by Tom Kando
My home town of Sacramento just
made the national (and international) news again. Sacramento has enjoyed a good run lately: First, the movie Lady Bird was one of the
Oscar finalists. Both the movie and the director were hometown products.
Something to be proud of. Then another recent
movie, The 5:17 to Paris, depicts three young men from
Sacramento who thwart an attempted
terrorist attack on a European train. Two of them were in fact students at my
university, and I met one of them.
And now, the trifecta is
complete, except that Sacramento’s third
appearance on the world stage within a year is a tragic event: The utterly
unnecessary killing of a young black man, Stephon Clark, by two members of the SACPD.
So once again, I have to write
about this shameful feature of American
society: For some reason, this country sticks out head and shoulders above
other comparable countries in the number of homicides committed by cops. (I
have written about this several times before. See Americans Killed by the Police and Violence, Racism and Law Enforcement.).
Country
|
Number killed per year
|
Population
|
Ratio
|
Australia
|
9
|
24 million
|
0. 4 per million
|
Austria
|
1
|
8.7 million
|
0.1 per million
|
Canada
|
25
|
36 million
|
0.7 per million
|
Denmark
|
1
|
5.7 million
|
0.2 per million
|
England and Wales
|
2.3
|
58 million
|
0.04 per million
|
Finland
|
0
|
5.5 million
|
0 per million
|
France
|
14
|
67 million
|
0.2 per million
|
Germany
|
8
|
83 million
|
0.1 per million
|
Iceland
|
0
|
334,000
|
0 per million
|
Japan
|
0
|
127 million
|
0 per million
|
Netherlands
|
5
|
17 million
|
0.3 per million
|
Norway
|
0
|
5.2 million
|
0 per million
|
South Africa
|
400
|
56 million
|
7 per million
|
United States
|
1,100
|
326 million
|
3.4 per million
|
Your chances of being killed by
a policeman in the US are 5 times greater than in Canada, 9 time greater than
in Australia, 10 times greater than in the Netherlands, 17 times greater than
in Denmark and France, 34 times greater than in Austria and Germany, 85 times
greater than in Britain and infinitely
greater than in Finland, Iceland, Japan and Norway. But you are twice as
safe as in South Africa.
African-Americans make up 13% of
the US population, but account for twice that proportion (25%) of all the
victims of police killings (Police Killing of Blacks).
What gets me is that, every time
there is another killing-by-police followed by a national “conversation” about
this issue, including numerous editorial comments by pundits, there is so much EQUIVOCATION. On
TV, we see panels of “experts” arguing the various “sides.” Similarly,
newspaper columnists discuss “both
sides” of the issue. This happens not just on Fox News, but also on
“mainstream” or allegedly “left-leaning sites” such as MSNBC, as well as in
allegedly “liberal” organs such as the Sacramento
Bee. See for example the March 23 column by Marcos Breton, a usually very reasonable
fellow, titled “Probe Could Clear Police
Shooters.” Or Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s statement that he would
not “second guess” the actions of the officers who just killed Stephon Clark.
To his credit, the mayor subsequently expressed
more sympathy for the victim and for African Americans in general.
But by and large , there is at all levels of society a reluctance to speak the truth, to forcefully
and unambiguously say that the routine killing of people by policemen in
America is a national disgrace which has to change. This simply does not happen in other comparable countries. By “comparable,” I mean advanced democracies - Western Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan,
etc. Only the black community has a clear view of the problem.
The so-called “debate” attempts
to identify allegedly legitimate
arguments on “both sides:”
We are told that peace officers
are legally in their right when they kill suspects who behave suspiciously.
After all, they
“put their lives on the line
every day” to protect us, right?
Don’t German and Japanese
policemen do the same?
Or the argument that we have
more crime than other countries. So? Our crime rate exceeds some other
countries, but not all, nor are other countries crime-free by any means. So this is another pseudo-excuse.
Our system is simply not
conducive to change: The Police Department (headed by Daniel Hahn, himself
African American), the District Attorney’s office (headed by Anne Marie
Schubert), the Mayor’s Office, the
Coroner’s Office and the other branches of government prefer not to rock the
boat.
Sacramento is the capital of
oh-so-liberal California. This isn’t Alabama, where sheriff Bull Connor used to
sick German shepherd dogs on peaceful citizens, or Arizona, where sheriff Joe
Arpaio brutalized and caused the death of many suspects.
We pride ourselves on being
progressive.
But in Sacramento alone, 16
people have been shot to death by police over the past two years. Some had
guns, some had knives, three were unarmed (Sacramento Bee, March 25,
2018). So the problem is nationwide.
Policemen who kill people are
never, ever convicted prosecuted criminally. At the most, they sometimes get fired, as
happened after the killing of Joseph
Mann in 2016: He was a mentally ill black man,
shot dead by two peace officers who had first tried to
run him over. This killing was
declared “justified” by the D.A. but at least the two men lost
their jobs.
