There have been far too many killings of unarmed young black men. The nation expressed shock when George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin in Florida. The nation should be even more outraged when young men like Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, are killed by the police. The U.S. Justice Department should set standards for the training of police officers so that the use of firearms is a last resort or a very rare occurrence. The police should be the protectors of the community, the keepers of the peace, not an armed force to be feared by young men of color.
It is time for Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, to take the lead in not only demanding an end to the use of deadly force against young people but in setting national standards for police conduct and prosecuting police forces that terrorize people of color.
Here is an account worth reading.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why are police all over the US reacting with impulsive aggression that is characteristic of Bipolar ?
Try to fight anyone with a firearm and don’t be surprised if you get shot. Surely, the police man did show far more restraint than one of Mr brown’s contemporaries would have had he tried the same antics with one of them. Don’t get it twisted.
Michael Brown did not have a firearm.
he tried to fight someone that did have a firearm(the cop). Dumb move.
z – what proof do you have of that? The witnesses all say otherwise.
I don’t understand why community leaders are not getting together. The situation is escalating. How does a kid get shot just walking down the street? There isn’t much live coverage on tv either.
Community leaders have been getting together.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/police-use-tear-gas-in-ferguson-people-jam-church-for/article_6060a563-d7d1-544a-8bb3-793c46be427c.html
Spamguard here won’t let us post video and pictures from the twitterfeed. There is an enormous amount of stuff, day and night for days, on #ferguson. The whole world is watching, even if big media look away.
Go to twitter #ferguson. Two news reporters were just arrested in a McDonalds, and due to outcry, released shortly after. Cops in full military gear, aiming assault guns on peaceful protesters, etc. Also see #EzellFord, mentally challenged young man shot in back while laying on ground, three times, killed, by LAPD.
They’ve been released. The police chief said “oh, God” when he was told they had been arrested.
The SWAT team are county police, not city, and they don’t seem to be helping the situation any. Unfortunately, the county police agency is now running the operation or that’s what Ferguson police said.
http://gawker.com/washington-post-huffpo-reporters-arrested-in-ferguson-1621284034
There’s a live feed. Not good, amazed how little is being reported
Live on tv
http://www.livestream.com/activistworldnewsnow
Federal standards in education = bad policy, clearly illegal, and an affront to longstanding principles of federalism. Federal standards in policing = great idea.
This is one of the central contradictions of the orthodox opinion of the blog: local standards are paramount unless you disagree with local standards. If you disagree with the local standards, all praise the federal standards.
Seems very ad hoc to me, but I am just an economist.
FLERP,
I will repeat myself. The law says clearly that the U.S. government must not control, direct, or influence curriculum or instruction. I don’t want the party in power to tell every teacher how and what to teach.
I am perfectly willing to have federal standards for justice. The police must be trained not to kill unarmed people.
Dr. Ravitch,
I assume you are also willing to have the Federal Government tell local school boards where to spend local tax revenue when it comes to students of color and students with learning disabilities. Is there a group of students where you think local school boards should have complete autonomy?
TE,
There are currently federal laws protecting the civil rights of students of color and students with disabilities. There is an Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education and as Office for Students with Disabilities. These are well-established practices. I do not object to them. Do you?
Dr. Ravitch,
Given the majority views of my state (though not my local district), I do not object to Federal Government dictating to local school boards about how to treat those students.
The title of this blog is a discussion of a better education FOR ALL.
Do you think there are ANY students that should not benefit from the benevolent eye of the Federal Government or courts?
“The law says clearly that the U.S. government must not control, direct, or influence curriculum or instruction.”
I’m quite sure that there are many current laws you strongly disagree with, but laws can be changed. This is a question of principles and beliefs, not what current law says.
My point was mainly: NCLB/RTTT/Common Core may or may not violate the federal statute that created the Department of Education, and subjecting state and local police to federal training standards may or may not violate the Constitution. But education and policing are both classic examples of unenumerated powers reserved to the states in the exercise of their sovereignty. You can argue that one policy is unwise and another is wise, but federalism isn’t the kind of principle that can be invoked and discarded at will (like a drunk man uses a street lamp, as KrazyTA often notes/quotes on these pages).
