Category: Policing

Chris Hedges: “Revolt in the Universities”

The journalist Chris Hedges recently posted the following article at his substack page. It’s titled “Revolt in the Universities.”

I wish he had said “Peaceful Revolt” because the vast majority of anti-war demonstrations now occurring on American campuses are peaceful.

Sure, there are always a few exceptions. But the vast majority of the “violence” you see on the reports carried by mainstream media are due to:

  • rare exceptions to the rule, often by non-students
  • violent attacks instigated by the police
  • outside instigators, often connected to pro-Israel, Zionist agitators

I ‘ve searched for but cannot find any student protests of this sort happening in my part of the country, unfortunately. If I could find one, I would be chanting and carrying signs to stop the slaughter in Gaza right beside them.

These young people and their moral sentiments are the future hope of American civil society.

The fact that many Christian evangelical leaders are standing with Israel in vilifying these young men and women is a spiritual disaster of epic proportions.

Below is an excerpt of Chris’s article:

PRINCETON, N.J. — Achinthya Sivalingam, a graduate student in Public Affairs at Princeton University did not know when she woke up this morning that shortly after 7 a.m. she would join hundreds of students across the country who have been arrested, evicted and banned from campus for protesting the genocide in Gaza.

She wears a blue sweatshirt, sometimes fighting back tears, when I speak to her. We are seated at a small table in the Small World Coffee shop on Witherspoon Street, half a block away from the university she can no longer enter, from the apartment she can no longer live in and from the campus where in a few weeks she was scheduled to graduate.

She wonders where she will spend the night.

The police gave her five minutes to collect items from her apartment.

“I grabbed really random things,” she says. “I grabbed oatmeal for whatever reason. I was really confused.”

Student protesters across the country exhibit a moral and physical courage — many are facing suspension and expulsion — that shames every major institution in the country. They are dangerous not because they disrupt campus life or engage in attacks on Jewish students —  many of those protesting are Jewish — but because they expose the abject failure by the ruling elites and their institutions to halt genocide, the crime of crimes. These students watch, like most of us, Israel’s live-streamed slaughter of the Palestinian people. But unlike most of us, they act. Their voices and protests are a potent counterpoint to the moral bankruptcy that surrounds them.

Not one university president has denounced Israel’s destruction of every university in Gaza. Not one university president has called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Not one university president has used the words “apartheid” or “genocide.” Not one university president has called for sanctions and divestment from Israel.   

Instead, heads of these academic institutions grovel supinely before wealthy donors, corporations — including weapons manufacturers — and rabid right-wing politicians. They reframe the debate around harm to Jews rather than the daily slaughter of Palestinians, including thousands of children. They have allowed the abusers — the Zionist state and its supporters — to paint themselves as victims. This false narrative, which focuses on anti-Semitism, allows the centers of power, including the media, to block out the real issue — genocide. It contaminates the debate. It is a classic case of “reactive abuse.” Raise your voice to decry injustice, react to prolonged abuse, attempt to resist, and the abuser suddenly transforms themself into the aggrieved.  

Princeton University, like other universities across the country, is determined to halt encampments calling for an end to the genocide. This, it appears, is a coordinated effort by universities across the country.

The university knew about the proposed encampment in advance. When the students reached the five staging sites this morning, they were met by large numbers from the university’s Department of Public Safety and the Princeton Police Department. The site of the proposed encampment in front of Firestone Library was filled with police. This is despite the fact that students kept their plans off of university emails and confined to what they thought were secure apps. Standing among the police this morning was Rabbi Eitan Webb, who founded and heads Princeton’s Chabad House. He has attended university events to vocally attack those who call for an end to the genocide as anti-semites, according to student activists. 

As the some 100 protesters listened to speakers, a helicopter circled noisily overhead. A banner, hanging from a tree, read: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free.”

