Ferguson and New York

So the Eric Garner grand jury has decided not to indict the police officers in his death. His death was ruled a homicide, but they were still found not guilty. Right now the score is blacks 0 and police 2, first in Ferguson and now in New York. People are upset, and some are angry. While I agree with them, there’s an important fact that everyone is overlooking: In both cases the dead victim had resisted arrest. Now we don’t have any in-depth video on the Ferguson case, but we do have one that has been shown over and over again in the Garner case. In Ferguson, the police officer claimed that the black youth had punched him, and ran away to escape prosecution. In the process of trying to apprehend him, the police officer shot, killing him. In the Gardner case the police were attempting to arrest him, for selling loose cigarettes. Garner told them “…you’re not arresting me.” At that point, five to six officers tried to take him down. The policeman applying the chock hold was at least 2 feet shorter than the perpetrator. The officers that finally took him down were not small men. Despite their number, Garner was holding them off easily when the officer jumped on his back. Now, I’m not defending the police. In both cases I feel the police overreacted, and I can safely say a lot of people feel the same way. But with a grand jury you’re supposed to follow the letter of the law. A police officer is upholding the law. If they feel threatened, they have the right to do what they think is necessary to end the threat. Hell, Zimmerman, a local security guard in Florida, harasses a black youth, when the police told him to leave the black youth alone. Zimmerman attaked the youth, the youth fought back and Zimmerman killed him. Once again it was self-defense. Zimmerman claimed he was in fear of his life. As a person of color, I have been stopped by the police. I could be wrong, but I don’t know any person of color that hasn’t. I myself was almost shot by the police. I accidently walked in on a robbery, and since the suspects where black, I understood how I got caught up in the melee. As the police handcuffed me I kept telling them I didn’t know what was going on. I was just going to the store. I could tell the police were scared; after all they had been after this gang for a while. The gang had already shot someone with a sawed-off shotgun during a robbery. I kept calm and professed my innocence. So keeping their emotional state in mind, I tried to avoid being belligerent. Then, one of the robbery victims, a store worker, came out and told the police. “What are you doing with him?” He asked when he saw me handcuffed. “He’s one of our best customers.” But even with that statement, the police were going to take me downtown to be booked. That’s when I lost it. I screamed out at the top of my lungs. “I understand what you guys are going through, but we all know the only reason we’re going through all this right now is because I’m black.” The police stopped what they were doing. They looked at me with embarrassment, black and white alike. They then apologized and let me go. I’ve seen a few videos of police action against minorities. One that particularly grappled me was a black man caught sleeping on a subway car. That’s right sleeping on the train. Something we’ve all done at some point in New York. Well this time the police became involved. They startled, the sleeping man who was abruptly awoken and, started yelling at the police.”What are you doing? I didn’t do anything wrong.” When they tried to take him away, he resisted, so they called in more officers to forcibly remove him from the train. I should point out that not all the officers were white, and not all were male. In fact it was the female officer who was the most aggressive. I just saw the scene when Jim Kelly kicked the ass of two cops who were harassing him in “Enter the Dragon.” I remember seeing it for the first time in the theatre, and how all the blacks in the audience cheered when he beat them up for harassing him. But that’s just in the movies. In real life there’s a price for challenging the police. Bottom line, whether their right or wrong, they are still the law. It’s doesn’t help your case to antagonize them. It seems like this generation of black has no patience with the police. And on the other hand the police have no patience with being challenged. They are the law, and in the end, whether their right or wrong, their right in the eyes of the law. I know it seems that racially we’ve come a long way in the past 40 to 50 years. I mean look we have a black President. Who of my generation thought they would live to see the day? Even though a black man’s in the oval office, black youths are under siege. I just read that. from Jan 2012-thru Mar 2012, 27 men and 1 woman have been killed by the police. It almost seems like it’s been open season on black youth since Obama was elected. Is it a white backlash? That’s the subject for another time. In the meantime, as citizens, we have to stand our ground, but not give the police an excuse to kill us. It’s sad, but seems true.