Federalism is a structural principle, and if it applies to education, then it applies to policing with even greater force. And the movement for national standards that led to the Common Core was built on premises as simple and seemingly unobjectionable as the statement that “[t]he police must be trained not to kill unarmed people.”
I now invite all of you to put on your foil hats and meet me at Alex Jones’s web site. 😉
To be clear, do not meet me at Alex Jones’s web site.
FLERP, protection of the civil rights of minorities is already federalized. It is not a debatable proposition. There is no law that is broken by doing so.
There’s no debate that the federal government has the authority enact and enforce legislation under the 14th amendment. The scope of the federal government’s authority over state and local police is very debatable, I assure you.
I’m surprised you don’t see the potential problems that could arise from the institution of national policing standards, given what’s happened in education over the last couple decades. I’m reminded of the old SNL mock presidential debate, with Dana Carvey as President George H.W. Bush, denying that the war in Iraq would become “another Vietnam.” Something to the effect of, “We have learned the lesson of Vietnam, and that lesson is clear: Stay out of Vietnam.”
“I will repeat myself. The law says clearly that the U.S. government must not control, direct, or influence curriculum or instruction.”
I before E, except after C, like weird, or NCLB… having no control,
direction, or influence on curriculum or instruction.
It’s a tragedy that an innocent, young black man or child was killed by police. Inf act, it is a tragedy anytime the police kill an innocent person of any color.
But I think this calls for a closer examination to see where the threat of being killed comes from and to determine how dangerous the police are.
In 2011, the FBI reported that there were 12,664 murder victims. 50 percent were black, 46 percent were white and 2.6 percent were of other races. 89.3 percent were males. Of the offenders, 52.4 percent were black, 45.2 percent were white and 2.4 percent were of other races.
Law enforcement reported 653 justifiable homicides in 2011. Of those, law enforcement officers justifiably killed 393 felons, and private citizens justifiably killed 260 people during the commission of a crime.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded/expanded-homicide-data
Law enforcement was responsible for 3 percent of the homicides in a country with a population of 316+ million. Homicides represent 0.004 percent of the total population. Law enforcement officers killed 0.00012 percent of the total population and most were found to be justifiable.
How many innocent victims are killed by law enforcement officers and what was the cause?
It turns out that the cause may be linked to budget shortfalls that have left police departments without the funds to properly train officers on using their firearms.
“In those adrenaline-filled encounters, good training more often than not makes the difference. Practicing realistic simulations of live fire allows cops to make better decisions and hit what they’re shooting at. In many jurisdictions, however, they aren’t getting enough or the right kind of weapons training, in part because of cuts to police-training budgets. That puts both bystanders and sometimes police in the line of fire, and local governments on the hook for big payouts.”
http://prospect.org/article/why-are-police-shootings-innocents-rise
Budget cuts—-sound familiar? And who gets blamed?
Dark-skinned boys and men are routinely murdered by police who are then protected from prosecution by their Police Unions and by the DA’s office with whom they are cronies. Soon after I started teaching at Staten Island Comm Coll in 1971, a young black boy was murdered by police, shot in the back, no prosecution.
The list since then is long. Only one NYPD officer has ever been convicted for murder in these circumstances–Francis Livoti in 94 killed Antonio Baez with an illegal, banned choke-hold after a football thrown by Baez and friends hit a police car. Livoti served 7 years for the death of Baez. Our current NYC Police Comm Bratton was the Commish back then and was an ardent follower of the “broken windows” practice of policing. In 94, then Comm B recommended better training for officers after Baez’s death; in 2014, now Comm B recommends better training for officers after the chokehold death of 43-year-old Eric Garner on Staten Island, garroted for selling loose cigarettes.