The students said they would continue their protest until Princeton divests from firms that “profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s ongoing military campaign” in Gaza, ends university research “on weapons of war” funded by the Department of Defense, enacts an academic and cultural boycott of Israeli institutions, supports Palestinian academic and cultural institutions and advocates for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.

But if the students again attempt to erect tents – they took down 14 tents once the two arrests were made this morning – it seems certain they will all be arrested.

“It is far beyond what I expected to happen,” says Aditi Rao, a doctoral student in classics. “They started arresting people seven minutes into the encampment.”

Princeton Vice President of Campus Life Rochelle Calhoun sent out a mass email on Wednesday warning students they could be arrested and thrown off campus if they erected an encampment.

“Any individual involved in an encampment, occupation, or other unlawful disruptive conduct who refuses to stop after a warning will be arrested and immediately barred from campus,” she wrote. “For students, such exclusion from campus would jeopardize their ability to complete the semester.”

These students, she added, could be suspended or expelled.

Sivalingam ran into one of her professors and pleaded with him for faculty support for the protest. He informed her he was coming up for tenure and could not participate. The course he teaches is called “Ecological Marxism.”

“It was a bizarre moment,” she says. “I spent last semester thinking about ideas and evolution and civil change, like social change. It was a crazy moment.”

She starts to cry.

. . . There are many shameful periods in American history. The genocide we carried out against indigenous peoples. Slavery. The violent suppression of the labor movement that saw hundreds of workers killed. Lynching. Jim and Jane Crow. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. 

The genocide in Gaza, which we fund and support, is of such monstrous proportions that it will achieve a prominent place in this pantheon of crimes. 

History will not be kind to most of us. But it will bless and revere these students.

You can read the entire post here, though it may be behind a paywall.

Imagine that This Young Woman is Your Daughter. Why is This Still Happening?

Brianna Grier should not have been threatened, much less killed by rough policemen with no regard for her safety.

This latest tragedy is another good argument in favor of Defunding the Police, NOW.

Yes, I know that “Defund” is a terrible name for the movement. But it’s not about taking all funding away from local police. Instead, it is about reallocating a portion of local police budgets to social services.

Services that could more effectively handle situations like Brianna’s

Why must American’s resort to calling the police when a family member has a mental health crisis?

Why do the police treat mentally ill people like criminals?

Why do these policemen have so little regard for the well-being of a young African-American woman?

Why must they drag her across the ground, put her into the back of a patrol car without a seatbelt, and then neglect to close the car door?

Mental illness is not a crime.

And this is negligent homicide, at the very least.

Listen to Three Privileged, Christian White Guys Scold the Black Community

I would say that the news clip below is “unbelievable” except that it appeared on the Christian Broadcast Network. A network that conforms its opinion pieces so closely to the conservative, Republican obsession with “law and order” that you’d be forgiven for assuming its commentators all had day jobs as prison guards.

This editorial discussion is supposedly highlighting the importance of the

Jayland Walker

public “having all the facts” about a situation before drawing conclusions or making objections to the work of the authorities.

But then, conservative Christianity has always highlighted the importance of “obeying the authorities,” no matter how abusive they may be.

The matter at hand is the police murder of Jayland Walker in Akron, Ohio and the quick display of community outrage that followed.

The initial police reports, the details of which have not been changed, explained that Mr. Walker was going to be stopped for some unspecified sort of traffic violation.

Mr. Walker then took the police on a high speed chase which ended with him leaping from his car and running away. Police allege that Walker fired a gun out his car window during the chase.

As Walker ran away, his was chased by 8 – 9 policemen who fired 90+ rounds at his back. Mr. Walker never returned fire because, as the police later discovered, he was unarmed. (Duh, the fact that he never turned to fire back while unsuccessfully dodging a hail-storm of gunfire, hadn’t tipped them off to this already?)

Walker’s body was hit by 60+ bullets. He died at the scene.

These were the original facts. They are still the facts.

