In this incisive article posted on Salon, Elias Isquith points out that it is not enough to chant slogans about the young black men who have been murdered, without any consequences for those who murdered them. He is particularly concerned about the cautiousness of Democratic politicians, who are seeking some line to straddle to show that they are “balanced.” The exception in this case is Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was able to speak of his family, his warnings to his children, his fears for their safety, and centuries of racism.
As a society, we cannot continue to exonerate those who kill young black men. When it is done by a police officer, it is even more horrible. Each instance is abhorrent in its own way. In New York City, Eric Garner was put into a chokehold, which suffocated him; police regulations specifically ban the use of the chokehold because of its deadly consequences.
Again, actions matter more than words. What will President Obama do? What will the Department of Justice do? What will governors and legislatures do? What will police departments do? More black and Hispanic police officers would help. But much more is needed to eradicate the attitudes behind the actions. Citizens, whatever their race, should not fear the police, whose job is to protect them, not to kill them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Our nation needs to quit trying to “fix” education before it has fixed society.
Deborah…I just went to your site and read your home page etc. So glad you posted. I look forward to reading your book. Yes, Milton Friedman saw the public education system as a free market industry. I have been teaching about this aspect in classes on public policy. This influence on not only Republicans, but Dems such as Eli Broad, is prime in our battle to save universal public schools.
Thanks for posting your link.
Another American Black male was shot yesterday in Arizona.
Thank you very much. Writing the book was an incredible and unsettling experience. I wrote a book that I had for many years really wanted to read. I wanted to understand how we ended up in the U.S. with the corporations taking over public education policy and the CCSS becoming becoming the law of the land. I couldn’t find a book like that, so I wrote one. Now I’m left wondering who will really speak for public schools in the political arena.
And, yes, the violence must stop.
This American Life broadcast a show recently that highlighted a situation where black pre-school kids were expelled from pre-school at higher rates than white kids. It was part of the premise for discussing the concept of the “school to prison pipeline”.
Here’s the podcast. The preschool expulsion incident is near the beginning.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/538/is-this-working
Thank you for sharing this link. I’m listening right now. Amazing!
OMG! How discusting. Racism is well and alive in this country.
Worth noting that the pre-school system in the U.S. is not, by and large, compulsory. That means that this is a “choice” education system.
Further evidence that a choice education system does not necessarily solve this fundamental issue affecting the education of American kids.
All police must wear video cams and all police cars must be outfitted with this essential tool for justice. Some say video evidence of police attacks DOES NOT matter. I say such evidence is indispensable, even though astonishing video of police beating Rodney King 20 yrs ago did not lead to a conviction in the first trial, and not in the outrageous murder of Eric Garner by NYPD officers. Despite this, the videos sparked a massive nationwide opposition. In Manhattan last night, a massive outpouring of citizens of all colors on short notice insisted that “Black Lives Matter!” even though retrograde DA Donovan of Staten Island followed retrograde DA McCulloch in Ferguson in exonerating the main culprit, Pantaleo here, Wilson there. Videos give us concrete and disturbing images through which to put police and politicians on the defensive; videos strengthen our rhetorical claims against the police who regularly kill black men and manhandle others. They are evidence which helps us build a movement. Understandable frustration with Donovan’s whitewash of Pantaleo and other guilty officers should not lessen our demand for video as a weapon for justice. The Mayor of NYC should first promise to outfit all officers and cars with them. Training racist officers will not make them less racist, unfortunately, so the reflex position of the Mayor and Police Comm. to focus on training is an ineffective distraction. We need to weed out racist police from the cadet pool and from the force; we need to insist that all police crimes be investigated and pursued by independent outside special prosecutors not in bed with the police, as most DAs are; we need to get more women police and police of color hired. Training will matter less than having all police video-linked and all police knowing that their crimes will be pursued by prosecutors not insiders who work the system in their favor.
How do you weed out racist police from the cadet pool?
