:21:30 -0000

That's a legal definition, means it was in self-defence, defence of another, or otherwise justifiable. Basically any killing by on-duty policemen which wasn't murder/manslaughter/unlawful or accidental killing.

Re: Another Police Killing

FOARP — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:17:08 -0000

Speaking as someone who has had his house used by the police on a couple of occasions (they gave us a box of biscuits afterwards, which was nice) I totally second this. It's only when they start viewing everyone in the neighbourhood as potentially hostile that you get this kind of thing happening.

Re: Another Police Killing

FOARP — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:05:57 -0000

"WTF is up with NYPD?"

After the Steven Lawrence affair in the UK they labelled the London Metropolitan Police "institutionally racist", a phrase which has stuck. It means that while plenty of people within the organisation do not discriminate, the tactics and structure of the organisation have an effect that is indistinguishable from racism.

Re: Another Police Killing

DaveinHackensack — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:18:30 -0000

"Maya, lets stick to the facts. Walker was in fact being violent."

What Marcus said.

Another thought though, as this incident mixes in my mind with an incident that happened near me earlier this week. I blogged about this elsewhere yesterday, but the first Sonic drive-in opened up in North Jersey a few weeks ago, on a busy highway, and the place has been so jammed that the Sonic has had to hire a couple of off-duty cops to handle the traffic. They can't let cars idle on the highway, so they wave people off when the lot is full. Tuesday night, one driver cursed out one of the cops, and when the cop reached inside the guys car for his ID, the driver hit the gas and swerved out on the road, and ended up smashing the cop against another car.

The cop ended up in the hospital with a broken leg and ankle, and the driver (who turned out to be a 23 year old Asian American with no license) was arrested. No shots were fired. Would shots have been fired if the driver were black? I don't think so. Not here.

Cops seem less likely to pull the trigger here. That might be because, with higher salaries, fewer spots, and more competition for each one, we get a better quality of cop, on average, than NYC does, I don't know. But everything can't be reduced to race, and when you try to do that, you miss out on other factors.

Re: Another Police Killing

Marcos El Malo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:15:53 -0000

Maya, lets stick to the facts. Walker was in fact being violent. He physically attacked someone for trespassing. That person happened to be a cop, who then shot him. His justification for shooting him looks pretty weak.

I'm not attacking your argument that this tragedy represents a societal problem or institutionalized racism. What I am saying is that twisting or ignoring facts, i.e., suggesting that Walker wasn't violent, doesn't help your argument.

If I have misinterpreted your intent, I apologize. If you just want to say that this shit happens way too often to people of color, then I agree completely.

Re: Another Police Killing

Marcos El Malo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:03:31 -0000

Perhaps I didn't put that the right way. It is certainly relevant, in that if the cop gets off scott free it would be a horrible miscarriage of justice (at least based on what we know at this point). But the larger issue looms: WTF is up with NYPD? WTF is up with so many PDs across the country? There is something wrong systemically, institutionally, and culturally with enough police departments that it can't just be pinned on NYPD, either.

Nor should we say that the problem is the "cop mentality". There are other large cities that don't seem to have these problems repeatedly. Most police are good people that do very difficult jobs. (I'm very pro-police, if you can't tell.) But we cannot blame a problem that crops up with such frequency to the proverbial few bad apples. Something is broken. Irish Pirate has the idea that it is the War on Drugs that has broken policing in the U.S., and maybe he is right. Certainly he is at least partially right.

Re: Another Police Killing

Maya — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:30:37 -0000

It wouldn't matter if the cop were black or white; what matters is that the victim is black. As you know from being a regular commenter on this site, racism is societal and structural. That a black man would be automatically interpreted as a violent threat or danger -- and therefore shot before given any chance to explain himself -- is what matters here, and that is a result not of an individual cop's personal feelings or racial background, but a result of the fact that we live in a society that teaches us, even conditions us, to think of young black men as automatically threatening.

Also, instead of blaming the victim for getting shot because he kicked the cop off his stoop, why not ask why the cop was sitting on *someone else's private property*? Why should the property owner be blamed because the cop couldn't hear him ask him to get off his stoop?

Re: Another Police Killing

Matt D — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:53:59 -0000

I have absolutely no love for cops but this is the one area where I think they're in the right. If you're going to shoot someone, you aim for the middle of them. The last thing we need is for a bunch of low-grade marksmen tossing shots off into the neighborhood while trying to hit somebody's moving arm. That's a great way to kill some innocent bystanders.

Re: Another Police Killing

Matt D — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:47:03 -0000

I think it is relevant. As you say, this shit happens far too often. My point is just that law enforcement personnel at all levels are insulated well against the consequences of their own fuck-ups.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are blinded to these issues at best by their faith in "law and order" and at worst by the vicarious thrill they get in seeing Authority visit violence upon an easily scapegoated Other.

Re: Another Police Killing

Marcos El Malo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:46:30 -0000

Are you saying that the information is not pertinent?