Mr. Walker is another unarmed black man gunned down for the crime of running from the police who consistently insult, abuse, assault, and murder unarmed black men.

As an African-American friend asked me not long ago, “David, why can’t white people understand why we are afraid of the police? We have good reason to be.”

Nevertheless, these CBN commentators object. They insist that most, perhaps all?, media reports have not mentioned the (alleged) gunshot out of Walker’s car window during the car chase.

However, EVERY report that I have read and watched HAS either shown the relevant video or mentioned the alleged gun fire from Walker on the highway.

In other words, CBN is ginning up an illegitimate, irrelevant concern for their own rhetorical purposes. Can anyone say, MANIPULATION? or PROPAGANDA?

But they all say these things oh so unctuously with such apparent concern…

They also fail to mention the many, many times that the police have been caught LYING to the public in their initial police reports in order to protect themselves and hide their own wrongdoing.

Naturally, the local black community responded with a large, peaceful, public protest demanding answers and accountability.

The very next day these three CBN Christian stooges, doing the half-step shuffle for white privilege, self-righteousness, hard-heartedness, foolishness and stupidity, scold the black community (!) for expressing their grief and anger, while exercising their first amendment right to cry out in the streets for justice.

I am sorry, but I find the entire diatribe to be absolutely infuriating!

Here we see three comfortable, extremely well paid, audacious examples of the poisonous fruit of white privilege dripping with the decay of dead men’s bones, all white-washed and dressed up pretty for broadcast TV.

I am sorry, but this report is nothing but pious hackery, blindingly oblivious to the persistent and pernicious racial/racist dynamic playing itself out over and over and over again in our city streets.

It is also painfully obvious — AGAIN– that something has gone horribly wrong with the way police officers are being trained to handle both people and their weapons.

It’s not a few “bad apples,” folks. It’s the entire system that appears to be rotten.

I could go on, but I will stop now. Watch for yourself. Especially notice the mini-sermon about “unrighteous responses” given in coordination with the film of African-American protesters walking through the streets.

Really?!?!

I have asked in the past. I am asking again. If anyone has a video clip of an unarmed white man being shot or chocked to death by police, please send it to me.

What Does It Mean to Say, We Can’t Govern Our Way Out of Chaos?

I’ve got another comparison of two video clips for you today. Except, this time I will allow you to make your own analysis without my input.

The first clip is of a dude on the Christian Broadcasting Network speaking about the recent mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

His verdict on the renewed debate over gun control? “We can govern our way out of chaos.” Tell me what’s wrong with his thinking.

The second clip is again from an interview on Democracy Now.

Amy Goodman discusses the actions taken in Australia after a mass shooting shocked the nation in 1996. No, Australia was not transformed by a religious revival. It was transformed by legislation.

Yep, governing can make a difference, dude.

Here is the first video clip:

Below is the Democracy Now interview:

 

 

Police Loitered Outside of Uvalde School While Shooter Massacred Children

As more details about the recent Texas school massacre are released, the picture becomes increasingly disturbing.

Eye-witnesses are now explaining that local police stood outside the school, leaving the killer inside the building for nearly an hour. They made no attempt to enter the school or to stop the shooter during this time.

In fact, the police prohibited locals gathered outside the school from launching an assault of their own when the police refused to intervene and stop the killing.

Police actually tasered one man who tried to enter the school on his own. Meanwhile, local police entered through the back door to remove their own children from the school while listening to the murderous gunfire killing 19 children and two teachers.

As it becomes increasingly clear that that US police are being trained to place their own safety above public safety, it is long past time to ask questions.

When and where was this decision made? Where are the training materials being produced? Why does anyone enlist for a potentially dangerous job if they are not willing to take risks?

Our risk-averse police force is literally killing people.

The police shoot unarmed black people regularly. Now they have the blood of another 21 people on their hands because they cared more about their own safety than they did about the little children they had sworn to serve.

The traditional law-enforcement motto, to protect and serve, seems now only to apply to themselves.