California has a “Peace Officers Bill of Rights,” which makes
policemen’s personnel records completely confidential, thereby making it impossible to find out whether an
officer is guilty of prior misconduct.
Homicides-by-cop are
investigated by Internal Affairs. Isn’t this a joke?
If your child were picked up for shoplifting and the authorities asked
YOU to investigate what happened and report back to them, would you turn in a
report and say “Yup. She did it. Here, take her and lock her up.”?
It’s time to admit that there
are not two sides, there is no “debate.” The statistics in my table above tell the whole story. We
have a unique problem: American cops should stop killing hundreds of people
every year, just like all other
civilized countries..
But maybe we are not so
civilized?
One of the most disturbing aspects of the recent
killing of Stephon Clark in Sacramento is that it happened in his own HOME!
When law enforcement is permitted to kill people
in the privacy of their own residence, we are verging on becoming a Police State. There is no safety from the
State any more.
© Tom Kando 2018;All Rights Reserved
12 comments:
Bien vu ! que la planète devient chaude presque partout! Je pars au Cambodge, là aussi, ça chauffe, contre le dictateur colonel KR passé des Viêts aux chinois, Hun Sen...j'attends une révolution "Orange" dans peu de mois.Sinon, comment allez-vous, tes soeurs et toi? je pense si souvent à la magnifique ATA! Je t'embrasse, Charlie (L'Observateur Paris-Phnom Penh.)
So true and so sad. Plus, under Trump the shameful behavior of American policemen compared to he rest of the world (except South Africa) is bound to get worse.
Good for you, Tom! This should be said again and again, to remind all Americans how deadly racism is for African-Americans. I also appreciate especially your providing evidence and numbers.
Richard Schmitt
Tom, Minneapolis and Saint Paul had these experiences before Sacramento and they are painful. In my view, one of the biggest reasons for these problems is cultural norms of civility, a sense of community, fear, meaning, and joblessness are affecting both the rise of dysfunctional people who commit mass murder and the policemen who pull triggers on innocent people.
If you look at the school shooting in Florida, young kids who are suffering are asking adults to fix the problem. The media, instead of pointing to adult solutions, just praises the kids for raising a social issue that we already know exists. Then everyone thinks we can ask dysfunctional Washington to fix this. Where are the adults in this society? They certainly don't seem to be in the media or in politics.
We might be able to tweak laws a bit--harsher punishment for trigger-happy police, more prisons for dysfunctional youth, and laws banning assault rifles, but ultimately the problem is the absence of cultural norms. To some extent, the United States, the most pluralistic society, is the first country to have to deal with this. However, even a pluralistic society has to have some basic cultural values and I don't think our society has been able to define them. I think sociology and psychology have to take the lead on this because religion can only affect little homogeneous pockets of society.
Your point about internal investigations is so excellent. We see this in so many places, including the firing of employees within state politics. It's why my group is working toward establishing independent investigatory measures, and it's something we should be seeing for ALL institutions. When investigations aren't open to the public or even publicly posted after the investigation is over, the powers that be are fearless and emboldened in their bad actions. There is no real recourse, so the concept of an "investigation" is a farce. And, even when the investigations are made public, with the final reports and settlements posted online, we are still only seeing a group that is policing itself, thereby PROTECTING itself. So, I'm just agreeing with you here, and saying that I think it's critical that voters call for independent investigations and more transparency. - Dani
Again, Tom, this is excellent! What a professional perspective, backed up with numbers that abundantly illustrate the point.
Tom, you are correct on all points, but we must remember that American citizens in general are much more dangerous than citizens of other countries, simply because so many of us own so many guns. So, of course, police in the United States have a much more dangerous job than police in many other countries. I think they must be much more ready to defend themselves and so must be more ready to shoot people, as sad as that sounds.
Tom, though I sympathize with virtually everything you say (and as always, I learn a great deal from your statistical research and analyses), I disagree with the overall direction and even tone and especially reasoning of this piece. It makes me feel like you are part of an almost angry, again completely justified? and outraged? mob, like the one that shut down Highway 5 and surrounded the Kings stadium.
I guess my basic question is: what can a police department, or a police chief, or a mayor, or even a seriously earnest citizen do?
.........
I would certainly concede that there are sketchy departments and department heads (who are bigoted or self-serving or completely obnoxious) in charge of law enforcement across our not very enlightened country:
........
It’s also not true that cops have never been tried for murder or abuse of force: they have been, in the past few years, 3 to 5 times, .......And they haven’t been convicted (I think that’s accurate): there’s still that pesky problem of the jury. I don’t think either of us want someone (policeman, victim, suspect, criminal) to be convicted summarily, by press, by acclamation, by community outrage. We believe in legal process, trial by jury. Stephon Clark did not have these. it’s true, he didn’t deserve to die.
