In the wake of the decision of a New York grand jury not to indict
police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the choking death of 43-year-old
unarmed Black peddler Eric Garner, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio
called Garner's death "a terrible tragedy"
and pledged to continue to explore ways to curb the use of excessive
force by police. It was the kind of statement in both style and
substance that protesters in Ferguson, Missouri wanted to hear from
politicians in the aftermath of the non-indictment of police officer
Darren Wilson in the killing of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown.
Then again, New York has had far more practice in apologizing for
unchecked police brutality. This explains why to some de Blasio's words
ring hallow. The New York City police actually banned the very hold that
resulted in Garner's death more than two decades ago.
Given the
current discussion on ways to restore harmony to police-community
relations, it is worth revisiting this history. In November of 1993, the
New York City Police Department officially banned the use of
chokeholds. Explaining the decision, the department's Chief of the
Office of Management, Analysis and Planning John F. Timoney stated what
should have been obvious, "We are in the business of protecting life,
not taking it."
"The bottom line," he continued,
"is that if somebody is emotionally disturbed, they really need police
help and we should render it in the most humane and professional way
possible."
It is difficult to read those words and not to think
of the video of Eric Garner clearly pleading for his life with the
officers who took him down in a violent tussle. "I can't breathe," he
muttered nearly a dozen times before he lapsed into unconsciousness with
policeman Daniel Pantaleo's arm still wrapped around his neck. He never
revived. At the very least, the use of the banned chokehold warranted
an indictment.
At the time of the department's decision to ban
the chokehold, there was an ongoing national debate over the use of
excessive force by law enforcement. In 1980, for instance, Los Angles police banned chokeholds
in advance of several wrongful death lawsuits and in response to
growing public outrage particularly in Black and Brown communities over
the number of deaths associated with police use of deadly holds.
Despite
a sharp increase in the number of people killed by New York police
administering similar holds, the city managed to avoid the issue until
1985 when police officials issued a pronouncement carefully outlining
new guidelines for the appropriate use of such submission grips.
The order, which defined chokeholds as "potentially lethal and
unnecessary," outlawed their use with one exception "when an officer's
life was in danger." Even then the deadly maneuver was only to be
applied as a last resort and as the "least dangerous alternative method
of restraint."
Nevertheless over the next eight years, the
killings continued. One of the touchstone cases involved 21-year-old car
theft suspect Federico Pereira who died after police officer Anthony
Paparella placed him in a chokehold in the wee hours of the morning of
February of 1991. Pereira's slaying was particularly barbaric. After
police discovered him sitting in a stolen car, he was placed faced down,
rear-cuffed and hogtied. Paparella then according to the prosecutor in the case "pulled back on his neck and choked him."
An
autopsy later revealed that Pereira died of "traumatic asphyxia."
Police originally filed charges against five officers in Pereira's
death. When a new District Attorney swept into office that spring
however, he threw out the charges against four and reduced the charges
against Paparella to manslaughter. Much to the Pereira family and the
community's dismay a trial judge acquitted Paparella of any wrongdoing
in 1992.
His death, however, seemed not to have been a beacon for
change when the following year, with tensions in the city still
simmering, officials amended the 1985 chokehold protocol. While police
Commissioner Raymond Kelley attempted to frame the modification as more
of a clarification than a wholesale revision, the change was
nevertheless substantive. The 1993 amendment outlawed chokeholds without exception.
Fast
forward to the summer of 2014 when Eric Garner had the misfortune of
encountering Officer Daniel Pantaleo and other police officers on a warm
July afternoon. Allegedly, Mr. Garner peddled illegal smokes. It was,
hardly the type of crime that justified deadly force--especially not
deadly force in the form of a lethal and illegal chokehold. Yet on clear
cell phone video, millions of people worldwide watched and re-watched
Eric Garner's life extinguished literally at the hands of Officer
Pantaleo.
So why did the Grand Jury considering charges against
Pantaleo fail to indict? Perhaps for the same reason the Grand Jury in
Ferguson, Missouri failed to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the
killing of Michael Brown. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary
they, like many others, identified more with the authorities who did
the killing than their unarmed victims.
One of the words most
often used to describe Black and Brown "suspects" from Trayvon Martin to
Eric Garner to Michael Brown is "thug." In the narratives spun to
explain their ignominious deaths and despite the menial nature of their
transgressions, they become larger than life representations of all the
fear and negativity associated with the inherent assumption of
criminality that accompanies the use of the word.