Below is an excerpt from an article on the Associated Press News site. It’s titled “Onlookers Urged Police to Charge into Texas School.”

Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting, arriving while police were still gathered outside the building.

Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders.

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” he said. “More could have been done.”

“They were unprepared,” he added.

Read the entire article here.

Below is a clip from Breaking Points News which discusses this new dimension of the Texas shooting story. They include video of the parents standing outside the school shouting at police to enter and subdue the shooter:

The Entire Rittenhouse Scenario Reeks of Arrogance and Sociopathy

The author Ron Jacobs has a new article at Counterpunch discussing the Rittenhouse trial and the final verdict declaring him innocent of all charges.

Illegally armed vigilante, Rittenhouse, was welcomed and thanked by local police

Two unarmed men are dead and the shooter goes free because he was scared. Welcome to America in 2021.

Jacob’s piece is entitled “A Land Where Justice is a Game.”

Below is an excerpt:

Another right-wing vigilante walks free in the USA. The fact that I was even mildly hopeful Kyle Rittenhouse would get some prison time only proves my eternal optimism. Once again, that optimism was misplaced. After all, it is the United States of America that I’m talking about; a nation whose history is replete

Rittenhouse drinking beer and sharing white supremacists hand-signs with members of the Proud Boys shortly after he killed two men and wounded a third

with stories of white men walking free after murdering individuals who made them afraid. It is the United States of America; a nation whose history is replete with stories of Black men lynched, executed, or imprisoned for crimes the state knew they didn’t commit. It is the United States of America; a land where the defense of property takes precedence over human life in the courts and in the streets. Especially when that property is owned by a white man.

Nothing could be more typically American than Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder spree and its aftermath. From the shooting itself to his courtroom defense that he “was only defending himself,” the entire scenario reeks of arrogance and sociopathy. Indeed, it’s a perfect metaphor for the US empire and its “foreign policy,” where

Right-wings groups, including white evangelicals, donated $2 million to Kyle’s defense fund

the concept of self-defense often involves traveling away from one’s home with a loaded weapon, walking down unfamiliar streets away from home, and then murdering people who tell you to go away? This series of events is the template for what US politicians (and many citizens) call US foreign policy. The mindset it inculcates is one that creates the Kyle Rittenhouses among its residents.

Make no mistake, the Rittenhouse trial was a political trial. The far-right knew it could manipulate the evidence in its favor, especially given the nature of stand your ground laws. The jury selection was also manipulated and the judge was not sympathetic to the murdered men. As for the prosecution, I was reminded of those grand juries that fail to indict murderous police officers because the state presents its case in such a way that makes indictment unlikely if not impossible. The assumptions of a jury’s members are played upon with the intention of bringing forth their fears and prejudices. A sophisticated legal team can convince a jury that what they see is not fact and that the legal team’s fiction is. Often, this manipulation involves removing the context of the acts being considered, shortening the timeline, and ultimately transferring the blame to the victims. This is a standard approach for the defense when police officers are charged with murder. It was used quite deftly by the Rittenhouse defense team.

Let’s pretend Rittenhouse was a leftist/BLM protester and had murdered two pro-police protesters in the same scenario like the one he was in when he killed those men. I doubt he would be a free man today. Instead, he would have been portrayed as the active shooter that he was, walking the streets of Kenosha fully armed and under the illusion he had the right to shoot people if they challenged him. In this imaginary circumstance, the pro-police protesters attempting to disarm a scared left-wing Rittenhouse would have been the heroes, and that Rittenhouse would have been the killer the real Rittenhouse is. This scenario assumes that a murdering left-wing Rittenhouse would not have been shot down in the streets by the police—a big assumption. I have protested too many Klan and Nazi rallies that were protected by the forces of law and order to think otherwise.

You can read the entire article here.