Nevertheless,........ Clark had been breaking car windows in the neighborhood, it was dark, he ran away, initially from the police, he lived in a violent neighborhood (most of which means the police weren’t certain how he would behave, they feared him, they couldn’t see him). His background suggests..........that he had a pattern of crime........ So far as I know, the two policemen who shot him were black, the police chief was black. Our mayor seems both very liberal and very thoughtful...............
In addition, after the Joseph Mann killing, the police changed some of their procedures, including immediately releasing video of crimes, and trying to be transparent.
............
It’s hard for me to believe if there were a rational, simple solution, surely some American city or village would have come up with it.
I suspect the deeper problem has to do with an issue I think you raised in a previous blog post: the American obsession with, possession of, and death rate from guns. Again, leading the list, by far, of all those nations we are compared with. So, it feels to me that, until we address the possession, ownership, excitement about gun use and try to calm down our culture as a whole, the police officer on an American street wearing a gun is going to feel occasionally threatened and worried for his or her safety..............
.........
I don’t have a solution. But I don’t think the marchers or the demanders do, either. Two hundred people blocking a freeway can’t force or wrench the culture of a police department unless there is a known or suggested method to do that.
On the topic of gun violence, such as in the recent case of the Parkland killings, I don’t think a rational person can plead that there are no viable solutions.............
I appreciate the elaborate comments and the support of Sue Adams, Richard Schmitt and Barry.
Charlie’s French comment is a witty twist to the concept of “global warming:” In this case, he uses that term to refer not to climate change, as to the rise in gun killings...Interesting.
Gordon’s point is absolutely correct. In the end, America’s gun problem - both the mass shootings and too many police executions - is rooted in a unique culture formed out of an enormously diverse mixture of immigrants and a Wild West ethos that glorifies individualism, including heroically meting out punishment upon malfeasants (John Wayne).
Anonymous points out that we all tend to protect our own turf. Excellent point. And Don correctly links the topic of this article to this country’s larger “gun problem.”
As to Jon’s elaborate and more critical comment:
1. I am honored by such an elaborate reaction and I apologize for abbreviating Jon’s words, but his original comment is just about as long as my article itself. I invite him to write a full article.
2. Jon is right that cops HAVE been prosecuted. I have corrected my error in the article. I changed the word to “convicted.”
3. In a way, Jon’s critique is unfair. I don’t have ready made solutions either. This article simply presents facts about a situation which is unacceptable. Expressing outrage is part of the solution.
4. You bet I’m angry and outraged. Blocking roads and stadiums is fine. Street protest is fine. It’s often a first step. That is part of how the Peace Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the suffragettes and progress in general are achieved.
Jon and I are using different PERSPECTIVES: Jon’s analysis of the American cop’s dilemma is fine. But THAT is the perspective he uses - from his privileged, sheltered, upper-class, mostly-white, suburban environment (My environment, too). He focuses on the admittedly uncomfortable situation of American cops at this time.
My focus on the other hand, at least in the present article, is different: I look at the problem from the standpoint of the underdog. I focus on the problem of being killed. And never forget: the fundamental difference between the two groups we are talking about - cops, and the victims of cops - is that one has immeasurably more POWER than the other.
5. I am not sure that Jon is right that both cops who killed Clark were black. But this doesn’t matter. I am trying to downplay the race factor when writing about police brutality. Blacks are twice as likely to be killed than whites, but 75% of the casualties are not black. So this is a generic problem (aggravated by racism). And there are black imbeciles too (Clarence Thomas? Ben Carson?).
6. On the point that police violence is related to the fact that Americans are so heavily armed: Absolutely correct. I am remiss in failing to point this out. Jon is totally right about this (as is Don, in his comment preceding Jon’s).
But then, why would American cops not support far-reaching gun control reform? Growing up in Western Europe, I felt comfortable wandering the streets of big cities, knowing that most people around me were probably unarmed, except for one category: cops. Wouldn’t American cops enjoy such comfort?
My sympathy is with the 128 officers who died in the line of duty last year, not with your thugs!
The 2016 FBI statistics ( https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21 )show that African Americans were responsible for 52% of all arrests for murder and manslaughter, 29% of rapes, 54% of all robberies, and 41% of weapons possession charges, i.e., the charges likely to result in violent arrests. If African Americans are only 25% of all police killings, then the POLICE MUST BE GOING OUT OF THEIR WAY TO AVOID KILLING BLACKS compared to other races!
Perhaps focusing what started the chain of events, and working more with people as parents and also children we can prevent these triggering events.
Did the officers know he was at his own home? If there had been a burglary as opposed to vandalism, different laws apply.
I hope they don't fail to respond to calls of distress because of these happenings.
You make some very valid points
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