Re: Another Police Killing

Marcos El Malo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:45:01 -0000

Shem Walker wasn't the target of the bust. The cop was part of an undercover operation in the neighborhood and someone elsewhere on the street was the target.

I don't think Walker is faultless in his own tragedy. Where did he get off kicking a stranger in the head to get the stranger's attention? Whether justified because of the trespass or not, Walker attacked someone who happened to have a gun.

Still, the brunt of the blame is on both the individual officer and the department. No question about that. A policeman has a special responsibility to use deadly force only when necessary, and getting punched and kicked doesn't justify killing a man, especially when fellow officers were coming to his aid.

I also don't completely buy the excuse that the cop didn't hear Walker's demand that he get off of Walker's stoop. The excuse is that the cop didn't hear him because he was wearing earphones so that he could monitor the operation. If this is true, it means he was wearing in-ear headphones or (less likely) cans that cover the entire ear. From a tactical standpoint this is incredibly stupid as it drastically reduces your situational awareness. This is a worse than rookie mistake. Mistakes like this get people killed, as happened here. This points to real problems with NYPD training that have nothing to do with cultural sensitivities and everything to do with competence and tactical preparedness.

Re: Another Police Killing

Eva14 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:26:31 -0000

Good point. I think you've summarized part of the purpose of hate crime legislation there - to address crimes meant to "send a message" to a wider community, beyond the individual victim.

Re: Another Police Killing

Marcos El Malo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:21:06 -0000

LOL @ alt-police. Indie Police and College Oriented Police sound even worse.

I think Chief Bratton has worked towards the sort of hybrid we're discussing. Some of the change involves changing the culture within the LAPD which is surely an uphill battle. Others have to do with creating policy and altering practices.

Remember the May Day Police Riot in 2007 in MacArthur Park? A huge black eye for the department, but Bratton handled the aftermath really well. The key thing is that the commanding officer responsible for the police response at MacArthur Park was forced to resign. Bratton didn't scapegoat the rank and file.

I went to an anti-war demo in Hollywood about a year previous*, and I saw the police doing it right, which made the MacArthur Park thing such a shock to me. The visible police presence was mostly bicycle cops, who have good mobility in a crowd of marchers, but are less threatening/provocative than, say, riot police. However, the riot police were very nearby on standby. I hadn't particpated in the march, but had parked near the end of the march rally point, where there was music and speeches. Walking down an alley to Hollywood Blvd., I saw the command post with a contingent of riot Cops and then 2 blocks further down the alley, another unit of riot cops. Fortunately, they weren't needed, but it was good they were there. Whoever was commanding the police was smart to tuck them away where their very presence wouldn't antagonize the more militant lefties.

*I'm not a demo kind of guy. I went at the behest of my best and oldest friend, who is a flaming liberal. To be honest, I find demos to be a waste of time at best, or at worst, a putrid pool of diseased rhetoric, like the Tea Parties.

Re: Another Police Killing

permazorch — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:24:56 -0000

@LCrawfty: Ah, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say it was one day, or one president. I certainly don't have any links to back up increased enrollment in military or law enforcement. I was just remembering what it was like to be a stupid kid, a male, and wanting to belong to something bigger than myself. For better or worse, there was no calling, no mission, as I hit the skids between 17 and... uh, what's my age, now? I hope you noted my first sentence. In that, I wanted to imply that often enough, the kind of man who wants a career in law enforcement is exactly the kind of man I don't want as a police officer. Along with that, I wanted to note the attitude of some police that civilians are expendable whenever there's a question that harm may come to an officer. I think other comments have been more articulate & succinct at making this last point.

@FOARP: I haven't forgotten Amadou Diallo. I also remember Gregory Sevier. He was two years younger than me when police assisted his suicide, and yep, I believe it was easier for them to shoot him 6 times because he wasn't white, unlike themselves.

I don't have a clue to who the officer is, how long he's been with law enforcement, or how old he is, but I do know that taser abuse is rampant. I know that I generally don't trust the police as much as I'd like, and I find that a bit sad.

I guess I just wanted to point out that everything is connected, as corny as that sounds. It makes a difference who's president. Growing up in Kansas, as Reagan took office, I heard a fuck of a lot more racist terminology bandied about. It matters.

Re: Another Police Killing

DaveinHackensack — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:12:39 -0000

It's also a little premature to talk about bigotry when, according to the link, the police officer hasn't been identified yet. It may turn out that the cop was the same race as the victim.

One commenter on the site Coates linked to raised a good question though, I think: if you see a guy wearing headphones on your stoop, and he doesn't answer you when you tell him to leave, you should consider the possibility that he didn't hear you -- in which case, your next move might be to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention, instead of, say, kicking him.

Having spent ten years in predominantly black schools, I remember there being a tendency to escalate conflicts to an exchange of blows fairly quickly (I also spent a couple of years in predominantly white schools, so I have some basis for comparison). The stakes are too high for that nonsense today though, particularly if you live in an outer borough neighborhood like Clinton Hill, where the other guy could easily be packing heat and quick to use it.

Re: Another Police Killing

kekemen — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:54:26 -0000

This story never fails to bother me.