The Supreme Court’s Corporatist Majority Continues to Whittle Away at the Bill of Rights

Radley Balko is a criminal justice reporter at the Washington Post. He

Journalist Radley Balko

recently wrote a piece entitled “The Supreme Court has abdicated its duty to the Bill of Rights.”

His discussion of the Court’s rulings about “qualified immunity” for the police makes for chilling reading. Qualified immunity means that the police cannot be held liable, i.e. they cannot be prosecuted or sued for damages, by those they injure.

In other words, the police can violate your Constitutional rights with impunity whenever they like as they like. Leaving us, the citizens whose tax dollars finance our local police force, without any recourse for damages suffered during an encounter with the cops.

This is exactly what we can expect from conservative, pro-corporate judges who care more about the protection of institutional power than the rights and freedoms of anonymous individuals.

Pro-life my ass.

It is another example of the ongoing class warfare that characterizes American society — and why the working-class continues to lose.

For those who don’t think any of this is a big deal, remember the old definition of a liberal: a liberal is a conservative who just got mugged (in this case, by the police).

Below is an excerpt from Balko’s piece. He explains the contested history of qualified immunity; it is well worth some focused attention:

The Supreme Court, having created the problem of qualified immunity to shield

United States Supreme Court

police from being held liable for their misconduct, keeps refusing to fix it.

This week, the court declined to review an especially outrageous ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit involving a Denver man who was detained for recording a traffic stop, then had his computer confiscated and searched.

No one doubts the man, Levi Frasier, had the right to record the stop. To date, six federal appeals courts have ruled there is a constitutional right to record police officers in public, a sentiment shared by the overwhelming majority of constitutional scholars. No federal appeals court has ruled the other way. In fact, the law is so well established that the officers in Denver were trained that citizens have such a right, and to respect it.

Yet the 10th Circuit ruled that because that circuit had yet to rule on the matter, the right was not yet “clearly established.” In a truly remarkable sentence, the court added, “It is therefore ‘irrelevant’ whether each officer defendant actually believed — or even in some sense knew — that his conduct violated . . . the First Amendment.”

In my last column, I looked at the origins of qualified immunity, the court-created doctrine that makes it extremely difficult to sue police officers for abuse and other constitutional violations. . .

You can read the entire article here.

Don’t miss the last paragraph…ok, here it is:

George Orwell famously wrote, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.” In defiance of everything we know about violence and state power — and for that matter most of human history — somehow, the Supreme Court has decided that the boot deserves more protection than the face.

More Evidence that the Republican Party Hates Democracy

The extraordinary phenomena of last year’s protests over George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, combined with two Democratic victories in Georgia for the state’s seats in the US Senate has infuriated the Republican party.

Republicans have responded as Republicans do: undermine the power of the people.

First, they have introduced dozens of new voter suppression laws in local legislatures across the country. Naturally, Republicans object to this characterization, but Stacey Abram’s recent testimony before a Senate committee regarding Georgia’s new voter laws puts the lie to that Republican defense (watch here and here).

Second, Republicans have submitted numerous bills that would outlaw public protests and demonstrations.  They would also immunize drivers who run into protesters with their cars. (All the videos I have seen show drivers who deliberately target peaceful demonstrators.)

Today’s edition of the New York Times has an article about this second problem. It’s entitled, “G.O.P. Bills Target Protesters (and Absolve Drivers Who Hit Them).”

Below is a lengthy excerpt of that article. (It is behind a pay wall). Or you can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above:

Republican legislators in Oklahoma and Iowa have passed bills granting immunity to drivers whose vehicles strike and injure protesters in public streets.

A Republican proposal in Indiana would bar anyone convicted of unlawful assembly from holding state employment, including elected office. A Minnesota bill would prohibit those convicted of unlawful protesting from receiving student loans, unemployment benefits or housing assistance.