Two fatal police shootings have happened in Utah i the past three months. The officers in both cases were both wearing body cameras, BUT NEITHER TURNED THEM ON. The cameras are worthless.
Please stop saying Michael Brown was ‘murdered’. He was not. A grand jury determined he was shot because of his own actions…that of assaulting a police officer and later disobeying a command to stop and drop to the ground but instead charged the officer with intent to do bodily harm to the officer.
However, it is true that Michael Brown was never officially charged with a crime. He will never go on trial. He will never face his accuser in a court of law. We’ll never know what the outcome of his trial would have been. Maybe he would have been sentenced and would have served time in prison. We’ll never know. At least he would have been alive if he hadn’t been killed — or murdered.
There has to be a better way. Police officers are charged with serving and protecting — all of us.
The same could be said about Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza. Anyone shot and killed in the act of committing a crime does not face trial.
If the cop didn’t shoot Michael Brown might we be going to a funeral for a police officer killed in the line of duty.
A grand jury that was held in secret led by a biased prosecutor who shirked his responsibility to seek prosecution and instead acted as defense counsel for Darren Wilson.
Nearly all grand jury proceedings are held in secret. However, in this case, all evidence presented has been made available to anyone interested in learning the facts. I haven’t read it all, but I have read some of it and it is compelling. One witness’s account agrees 100% to account provided by Officer Wilson…as well as the physical evidence.
Please stick to the facts…there is no proof the prosecutor was biased and to say he acted as defense counsel just shows your ignorance.
The evidence is there for anyone wanting to learn the facts. Notice that no national media has picked up the evidence to show the public.
Yes, grand juries are secret. That’s why they’re not supposed to be trials, which are supposed to be public. There’s also the fact that the accused is not supposed to testify at the grand jury. There’s also the fact that the grand jury is supposed to be all about the evidence *in favor* of going forward to trial, not the evidence in favor of the defense (which is properly given at trial). All of this adds up to gross malpractice, which you yourself would be screaming about if it happened at a grand jury for any accused other than a cop.
Dienne…please. Shouldn’t the investigation be about getting to the truth? Why would you not want exculpatory evidence presented to the grand jury? Why would you want the expense of going to a trial when it is clear from the evidence, all the evidence, that there would be a verdict of not guilty? Why put an innocent man through that?
And by the way, there is no law that says the ‘accused’ can not testify in front of the grand jury.
Dienne, I’ve read all your comments on this page and your completely wrong on everything. Especially the stealing the cigar part since the attorneys for Dorian Johnson admitted it. Go google it up.
The prosecution didn’t believe there should be any charges. The only reason they went to grand jury was to appease the black community and it’s supporters. He knows if it went to trial they would lose. Therefore, he presented all the evidence to the grand jury so they can make the determination. Obviously, thats not how it should go but if you really wanted to do it the proper way, then there should have been no grand jury and he should have just said it was justifiable shooting. Either way, you would get pissed. Even if it went to the trial and the officer acquitted and I guarantee you he would, you would still get upset.
Twiceborn – read ira shor’s excellent post below. The system is broken. Actually, no, it’s fixed.
Dienne…not “fixed” though it is a FIX…I think the word is ‘rigged’ re the broken system.
A grand jury didn’t determine anything but to bring a No Bill or charges. Unless you were there Scott, you really don’t know what happened, nor should you pretend to.
The grand jury had the option of charging Officer Wilson with a crime or not charging him. They determined no charge was warranted.
That tells me they felt the shooting was justified. Why justified? IN MY OPINION, it is because of the actions of Michael Brown.
No, I wasn’t there. Nor were any of the people who insist this was a murder. Difference is, the people crying ‘murder’ discount the decision of a grand jury to which all evidence was presented.
The evidence presented suggests the officer was innocent and at the very least would never get a unanimous conviction. The jury got it right.