Perhaps many will agree that racist experiences injure the schooling of black and hispanic kids, creating hostile conditions for teaching and learning. The CCSS demand that such beleaguered kids must take take endless tests to show they are college and career ready is a bizarre and abusive distraction to the lives of these children, who are always already target-ready for the Police. Of course an inter-racial movement against embedded racism is the only thing that can help and heal–we had one in the 60s, perhaps we will have one again.
As educators, we can advocate for “racism” to be the generative problem-theme of k-12. Those who already teach about and against “racism” already know that this topic can generate critical studies in any art or subject area–history, literature, writing and reading, music, art, urban life, etc.
Why did Trayvon die? Why did Eric Garner die? Why did Michael Brown, Amadou Diallo, and Sean Bell die? Why did _______ die?
Facing racism thematically as the foundational problem of k-12 is what our public schools can do to improve civic life and social justice. This is already being done in forward-looking schools. It’s one response against the accumulation of dead black bodies and against the ominous certainty that more lifeless bodies will join them.
Well said. At first glance, I thought Diane’s post, while well-intentioned, was out of place; it wasn’t an issue or event relevant to a “better education for all.” Thank you for reminding me it IS relevant.
“We” never had a true inter-racial movement against embedded racism, at least not when it came to residential and school segregation. You only need to look as far as Bloomfield Avenue to see the evidence.
In 2014, the majority of the nation’s black population, and the overwhelming majority of the black population in the metropolises of the Northeast and Midwest, is confined to carefully, intentionally created hyper-segregated inner-city ghettos. There are plenty of people who believe this is a moral crisis, but hardly any at all who are willing to explore a solution if it involves where they live or send their kids to school. As long as blacks are warehoused in this way, and as long as their police forces are staffed primarily by whites who live outside their neighborhoods (mmm, something familiar about that dynamic), there will be more Michael Browns.
What’s with the union bashing here?
The rising number of mid-career teachers who view teaching as a social justice issue may be a factor in the reason for creating one curriculum to rule us all.
Policemen should at least be required to post performance bond. Other public employees, treasurers for instance, are required to post a bond, as are general contractors. The legal system has created a thriving business in issuing bond for people charged with a crime, often resulting in the loss of property (there are many ways to profit from aggressive enforcement of drug laws). Policemen (most *public servants*) don’t stand to lose anything for misconduct, instead they are suspended with pay, and defended at the public’s expense.
How about drug testing policemen for excessive steroid use while we’re at it?
And bring back Grand Juries (sixteen angry men…)!
Do you know all of the facts about Michael Brown? What was he doing before the police arrived? Why do you assume that the police were in the wrong? It is a tragedy that he died and I feel for his parents loss. The rioting that went on after the death accomplished nothing.
Frances, if it is true that Michael Brown was unarmed and if is true that he put his hands up and if it is true that he was running away from the police, he should not have been killed.
Why is Michael Brown the one on trial? He was unarmed, running away, and shot in the back multiple times. If he’d been a young white boy you wouldn’t be asking for “facts” about him – you’d be demanding that his killer be jailed.
BTW, you have a pretty poor understanding of the First Amendment if you can’t tell the difference between rioting and protesting.
For a site that routinely (and correctly) points out that negative stereotypes of teachers are untrue and unfair, it is surprising that so many are giving police officers the same treatment.
The idea that the US DOJ should supervise local police is ridiculous. First, the DOJ is too busy giving guns to the Mexican drug cartel so they can execute border patrol agents. Second, apply the same reasoning to education and give Sec. Duncan more control over schools.
This is a tragedy and it may be a crime was committed by a police officer. Withhold judgement until the facts are known and extend the same courtesy to the fine people who serve our communities in law enforcement that you do to teachers.
MattyS,
I am not willing to give Arne Duncan control of what is taught in every American school.
I am more than willing to give the Justice Department authority to tell local police officers not to shoot and kill unarmed young people.
It’s patronizing for you to imply that police officers do not already know this. Or that local departments do not already provide this training.
Again, you regularly correct those who would apply a negative stereotype to all teachers because of a few bad ones. It is unfair for you and others to do the same to police officers.
I admire and respect police officers. I do not admire or respect those who kill people for minor crimes or no crimes at all.