And in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed sweeping legislation this week that

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has used the term anti-riot bills for legislation that limits the right to protest. Credit…Phil SearsAssociated Press

toughened existing laws governing public disorder and created a harsh new level of infractions — a bill he’s called “the strongest anti-looting, anti-rioting, pro-law-enforcement piece of legislation in the country.”

The measures are part of a wave of new anti-protest legislation, sponsored and supported by Republicans, in the 11 months since Black Lives Matter protests swept the country following the death of George Floyd. The Minneapolis police officer who killed Mr. Floyd, Derek Chauvin, was convicted on Tuesday on murder and manslaughter charges, a cathartic end to weeks of tension.

But while Democrats seized on Mr. Floyd’s death last May to highlight racism in policing and other forms of social injustice, Republicans responded to a summer of protests by proposing a raft of punitive new measures governing the right to lawfully assemble. G.O.P. lawmakers in 34 states have introduced 81 anti-protest bills during the 2021 legislative session — more than twice as many proposals as in any other year, according to Elly Page, a senior legal adviser at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, which tracks legislation limiting the right to protest.

Some, like Mr. DeSantis, are labeling them “anti-riot” bills, conflating the right to peaceful protest with the rioting and looting that sometimes resulted from such protests.

The laws carry forward the hyperbolic message Republicans have been pushing in the 11 months since Black Lives Matter protests against racial injustice swept the country: that Democrats are tolerant of violent and criminal actions from those who protest against racial injustice. And the legislation underscores the extent to which support for law enforcement personnel and opposition to protests have become part of the bedrock of G.O.P. orthodoxy and a likely pillar of the platform the party will take into next year’s midterms.

“This is consistent with the general trend of legislators’ responding to powerful and persuasive protests by seeking to silence them rather than engaging with the message of the protests,” said Vera Eidelman, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union. “If anything, the lesson from the last year, and decades, is not that we need to give more tools to police and prosecutors, it’s that they abuse the tools they already have.”

Laws already exist to punish rioting, and civil rights advocates worry that the new bills violate rights of lawful assembly and free speech protected under the First Amendment. The overwhelming majority of last summer’s nationwide Black Lives Matter protests were peaceful — more than 96 percent involved no property damage or police injuries, according to The Washington Post, which also found that police officers or counterprotesters often instigated violence.

Police officers making an arrest during protests in Miami last year over the death of George Floyd Credit…Cristobal HerreraEPA, via Shutterstock

Most of the protests held across Florida last summer were also peaceful, though a few in Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville produced some episodes of violence, including the burning of a police car and a sporting goods store. Still, as they embraced the bill that Mr. DeSantis signed into law, Republican leaders expressed scorn for cities that trim police budgets and tolerate protesters who disrupt business and traffic.

“We weren’t going to allow Florida to become Seattle,” said Chris Sprowls, a Republican who is the speaker of the Florida House, mentioning cities where protests lasted for months last year and demonstrators frequently clashed with the police. “We were not going to allow Florida to become Portland.”. . . 

. . . State Senator Shevrin D. Jones, a Democrat from Broward County and a vocal critic of the law, noted that Mr. DeSantis had been quick to emphasize how necessary the bill was the day after the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol but had made no mention of that event during Monday’s bill signing, focusing solely on the summer protests.

That was evidence, he said, that bills aimed at punishing protesters were disproportionately targeting people of color. “This bill is racist at its core,” Mr. Jones said.

So far, three bills aimed at limiting protests have been signed into law — Florida’s and new laws in Arkansas and Kansas that target protesters who seek to disrupt oil pipelines. Others are likely to come soon.

In Oklahoma, Republican lawmakers last week sent legislation to Gov. Kevin Stitt that would criminalize the unlawful blocking of a public street and grant immunity to drivers who strike and injure protesters during a riot. Last June, a pickup truck carrying a horse trailer drove through a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters on a Tulsa freeway, injuring several people and leaving one paralyzed. The driver, who said he had sped up because he feared for the safety of his family, was not charged.