The cases are different. Brown was aggressive and police have a right to protect themselves and the public. Garner and Rice were more disturbing as in both cases police procedure was not followed – one used an illegal choke hold, the other officer was hired without ample background checks and had a troubling record. When I taught in a school requiring frequent student restraint, we would be fired on the spot for any improper hold. Here in Ohio, county deputies shot an unarmed white man 14 times who was upset over marital problems. They also were absolved. I fear for my own son who is on the Autism spectrum (but can function) that his difficulties socially will be misunderstood by a poorly trained police officer or my son terrified and panic at the sight of a militarized police officer during a traffic stop.
Whether or not Brown was aggressive is in dispute. In any case, he was unarmed and Wilson was in a squad car. Wilson could easily have protected himself without use of his weapon.
Dienne,
In the car, Officer Wilson had every authority to kill Michael Brown. Trying to take a officers gun is considered a attempted murder and therefore legal to shot, kill, gouge eyes out, etc. to the suspect. It only ends when he surrenders. Evidence suggests that Michael Brown charged at the officer and the officer has every right to shot him after the fact. The officer has no obligation to retreat after the first encounter in the car.
Dienne. There is dispute, but the evidence we all saw tended to show Brown strong armed the store then assaulted the officer, possibly trying to take his gun. The teen was not completely innocent. Again, police have a right to protect themselves. Was it excessive? Not sure there were options, but neither of us were there. Easy to second guess. The same argument that the force is in dispute is what the police representatives are using in the Garner case to justify the choke hold. These cases are different.
Even a notorious right-wing rabble rouser Bill O’ Reilly said, he didn’t deserve to die…
Leaving aside larger issues, let me address just one small aspect of the Eric Garner case.
I am no expert in the martial arts, but at several points in my life I studied under world-class practitioners and coaches.
If possible, I ask viewers of this blog that are so inclined, to gaze as dispassionately as they can at the video[s] of the incident; I know this might sound too cold-blooded to some but please keep reading. Look at the totality of the situation. The actions and reactions of Eric Garner and the police officers.
Two things struck, and still strike, me most about the incident.
The first was the very active actions of the officers and the very restrained passive reactions of Eric Garner. But leave even that aside for a moment…
The second might sound too technical but I am still very troubled by it. *Note: there is a dispute about “intent” regarding the chokehold but I am not talking about “intent” but the actual chokehold.* The chokehold officer Daniel Pantaleo put on Eric Garner was not meant to restrain. I repeat, it was not meant to restrain.
I have, literally and firsthand, both applied that same chokehold to others and had it applied to me. It was sunk in deep in such a way that it could easily have caused serious injury or death, especially because Eric Garner’s arms and hands were unable to lessen the pressure and torque being applied to his neck and because the chokehold was being applied with maximum efficiency and [from what I could see] maximum force.
Used in this fashion, this was not—I repeat—not a restraint but deadly force.
And IMHO, unnecessary.
Eight years martial arts training here and we never applied anything remotely resembling a choke hold. It was discussed and carefully demonstrated by better practitioners than I, but choke holds and anything dealing with contact above the shoulders is very dangerous and highly controlled and, in legitimate schools, carefully coached. As always, the first rule of self defense is to avoid violence. I saw in Garner no aggression, only a big man trying to maneuver.
As a veteran of the Army, the only choke holds we were taught was for the purpose of killing. The notion of choking to force submission is absurd, the line between unconsciousness and death is too fine for any practical use. It is just too easy to kill some one this way.
Exactly what we were taught in the sport. Choke holds and head strikes kill. We never considered them as part of normal training. Way too dangerous. Even for student restraint training, pressure on the chest was a big no. The choke hold on Garner was lethal force for tax evasion.
MathVale: thank you so much for your comments. I am in agreement.
And for anyone that has trained with responsible experts, what you write is a given—and if someone has a child they are thinking of enrolling in a martial arts school, the very first thing you look for is that the instructors running it make safety priority #1. And what should their priority #2 be? When in doubt, refer back to #1.