Okay, Matty, I actually agree with you that it’s patronizing to assume that officers don’t know not to shoot unarmed people in the back. But they did, and this is hardly the first time. So if ignorance isn’t the problem, then what is? I’d suggest callous, racist evil myself – you got a better explanation?
Great point, Matty.
Diane — Your response is akin to someone saying they respect teachers, but they do not respect teachers who have sex with students (duh)… therefore, the federal department of education should supervise local school systems to control all those pervy teachers. I believe your response (like mine) would be that the vast majority of teachers do not behave this way and that federal involvement will not solve anything but will only create new problems. Well, same with the police.
If you haven’t been following this on twitter, you can have no idea what has been going on in #Ferguson. Before we go there, though:
We are citizens of a country which does not yet exist, that we still have to create.
Brilliant point, Chemtechr . . . .
I have a very good idea of what is going on. I grew up in St. Louis and my family lives in Florissant which is adjacent to Ferguson.
A fewpoints:
It breaks my heart what’s happening in Ferguson. North County is economically depressed, businesses are closing (the entire Jamestown Mall). A few very dedicated, civic-minded people have worked very hard to attract a few new businesses (retail, brew pub, wine bar) to downtown Ferguson. Now ruined because of one terrible act.
People are scared that schools in Ferguson-Florissant SD will suffer the same fate as Normandy (google it if you haven’t followed it). My goddaughter is a Senior at McCluer North HS and she can’t wait to graduate before the school loses its accreditation.
Ferguson is not a slum. The criminal violence is being carried out by people from other areas. Very sad.
If you’d actually been following the situation, you would know that this is hardly just “one terrible act” but rather the boiling point of problems that have built up over years or even decades.
What’s coming out in Ferguson reminds me of the Truth and Reconciliation proceedings in South Africa. When Mandela, Tutu et al started that process even they had no idea what would come out. Practically every black South African had dozens of stories of abuse and oppression that had been stifled for years. The same thing appears to be happening in Ferguson and could (and probably will) happen in any other highly segregated ghetto in America.
Dienne,
Ferguson is not a highly segregated ghetto. There is no history of anything approaching this in that area.
I have first hand knowledge of the area which I mention in my post. What is your source of information?
Matty
So the black and white population of Ferguson is distributed evenly across its entire area?
The Census shows that the community is in the midst of extreme white flight: 74% white and 25% black in 1990 vs 29% white and 67% black in 2010. Perhaps Ferguson is an outlier from the historical (and ongoing) pattern of white flight, but it is rare for such cities to be meaningfully integrated during the transition period–even though the overall population appears integrated, the vast majority of census blocks will be >95% white or black. Is 2014 Ferguson an exception to this pattern?
Tim,
The demographics have changed in Ferguson and in North St. Louis County generally. Can’t argue that.
My family (who happen to be white) live in fairly diverse neighborhoods in Florissant. My experience is that the area is mostly Caucasian and African-American; I don’t recall moderate/large Asian or Hispanic populations there.
I’m not trying to be polyanna and say there were no problems there. Just that comparisons to apartheid South Africa and use of the loaded term “ghetto” are not appropriate here.
Matt
There are those who suggest these images of a black community under occupation by heavily armed troops are strategically designed to feed into the “War on Whites” paranoia being spread by Republican politicians, and actually propel the nation toward civil war from both sides. In any case, the situation is grave.
Peaceful supporters of the Ferguson community (of all colors!) filled their church last night, with thousands outside in the street, and have joined with residents to raise their hands in the air and try to face down paramilitary troops who shoot rubber bullets and teargas. A state senator was gassed, national reporters have been arrested. People are tweeting for justice from their cell phones, with their hands in the air.
Here is the most extreme and inflammatory response from the left that I’ve seen.
“There are those who suggest these images of a black community under occupation by heavily armed troops are strategically designed to feed into the ‘War on Whites’ paranoia…”
There are those who would suggest in turn that these people need to develop some mentally healthy hobbies.