The bill’s author, State Senator Rob Standridge, said the Tulsa incident had prompted him to seek immunity for drivers who strike protesters. He said Tuesday he wasn’t aware of any drivers who had been charged after striking protesters in Oklahoma. “My hope is that this law never is utilized,” he said in an interview. Carly Atchison, a spokeswoman for Mr. Stitt, declined to say whether he would sign the bill, which passed with veto-proof majorities.

Tiffany Crutcher, whose twin brother, Terence Crutcher, was shot and killed in 2016 by a Tulsa police officer who was later acquitted on a manslaughter charge, said the Oklahoma proposal represents Republican efforts to extend the Trump administration’s hostility toward people of color.

Reflections on the Derek Chauvin Verdict and George Floyd’s Murder

The good news is that Derek Chauvin has been convicted for the murder of George Floyd. In this instance, the justice system has worked. A white police

Derek Chauvin

officer is being held accountable for his excessive use of force against an unarmed black man.  Something that very rarely happens.

But this is also the bad news.

At this point in America’s history, Derek Chauvin’s conviction is a “black swan event.” Recall Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s bestselling book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Random House, 2010), reminding us that incredibly improbable events (like a black swan) may have considerable influence while remaining very rare.

Notice the two provisos: first, the transformative event is very rare; and two, it MAY have significant consequences. In other words, the possible results are far from assured, and the event itself may never be repeated.

Krystal Ball

Krystal Ball (yes, that’s her real name) reminded her viewers on “Rising” this morning of the extraordinary efforts that created the context for Chauvin’s successful conviction.

First, is Darnella Frasier, the teenage girl who had the presence of mind and the courage to pull out her cell phone and film the 9 minute video of officer  Chauvin kneeling of Mr. Floyd’s neck.

Second, is the largest, most sustained protest movement in US history, which spread around the world.

Were it not for these two momentous actions, George Floyd would have been just another anonymous victim of police brutality. And Derek Chauvin would have gotten away with murder.

Hardly encouraging news.

Think about that. Let it sink in. It hardly indicates that this is the beginning of a new day in prosecuting police misconduct, let alone altering police behavior nationwide.

[Krystal’s remarks begin at about the 30 second mark.

Now is the time to keep the celebrations brief.

Because now is the time to insist that our legislators pass H.R. 1280, The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021. Though this piece of legislation is inadequate on its own, it may serve as a piece of the larger police reform puzzle.

Now is also the time to continue campaigning for local Defund the Police programs across the country. Numerous cities are testing these ideas now and the preliminary reports are very encouraging in places like Denver and Colorado Springs (see here, here, here, and here).

Now is also the time for Christian leaders to continue speaking out about  justice and equality for all people, regardless of race, color, ethnicity, or class.

Do not swallow the Fox News cool-aid insisting that this trial was only about one bad apple who did one bad thing, and that his conviction proves the reliability of our glorious criminal justice system.

That predictably conservative framing of the issues is a recipe for going back to sleep and maintaining the status quo. A status quo that ignores the larger context of US policing and police training which allows police brutality to continue unabated.

No. Now is the time to keep the pressure on, to continue protesting, to insist that the culture of American policing is in dire need of regeneration.

Now is also the time for the evangelical church to break ranks with the Republican party, Fox News, and the politics of fear.

It will mean wanting to become more like Jesus, releasing our vice-like grip on worries over personal security and caring more for those who suffer than we care for ourselves.

David Doel Invites Us to Share in the Grief and Anger of Dante Wright’s Family

Canadian reporter David Doel of The Rational National shares the speech made by Dante Wright’s aunt at the family press conference held yesterday.

We all need to listen to her. Hear why she not only grieves the death of her nephew but is angry over the way he died. She points out details in the shooter’s actions that raised my eyebrows, too.

Afterwards, Mr. Doel goes on to provide excellent commentary, placing Mr. Wright’s murder in its historical context. His challenge must be taken seriously by everyone, please.