You reminded me of another detail: when you wrote that you saw “only a big man trying to maneuver” I want to amend something I wrote above. While Eric Garner was a big man, the officer applying the chokehold was no teeny tiny person. In order to gain and maintain purchase on Eric Garner, and continue riding him from behind, Daniel Pantaleo had to exert considerable force and continued effort just to maintain the chokehold. That is no easy matter. Given the situation, I would say that the officer exerted as much force as he could humanly muster just to hang on.
And from my POV, that means he was using what could easily be, or turn into, deadly force.
I must add: a good martial arts school doesn’t just have one person looking out for all the kids or other participants. At least in my experience, all the experienced and adept staff and participants are expected to keep their eyes and minds open to potentially dangerous situations and to intervene when necessary.
I know the situation was unsettling and somewhat chaotic, but what were the other officers thinking when Pantaleo sunk in a prohibited, and possibly fatal, chokehold?
I don’t know the answer, but again, it is troubling.
Ira Shor says…”all police knowing that their crimes will be pursued by prosecutors not insiders who work the system in their favor.”
So far it does look like the prosecuters are part of the problem. They have substaintial power to tilt the table. There is also the blue code of “family and brotherhood” within police ranks that sweeps issues under the rug.
There is also a “fight or flight” rush that impairs judgment and works on both sides with terrible consequences.
There can be no doubt that the distrust of police officers and what passes for a system of justice will be hard to restore. Hillary’s pompousity on the matter is as bad as Rand Paul’s “blame that takedown that ended in death on the cigarette tax.”
Eric Garner wasn’t suffocated. It has been highlighted that none of the medical examiners claimed asphyxiation. Tamir Rice didn’t deserve to die, but he was pointing a very authentic gun replica at people that had the orange safety tip removed so it was indistinguishable from a real gun. And Michael Brown committed petty robbery, bulled the shop keeper, was looking for trouble, and assaulted the cop. And why cherry pick only stories with white cops shooting blacks. How about Dillon Taylor, who was white, unarmed, not committing a crime, and was shot to death by a black cop who wasn’t charged with a crime? How about using relevant stats rather than simply emotionally charged cherry picked anecdotes?
So death is an acceptable consequence for piss-ant crimes? I think not. This is a great read that ought to give us all cause for concern.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/hundreds-of-police-killings-are-uncounted-in-federal-statistics-1417577504
Not sure why you’re quibbling over “suffocated”. The medical examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide due to neck compression resulting from the chokehold, along with chest compression from being held down. “I can’t breathe” is a pretty good indication that Garner wasn’t getting enough air.
As far as Tamir Rice, what you say is true, but it’s also true that police shot him the instant they arrived on the scene, when there was no one else around (the guy who called 911 had continued to sit in the gazebo like he hadn’t a care in the world, but he had wandered out of screenshot by the time police arrived). There’s no excuse for shooting first when there is clearly no danger present.
As far as Brown, you need to learn to use the word “allegedly”. The store owner didn’t believe Brown was the one on the video and denied calling 911 (they said it was another customer). As far as “assaulting a cop” that comes mostly from Wilson’s own story which is about as believable as something written by a bad b-list movie writer having a stroke. The picture of Wilson in the hospital is certainly not a picture of a man who was just repeatedly punched in the face.
It just fascinated me how people like you need to work so hard to make the dead black guy guilty so that you can make the white cop innocent.
Dienne,
The video of Brown stealing was clear. The store owner was scared so tried to deny it. The attorneys for Dorian Johnson confirms that Dorian Johnson has admitted Michael Brown took the cigars. How do you explain that?????? The attorneys for Dorian Johnson admitted it.
You must have watched a different video. I did not see Garner resisting or violent. Guys that big just can’t turn on a dime. It looks more like he was trying to get down but unable.
If you run it at half speed, at around the 29 second mark in this link, you can clearly see Garner reflexively pull his arm away from the officer. That means it’s Go Time for the chokehold-takedown.