I watched the report regarding the police in Fergenson and I was appalled. Two reporters were accosted, military tanks with weapons aimed at the protesters. Police in riot gear lining the streets.
What happened to people’s right to protest?
Here are pictures of that, all in one place. AP claimed a person who picked up a teargas grenade from the street and threw it back toward the police was “hurling a molotov cocktail”
http://www.news.com.au/world/ferguson-journalists-ryan-j-reilly-wesley-lowery-arrested-as-warriorcops-stalk-streets/story-fndir2ev-1227024317404
No, the molotov cocktails were real…
Jack, no one has accused Michael Browof throwing a Molotov cocktail. In this country, I thought, people get a fair trial before they are punished.
Diane — What are you talking about? I was responding to the specific comment from chemtchr, which had nothing to do with Brown.
Given that we still do not know exactly what happened, I think it is way premature to be demanding “justice” for Michael Brown. “Unarmed” or not, if his actions that night directly led to this tragedy, then what happened is more on him than on the police.
One thing that we should all be able to agree on, however, is that the increased militarization of our police must end. The military is giving its excess equipment to local police forces and turning them into para-military units. Police are emboldened to behave more aggressively when they have armored vehicles and high-powered weapons. As one commenter said on another forum, the military should take back all the armored vehicles they’ve given to police departments and send them to the Kurds.
Good points in both your paragraphs.
Jack Talbot, anyone who is killed by the police without due process of law is owed justice. Of course, Michael Brown is dead and cannot receive justice. But his killer should be identified and tried. Over the years, the police have shot dead people who were involved in petty crimes. If brought to trial, they might have gotten a 30-day sentence. People of color should not live in fear of the police.
Other than death row inmates, no one who is ever killed is afforded due process of law. This includes the guy who is killed in a police shootout. So no, the policeman should not be identified and tried just because you say so. When the police are out of bounds, there should be consequences. When citizens act in a way that creates a dangerous situation and bad stuff happens… not so much.
I love how you say “people of color” should not live in fear of the police. Personally, I don’t think anyone should live in fear of the police. But sometimes those who live in such fear do so because they are regularly engaged in illegal behavior. That’s on them, not the cops.
Good denial, Jack, of the reality of being black in America.
Nice bumper sticker.
This whole conversation has wandered away from reality. As far as the news has expanded what happened, including new witnesses today, it would seem that Michael Brown and his friend were merely walking down a roadway when approached by a police car. Michael, who had been indentifited as bipolar (which many reports said local officers were aware of), and the officer engaged in heated conversation, seemingly about where the two boys were going. This is still America and without some actual indication that they were going to, or had, commited a crime, this officer overstepped his authority.
But as happens every day in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, etc.,the boys were guilty of walking in public while being black.
In WLA, Beverly Hills, and othe wealthy enclaves, police regularly stop black men walking, and driving. And if they are taking an exercise run, good luck. They can be citizens and taxpayers in the community, doctors, lawyers, bankers,etc., but they are treated like criminals. A few months ago a black judge was arrested in Westwood by UCLA police, on a parking charge. He is suing as well he should.
Michael, like so many black males, surely knew never to engage with a policeman, but being bipolar, he did not have the frontal lobe control, and evidently arm wrestled with the cop who was in the car, and who took out his gun and shot at Michael. Then the two boys turned and ran away. The cop proceeded to chase them firing his gun and a bullet struck Michael in the back. Thereafter Michael turned and raised his hands, sank to his knees, and the cop who at that point could have subdued the situation and handcuffed him, chose to keep firing until he lay dead. Ostensibly, the coroner should find about 8 bullets in his body.
It was only thereafter that the riots started, much as they did in LA with Rodney King, and Rochester and many cities in the 60s at the time of the Watts riots. These cities now have about 20 – 25 % unemployment of black males…and with the free market prisons, the justice system is far from just to them. Michael would surely have been put away for a long time for engaging with a police officer.
No police departments need flame throwers, tanks, and rapid repeater riot guns. During the Occupy movement, this adminstration advertised the new tanks with heat weapons that could burn protestors from blocks away, to be used for crowd dispursement. That weapon alone, turned against our own citizens, is fascistic.