Their killers,
on the other hand, are portrayed as the last line of defense between the
law-abiding public and Black and Brown "thugs" waiting to prey on them.
They enjoy a degree of empathy as the "thin blue line" often described
as "the barrier between anarchy and a civilized society, between order
and chaos, between respect for decency and lawlessness and for a many
people of color, victimized by laws such as stop and frisk and racial
profiling, the line between Black and white.
Significantly in the
graphic representation, the thin blue line is embedded in a Black
background meant to serve from the officer's perspective as a "constant
reminder of our fallen brother and sister officer." What it has come to
represent for many people of color in the United States is presence of
police as an occupying army, present not to serve and protect, but serve
as judge, jury and executioner, on Black and Brown bodies in public
spaces. Rightly or wrongly, this view is reinforced every time the very
persons entrusted to ensure safety and security take the life of another
person of color.
Predictably, critics of this view attempt to
shift the discussion to the high rate of Black on Black crime and the
difficult position police face in patrolling neighborhoods where such
crime is prevalent. They fail to appreciate the cyclical nature of the
problem as one of poverty and mistrust with deep historical roots often
fed by police misconduct in failing to appreciate the humanity of the
people in the communities they patrol. While communities of color have
tried to make this clear, the larger society remains fixated on crime
and the "thin blue line." The explosion in gun sales in Ferguson,
Missouri in advance of the Grand Jury's verdict in the Darren Wilson
case is indicative of this.
Several theories have been floated
about the New York Grand Jury's decision not to indict. Officer
Pantaleo's remorseful testimony before that body remains the most
compelling. In spite of the video evidence and the testimony of other
eyewitnesses, Pantaleo was able to confirm what we all desperately want
to believe that the police exist to serve and protect. Sometimes, they
make mistakes but for the most part they are well-intentioned.
Pantaleo
claimed that he never intended to hurt Mr. Garner. He said the move he
used was not a chokehold, but a wrestling move that he accidentally
applied after he and Garner nearly fell into a nearby glass window. What
began, he claimed, as a sanctioned police hold accidentally morphed
into the lethal chokehold. Pantaleo also acknowledged that he knew he
was being recorded, apparently confirming in the jury's mind that what
transpired was not intentional but a series of unfortunate circumstances
precipitated by Mr. Garner's resisting arrest. Why, his testimony left
them to consider, would he blatantly apply such a hold in full view of
cell phone recording devices?
While suspects rarely testify
before Grand Juries, Pantaleo and his counsel understood that in this
case his testimony would carry significant weight. As Paul Martin,
one of the lawyers in the Sean Bell case conceptualized the problem the
testimony of police officers in such cases carries strong credibility.
Police officers may further enjoy what Martin described as the
professional sympathy and courtesy of prosecutors who work most closely
with police and empathize with their predicament. This was clearly at
work in Ferguson, Missouri. Time will tell if the same is true for New
York.
In the meantime, we are left to bear the burden of grief and
disbelief regarding the decisions in both cases. While the words of
Mayor de Blasio and even President Barack Obama were offered as a
political salve on the deep emotional wound both decisions have left,
where, we are left to ponder is the real sympathy for the families of
Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Sympathy not be found in empty
expressions of grief for their loss, but the impetus for real change
that must begin with a hard look at the entire criminal justice system
in the United States and a move toward real reform if not whole scale
revision.
Such reform will have to tackle the issue of race. We
can no longer, as Attorney General Eric Holder observed, remain a nation
of cowards on this subject. The cost is too high in life, in property
damage, and in our efforts to ensure fair and democratic practice.
Until
mainstream society appreciates the real fear that people of color
harbor toward police, the dialogue will be fruitless. The quickening
heart rate that comes whenever an officer pulls you over, the demands
that your children not wear hoodies or play with toy guns because the
larger society fears them, and that such actions might be an invitation
to harm, and the ever present reality that the people it deputizes to
serve and protect often internalize that fear, is real. Yes, Black lives
matter. Until we are ready to deal with the full meaning of this
language, we fight a losing battle. Our nation can no longer afford to
function as two societies, separate and unequal, deeply divided, and
policed by the racially insensitive Thin Blue Line. We must find a way
to be inclusive and to make real in all aspects of our society and
culture a deep respect for life and liberty regardless of race. This
will ultimately do more to help us build bridges to understanding
instead of continuing to populate the tombs of indifference with the
bodies of unarmed men and boys of color.