Oh, and one more. The grand jury actually indicted a person who video-recorded the police choke-holding Garner at the scene. Speaking of “No See Evil” bubbles.
FLERP, Not sure your point. A hold around the neck and pulling down is dangerous. The guy even said he was having trouble breathing. It isn’t NFL challenge time. Why immediately resort to lethal force?
That was my point. The argument that Garner was resisting arrest in a way that required that much force is difficult to accept, to put it lightly.
And so reflexes are now justification for lethal force? Don’t blink. Another question from half speed is why 1) only one officer was aggressively using force, 2) why the choke hold continued for so long after Garner’s arms were reasonably restrained. Look out drunk college students after football games. Reflexes, arguing, and pulling away lands you in the morgue, now. What are we becoming?
Stats and evidence suggest that there are far more black suspects killed by white cops than white suspects being killed by black cops. Which directly leads to the reality that more blacks are charged with felonies–and hence, received severe punishment–than whites in the similar situation of crime scene. Speaking of double standard and cultural apologism.
When the police told him to put his hands behind him, he should have done it and went to station. He would be out in no time.
When you see the Dems, let me. Some outrage on their part but not enough. You know something is perversely wrong when Glenn Beck starts a rant and you don’t hear but a peep or two from the other side of the aisle…you know something is just…wrong.
No one seems to mention that as Garner is being questioned by two police officers, ostensibly for the misdemeanor of selling single cigarettes to poor people, then as these two go to handcuff him, many other police rush to jump on him, ostensibly to subdue him. No where is it shown that Garner is resisting. All he does is talk.
My question is, why are there approximately at least 8 officers on this street to take down one unarmed man for a misdemeanor?
Now, in our reading about Grand Jury investigations, it comes clear that defense lawyers are not permitted to attend and present facts. Only prosecutors are heard and they can present selected information as fact. This is an outrage and the most undemocratic situation. It appears that Grand Jury decisions are a FIX.
Extending this to the free market of private prisons, that are kept filled with mainly men of color, with judges as investors who have themselves been prosecuted for this major conflict of interest, how can We the People rapidly overturn this pernicious miscarriage of justice?
addendum re Michael Brown…addressed to Massimo…
Does it make any sense to kill a young male who is Black, or anyone, over the possible theft of a box of cigars worth maybe $20? Or to shoot to kill a 12 year old boy with a toy gun?
We in America cannot get the DoJ to indict a single bankster of those who destroyed the economy causing hundreds of thousands of people to lose their homes and their livelihoods because of major FRAUD which is MAJOR theft, but some cops who kill a human being over a minor petty theft are exonerated. What kind of country operates on this basis of unequal justice?
How about we line up all the banksters and tell them to run, and allow all those whose lives they destroyed to shoot at them at will?
As someone who tries to be an educator, my view it to try to find the basic causalities of our problems.
Ergo: Yes, we have horrific problems, horrific occurrences but what are the underlying causes of these occurrences? Answers are difficult but seeking these causalities are the first step.
1. The horrific history endured by our African American friends, AND it is well to add, our Native Americans result in attitudes which are understandable and should be addressed but are only one side of the issue.
2. In my view the police, much like teachers, are faced with the realities of unaddressed political failures. Police too are human, make mistakes but are faced with problems often not of their making which may be alleviated or made worse by split second decisions. Policing like teaching is something that given the political ineptitudes prevalent my present preference would be with which not to have to be involved.
3. Teachers and public school administrators have made horrendous decisions. Likewise police but we are all human and in quick decision under very trying circumstances make bad decisions. This is NOT to condone, only to try to understand what is happening and why.
4. Perhaps the best we can do is to try to place ourselves in other’s shoes, to try to understand and work diligently to alleviate the basic situations leading to our humongous problems: poverty, crime ridden neighborhoods, political ineptitude, ad nauseum.
