Category Archives: Policing

Baltimore could defund dysfunctional policing structures, today.

TODAY, we need these proposed reforms in Baltimore and beyond, and much more, where the Baltimore Police Department has been moving strategically toward more violent processes and tactics. This includes the current use of a war zone surveillance system to monitor all 600,000 Baltimore residents for which the American Civil Liberty Union has brought suit against. This type of military level policing system at home, violating our constitutional rights, was secretly used by BPD in 2016 and in 2020 approved for use by the Baltimore City Board of Estimates. Next is the training of Baltimore City Police by Israel’s national police, military and intelligence services in crowd control, use of force and surveillance tactics. The tactic of crushing the neck with the knee, used by Minneapolis Police to murder George Floyd, is well documented as a regular use of force in Israel. This type of military style violence is what passes for adequate police training for BPD, along with other police departments across the US. There is the continued State’s support of the Johns Hopkins University implementation of a private police force instead of finding other means to deter crime. Lastly, refer to the report from Morgan State University’s Urban Research Institute concluding that after 3 years of the DOJ Consent Decree in 2017, little change has been made between BPD and the community. Among their findings: BPD did not have a good working relationship with the community, were not held accountable for misconduct, and did not show respect for civilians.

TODAY, our political leaders have an opportunity to act with conscience today. Policy should be informed from data to directly address the racialized history and its legacy of undue violence against Black and Brown bodies, not just in law enforcement. This violence is evident in the government underfunding of housing, education, health, transportation, and recreation that created impoverished communities easily preyed upon by law enforcement. Needed now is the political and societal will to do all this. None of the above will happen without a political will and social support. In this moment, a history of police abuse has re-surfaced. However, we still are not discussing the connections between policy violence and police violence; between global practices of violence as they are incorporated into American policy and functioning; between our resource choices and their outcomes. Until we begin to do that, we will always find ourselves addressing an aspect of violence as opposed to eliminating the root cause of violence.

 

The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) has made little reform toward non-violent policing and improving community relations since the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody 5 years ago. Violent policing has acute and chronic outcomes on the individuals harmed and their families and communities: death, short and long term physical and mental disability to individuals harmed, family and community mental health outcomes, diminished opportunity for social and economic participation. Legislation and funding to stop the upstream causes of police violence is urgently needed. The recently proposed Maryland State legislation directed to changing current police processes and tactics, in the wake of the country calling for swift and meaningful law enforcement reform is a good step. Another good step is this week’s Baltimore City Council hearing on its annual budget in the midst of citizens call to defund spending on policing and increase funding to housing, health, and education, and alternative community policing structures. We can begin to change this all, TODAY.

Stopping the Plague of Violence: Anti-Blackness

It’s been more than 5 years, since Baltimore’s Uprisings in April 2015 following the death of the young Black 25-year old Freddie Gray while in police custody, after being given a ‘rough ride’ by the arresting officers. There has been other deaths and injuries following excessive use of force during police engagement with Black bodies since. George Floyd, whose neck was knelt on by a white police officer in Minneapolis for 9 minutes, is the recent victim of this history of anti-Blackness-this plague of violence.

Like a plague, anti-Black violence is caused by many and affects many. It is a scourge, a disease, an infliction, an infestation, a swarm, a blight, a curse, a persecution. It is perpetuated through contact, between people. The structures in place which make sanity of this violence and make meaning for the people carrying out their ideologies, polices, and dictates have been entrenched for some 400 years in the United States of America. The violence against Blackness lives in the history and legacy of enslavement, land stealing, displacement, segregation, uneven development, under-resourced school, housing, health, transportation, recreation and employment structures and systems. The system of law enforcement, where weapons are used to enforce these ideologies, policies, and dictates takes an especially outward display of violence; like the video image of a white police officer with his knee on the neck of Mr. Floyd even after he gasped he couldn’t breathe and stopped moving.

To stop the persecution we require systems and structures to change so that the people who uphold and enforce them are not infected with anti-Blackness and racism. The police officers who perpetuate violence must be quarantined. This includes methods to stop and rehabilitate them and so as to not continue the pattern of ignoring and accepting of this curse of anti-Black violence that have been encouraged generationally over the years. This process must occur not just in Law Enforcement; it must occur in every system that upholds the structures and directs the behaviors of the people who take meaning and shape their lives and legacies from them.  

The nation is experiencing uprisings across the cities since Mr. Floyd’s death. Lawful citizens are demanding justice. Lawful citizens are responding to generational and historic trauma. We know that this recent killing of a Black man in custody of the police has dropped deep into our minds and bodies: our hearts are broken open. Love is demanded in these times, to heal and make upright what has been upside down. Love in action is needed that is bold enough to address the history and evidence of wrong, and make it right publicly: justice.

This is an opportunity for this nation to respond with compassion and power. Our compassion must acknowledge this history of violence against Black people as an infestation coming from the foundation of the country. Our compassion must be powerful enough to silence and remove the current president of this country who continues to uphold the system and structure of racial and social violence. This president’s behavior is not loving and continues to break open our hearts. His demonization of Black protestors after the murder of Mr. Floyd and embrace of white protestors storming a state house with assault weapons -to demand reopening of the economy during a viral pandemic-  cannot be ignored and accepted. These outright examples of racial violence cannot be tolerated because it stokes the beliefs, perceptions, and actions of people: like the white police officers in Minneapolis who collectively murdered Mr. Floyd; the police officers in Louisville who collectively murdered Breonna Jones; the white woman in New York who called the police because a Black man told her to leash her dog; the white father and son in Glynn Country, Georgia who felt it was okay to kill a young Black man-Aubrey Ahman– jogging in their neighborhood. All this anti-Black violence occurred in the last 3 months. We need a leader of the United States who does not breed white supremacist hatred through his pores with every breath and stoke an already burning fire of violence against marginalized groups.

The systems and structures must change, at all levels of government, nationally and locally, propped up by all rich and powerful private interests, enforced by all people who participate in carrying out their dictates, simply by accepting and not questioning. We cannot individually and collectively turn our heads and look the other way anymore. We cannot wait until we buy the house, send the kids to college, get that right job, before we act.

We do not need heroes. We need collectives of people from all locations, coming together, affirming the truth, acting from understanding, organizing and demanding justice, now.  Out of this, a more honest nation that acknowledges its racist history and legacy and plans, implements, and evaluates changes can emerge.

It seems we have been waiting with patience. We can’t wait anymore. We must courageously act with love to stop this foundational affliction of violence and anti-Blackness, so we can all be safe.

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GO FUND ME campaigns:

Aubrey Ahmad

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George Floyd

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https://www.thecut.com/2020/05/george-floyd-protests-how-to-help-where-to-donate.html

RESOURCES:

How do we build just communities? First you have to love the people

To build just communities we must first understand how we built unjust communities: In the new liberal (neoliberal) strategies of building enclaves of privilege/injustice, first the elite demonize the spaces they want, this justifies destroying them, then they rebuild them, then they boost the place for the new race and class, after they change the name.  And lastly, they protect the new community from the rest of the city. Back in the day, they protected their new enclaves of power and separation by building walls around the people they loved. These days, they protect them with policing force. Case in point, Johns Hopkins University and its plan for private policing.

Ras Baraka reminded us this weekend at the Gentrification Conference in Newark NJ of this wise truth of Chokwe Lumumba: ‘if you don’t love the people, you will betray the people’. The powerful elite and our government of Baltimore and Maryland do not love the people of Baltimore and therefore easily betray them. Continue reading →