On Sunday a Black man in Wisconsin was shot by police. The fellow had stopped his car, with his three kids inside, to intervene in a fight between two women. The police arrived, somehow determined that the Black man was guilty of a capital crime and shot him seven times in his back as he got back into his vehicle.
He was an unarmed Black man who was shot seven times in his back from a distance of about two feet.
Ho, hum, another day in Donald Trump’s America.
Had a Black police officer shot an unarmed White man seven times in the back from point blank range, that police officer would have been fired on the spot, the police union wouldn’t have backed him, and in all probability the officer would have been executed by his fellow officers or lynched by an angry mob.
It is what it is.
We’ve experienced an unusual year what with the pandemic, the economic collapse, hurricanes, tremendous forest fires, global warming, and unprecedented government corruption. But, for the Black community, it has been business as usual in the “hood”:
A Black jogger executed in the street by an ex-police officer and his son.
A Black nurse’s aide shot to death while sleeping during a police raid of the wrong house
An unarmed Black man who was choked to death by a police officer because he wouldn’t get into a police car
An unarmed Black teenager who was shot in the back of the head for not obeying a policeman’s command
An unarmed Black teenager who was shot three times in the back by two police officers for fleeing from a routine traffic stop
An unarmed Black teenager who fled another routine traffic stop was shot multiple times in the back
A Black teenager who was acting erratically while holding a knife was shot multiple times in the back by police officers who were not threatened by him
A Black man who was eating ice cream in his own house was shot to death by an off-duty police officer who mistakenly entered the wrong apartment
These a just a few of the incidents that I am aware of. Several of them would have gone unnoticed by the public except that someone happened to be at the scene of the crime with a cell phone camera.
If you are Caucasian, and have a charitable heart, it might be possible to assume that the perpetrators of these murders were rogue cops, operating beyond the bounds of standard police procedure. If you’re Black, you know the opposite, that Black lives don’t matter as much.
There are so many of these horrible incidents occurring all of the time throughout the length and breadth of our Nation that there has to be a better explanation than “he was just a rogue cop”. More likely, there is a separate set of standards for police interaction with Black versus White citizens.
That has to be the case because police unions and supposedly good cops always seem to take the side of the so-called rogue cop. Maybe he was following procedure?
Obviously, The Black Book, as I am calling it, is not a written document; it couldn’t be, because someone would have leaked it. Therefore, it must exist as a set of procedures that officers learn in their training. As in, “Normally, if this happens, you do X.” And “But, if the subject is Black, you do Y.”
The fact that these disparate procedures exist is apparent when one tries to recall the last time a White suspect disobeying a police command was shot multiple times in the back. It is as rare as hen’s teeth if Caucasian, but not so in the African American community.
In America, in every state that I can think of, arguing with a police officer, disobeying a command, and even perpetrating a public misdemeanor or a non-violent felony (like passing a fake $20), the punishment…once convicted…might be a fine or a small amount of jail time. Even resisting arrest might get you a good thumping by an officer and his partner and a few days in jail.
If you’re White.
That is because in Caucasian America the police exist to protect and serve, investigate crime, and arrest bad guys. Punishment is left for the District Attorney, the court system, and juries of your peers to administer.
The Black Book simplifies the law and order code if persons of color are involved. Under this system, police officers are a “one stop shop”, so to speak. If they think a crime has been committed, they can resolve the matter right then and there. If they feel that their position of authority has been disrespected, they can deal with that, too, in any way they deem fit.
Capital punishment is rare in normal White society. In fact, even after this punishment is determined justified after a jury trial, the appeal process can take years, and some states in the Union don’t even permit it anymore, as they deem it “cruel and unusual”. Prison death rows are crowded with folks who’ve been locked up there for decades.
The Black Book evidently permits capital punishment for a variety of offenses. Based upon incidents in the past decade, the “crimes” subject to on the spot capital punishment by police officers includes:
Climbing into your own car
Fleeing a police officer who has just tased you
Sleeping in your bed
Eating ice cream
Being mentally retarded, unable to respond to a police officer
Resisting arrest
Exercising your right to free speech
Falling asleep in your parked car
Allegedly passing a counterfeit bill
Shoplifting
Driving your car
Talking with friends on a sidewalk after dark
Pulling your cell phone out of your pocket
Being drunk in public
Trespassing
A child playing with non-lethal BB gun
I recall a time back in my teen years when a neighbor friend of mine and I had nothing to do on a Sunday. I had a BB gun at the time which I used to plink cans and shoot at helpless birds. Anyway, my friend Pat and I decided to investigate some houses that were under construction nearby and we headed there, me with the BB gun. After looking around a newly-framed and wall-boarded house, we were about to leave when a police man drove up in his cruiser.
Obviously, had I been Black, he would have been within his rights to murder me (and Pat) for trespassing and being in possession of a BB gun. However, he didn’t do that. He took us in the garage and told me to hand him the gun. He then pointed it at the concrete floor and shot it. The BB bounced up and broke a brand-new window in the garage. Embarrassed, he gave the gun back to me, told us not to tell anyone what happened, and drove us home in his patrol car.
I don’t know if the Monterey Park police department used The Black Book back then. I doubt it, as I can’t recall any African Americans living in our lily white city back in the early 60’s.
However, there were a lot of Blacks living in Los Angeles, only 12 miles away, and the LAPD back in the day had a reputation for its brutal treatment of African Americans. (We had a next door neighbor in Monterey Park in 1959, an LAPD officer, who liked to regale listeners with his stories featuring his “nigger knocker”, as he affectionately called his nightstick.)
I’m sure the LAPD used The Black Book up until recently. In 1992, a bunch of officers beat the shit out of Rodney King with their metal batons… for drunk driving. This videotaped episode of police brutality spawned the Watts Riots, which caused $1 billion in property damage.
My old stomping grounds of Monterey Park has undergone dramatic demographic changes since I grew up there. It is now perhaps 95 percent Asian-American. White people are almost extinct there…except for a few stragglers like my brother Terry and his wife Kay. They and their kind are minorities in a Chinese town.
I wonder if the Monterey Park police use a White Book?