Again, I do not have answers but do believe that unless we have COMPLETE information concerning a situation – which I do not have – it is easy to be judgmental but not easy to fight against the causal problems of our society which result in these horrendous acts.
You may well disagree but I feel sorry for the police too who encounter frightening for them situations. Again, this is NOT to condone their actions but merely to try to understand.
On the Diane Rehm show recently a policeman talked, intelligently in my view, how better training helps immensely in diffusing situations which can lead to the kinds of horrendous acts with which we are familiar. The police can call for back up BEFORE trying to rush in, they can keep their distance at first to size up the situation before rushing in. Yes, these can and should be employed
But
Too, there are basic causalities with which we who are and were educators are profoundly aware which lead to problems which by ourselves: teachers and police, find must be addressed if final situations are to be improved.
Ferguson DA McCulloch exploited the Grand Jury process he controlled so as to tilt the case in favor of exonerating Wilson, who was allowed to testify for 4 hrs, while the young man with Michael Brown, Dorian, reported that he testified for about 10 mins. to grand jurors who looked bored and to a DA who did not show interest in his report. A Grand Jury is not and should never be a substitute for a fair and thorough jury trial, which McC. and SI DA Donovan prevented, much to the benefit of the police involved. DAs work hand-in-glove with police and engineer the process to exonerate officers. Wilson’s self-serving rendition of events was never subject to cross-examination. Pantaleo’s self-serving rendition of murdering Eric Garner was never subjected to cross-examination. The Medical Examiner rules Garner’s death a homicide from neck and chest compression following a 20-hr ban in NYPD on use of choke-holds, and we still hear apologies and distractions about what went down that terrible day in Staten Island. We are right to have no confidence in our criminal justice system, including prosecutors and their police associates. Garner was NOT selling the infamous “loosies” the day he was murdered; even if he was, a misdemeanor like that is no cause for police murdering him with a gang of 6 cops standing by, four jumping on top of an unresisting Garner who pleads for his life with repeated “I can’t breathe!!” as police suffocate him, and EMTs casually tooling over the dead man on the ground. Outrage is too small a word for this disgraceful event; no wonder tens of thousands of Americans of all races and classes are marching in the streets fed up with the police and the courts this nation has descended into. Push the real remedies: all police must wear video cams and all police vehicles must be so equipped; all police involved in prosecutorial offenses must be investigated by independent outside special prosecutors; test police and cadet recruits for racist orientations; bring more women and more people of color onto police forces.
This. Thank you.
Re: body cameras — I found this a worthwhile quick read.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/12/seen-it-all-before-10-predictions-about-police-body-cameras/383456/?single_page=true
The predictions in that article are fairly obvious, but also noteworthy, I think. This one in particular
Also this one:
Well, it took about 3 minutes of rumination for me to switch from “It’s complicated, but body cameras are a probably good idea on balance, and in any event they’re probably inevitable” to “How freaking ironic is it that we are going to kick-start the state’s mass deployment of mobile surveillance devices in the name of protecting civil rights?”
FLERP @ 4:56,
That (going after kids after the fact) is being done in my school with all the security cameras on campus.
And this year teachers for not being in two places at once, you know in the halls while at the same time being in the classroom to “teach” the second the bell rings to end the passing period.
“test police and cadet recruits for racist orientations”
How? And what do you do if tests reveal an officer or a cadet has a racist orientation?
The Garner case shows us that cameras are not the answer. Police shootings must be investigated by special prosecutors and officers from outside the jurisdiction they occur in. Trials if necessary should also be held in outside jurisdictions.
More evidence is probably better than less evidence, even if it’s not “the answer.”
Matt Taibbi, as always, is worth reading: http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/darrien-wilson-told-this-story-with-a-straight-face-and-the-grand-jury-said-they-believed-it/
I’m reading “The Warmth of Other Suns,” the story of the Great Migration of the blacks from the South. The history of Jim Crow in the book is an interesting backdrop to current events.