Why aren’t Lawrence Tribe and David Boies working on the real civil rights situation rather than trying to destroy due process for teachers?
We do need to hear this out, but we in LA just went through the disgust of our old Sheriff who let much of this kind of behavior go on, and our Police Chief almost did not get a second year contract this week due to his insider protection of his officers against public opinion and the rights of the public to have transparency in this key agency.
As the Empire’s ability to maintain global control rapidly disintegrates – witness Libya, Syria, Iraq and Ukraine, and the possibility that WWIII has already started – resulting in the Overclass’ insane but systemically-rational imperative to loot the “Homeland” to maintain power and profit margins, we get the imperial chickens coming home to roost, with militarized “law enforcement” violently overcompensating, and predictably reverting to the default program of state-sanctioned class and race-based violence.
Meanwhile. the Chameleon-in-Chief asks us to “reflect…”
This is understandably an upsetting and divisive situation. The killing of Michael Brown is a tragedy in so many ways. His parents successfully reared him to complete his K-12 education well enough to continue on to college. I cannot imagine how frightening it must be to be a parent of an African American male. The statistics are horrific.
https://pod51034.outlook.com/owa/#path=/mail Reference page 2 of the report.
I do however believe that we must wait for all of the facts to come out. Something happened to lead up to this tragedy. Mr. Brown was clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time with no anticipation of any violent encounters. Looking at the recent racing death of a young car racer who left his vehicle apparently to confront another driver and ended up being killed by that driver, one can only think: if only he had stayed by his car.
Somehow there was some type of interaction with the police near where Michael Brown was prior to his being killed. He may not have been involved and there may have been a guilt by association that occurred in a very quick and volatile incident. There is much to be determined going forward but one thing is clear: a promising young man is senselessly dead.
So, 2:15 in the afternoon, walking in a public street on your way to your grandmother’s home is being in the wrong place at the wrong time? For whom? Why?
It was the wrong time because something terrible happened just like it was the wrong time for students to be in the cafeteria at Columbine and little ones to be at school in Newtown. Life in America today can be the wrong time anytime there are people and guns around even if the police are the ones with the guns. My little ones have been in their beds when bullets came through the walls and I live in Smalltown, NC. It’s not right but that’s the way it is.
Approximately half the replies here depress me unutterably.
We should all be worried. I’m worried.
What about all the “Michael Browns” I love and teach each day in my classroom. Will they be 18 and killed by police? Will a “Michael Brown” that I taught to read . . . make it? Will I be at a funeral? Will I be consoling a family?
He was headed to college . . . he was headed to college . . . he was headed to college and now he is under the dirt.
Human rights and civil rights are being destroyed and all the teachers are first hand witnesses to the disenfranchisement of children. Now all of America is seeing the same issues we fight daily played out aggressively on the streets.
This is why I weep. I want more for all my “Michael Browns” – children in poverty who are on their way to more but that Ameircan Dream can die in an instant mix of white privilege and racism.
Unfortunately they die at the hands of each other everyday. It is a very sad thing to see it happen especially when you know and love the children involved. Heartbreaking.
What exactly do you mean by white privilege? And the racism comes from all races wouldn’t you agree? We need to be better then that or were all doomed. Im a white Male and I assure you I have never seen an ounce or privilege.
I just saw the autopsy report and I cant believe how many times they shot that kid I counted 8 or 9 how many times does it take to stop an unarmed man? im a white male that grew up in poverty both my parents were heroin addicts and I have seen first hand how sick the Police will get when they know you cant fight back.this has nothing to do with race this is all about the haves vs the have nots. they want this to be about race so they can keep us from coming together ,they know if we do their in trouble. they love us to be violent so they have a reason to kill us off. we need to use this to make us stronger and bring all races together its enough hate already and look where that’s got us. we need to come together a fight back in a peaceful manner if a million people of all races all creeds came together and said we have had enough theyd have to listen. I love you all and please no more violence stop giving them a reason to destroy us.