Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

ref: Several “first contact” cases in the news

Gadfly:

We are reminded AGAIN of the 1 Corinthians 12:26 quote roughly, “If one of us suffers, we all suffer.”

Also be reminded that it is our past Bethlehem police Chief that kept the BPD use of force policies/procedures secret even from city council until finally they were revealed — in June, 2020? — after the great pressure created by the powerful and obviously necessary national and local protests following Mr Floyd’s killing this past May.

And Ex-Chief DiLuzio recently, following his resignation, was recognized for his service.

So let’s also recognize that to lead our City there is a great onus on leadership — the BPD, Council, and the Mayor — to demonstrate transparency in its behavior, past, present, and future.

Answering correspondences from citizens is one place to start!

Proactively informing the public of any progress in city/police-public dialogue would go a long way toward building transparency and trust.

And what about acknowledging the LACK of Council/Mayor discussion of appropriate funding of the police budget prior to its approval, even after its demand from the citizenry?

Greg Zahm

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“The rampant police mentality to shoot first and ask questions later when it comes to a Black person is incontrovertible evidence that Black lives don’t matter to
too many law enforcement officers.”
Benjamin Crump, lawyer for the Hill family

ref: Yet another “first contact” gone bad

Gadfly keeping an eye on this Andre Hill case. The officer was fired. Still nothing put forth to explain or justify the shooting. But more details now about the shooting officer’s poor past disciplinary record. Gadfly says again that he would like to hear more about how our department handles misconduct. He can remember Chief DiLuzio saying that he had fired officers, so our disciplinary process may be just fine in weeding out “bad apples.” But Gadfly thinks we should hear more about it. Stories of such incidents very often show bad signs in an officer’s record and the role that police unions play in protecting them.

We should also note the 12-year-old Tamir Rice and killed-in-her-bed Breonna Taylor cases also made news recently, and not in a particularly good way.

———

selections from Andre Welsh-Huggins, “Police observed no threats from Andre Hill before shooting.” Associated Press, December 29, 2020.

An officer on the scene of the fatal shooting of Andre Hill in Ohio’s capital city last week didn’t perceive any threats and didn’t see a gun, contrary to a mistaken claim by the fellow officer who killed Hill, according to records released Tuesday.

The city fired Coy on Tuesday, accusing him of incompetence and “gross neglect of duty,” among other charges.

Coy asked Hill in a “normal tone of voice” to exit the garage and Hill complied but without responding, Detwiler said.

As Hill walked out, Detwiler “did not observe any threats from Mr. Hill,” nor did she see a gun, the internal affairs report said.

“Officer Detwiler stated Officer Coy observed a firearm and yelled, ‘There’s a gun in his other hand, there’s a gun in his other hand!’” the report said. “Officer Detwiler heard gunfire at this moment.”

No gun was found at the scene, police said.

Reports also indicate that Police Chief Thomas Quinlan felt something was off about the shooting as soon as he arrived, saw the officers and then saw the body cam video.

Coy’s handling of the shooting “is not a ‘rookie’ mistake as a result of negligence or inadvertence,” Quinlan said in his recommendation that the 17-year veteran be fired. Quinlan added that Coy’s actions were “reckless and deliberate.”

A review of Coy’s personnel file shows more than three dozen complaints have been filed against him since he joined the department in January 2002, mostly for rude or abusive language with a dozen for use of force. No details about the allegations are contained in the sparse summaries the city provided from the department’s internal affairs bureau. All but a few were marked “unfounded” or “not sustained.”

Quinlan noted that he had first raised concerns about Coy in 2008, when Quinlan was his patrol lieutenant.

“If sustained improvements are not fully realized a decision whether Officer Coy is salvageable must follow,” Quinlan said, quoting from a letter he wrote.

Coy was fired Monday hours after a hearing was held to determine his employment.

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

For more information or to register, please contact Wilberto Sicard at wsicard@caclv.org.

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“Shelby Steele believes that the use of victimization is the greatest hindrance for black Americans. In his view, white Americans see blacks as victims to ease their guilty conscience, and blacks attempt to turn their status as victims into a kind of currency that will purchase nothing of real or lasting value.”

Gadfly believes in systemic racism, believes in the need for individuals and institutions and entities to be anti-racist.

Not everybody does, of course.

And a sometime but passionate follower believes the blog needs a counter voice, suggesting prominent Black conservative Shelby Steele.

Happy to oblige.

Gadfly asks you to listen (there is video on two of the links) to Shelby Steele.

———-

selections from Shelby Steele, “The American Dream is very much alive.” Fox Business Network, April 2, 2019.

“The American Dream is still very much alive . . . We are a free society essentially . . . based a good deal on individual initiative, effort, responsibility . . . These are the kinds of things that give you a very good chance of succeeding in a free society . . . [interviewer: You hear it all the time that somebody can be held back by their race, or their gender, or ethnicity . . . no?] . . . We live in a new age . . . I grew up in segregation . . . I know what it means to grow up in a society totally organized against your aspirations as an individual . . . I know what that’s like . . . That does not exist any longer . . . It’s not absolutely perfectly gone, but it is largely gone . . . So that today, no matter who you are, what your race is, your color, your ethnicity, etc., you can do pretty much what you want to do, what you want to work hard enough to really want to do . . . I don’t know any place in the world that offers more opportunity, more freedom, than this society . . . We convince ourselves , for all sorts of other reasons, that that’s not true . . . but as a Black American I can certainly tell you that one of the most important things I have ever understood in my life is that I am free . . . That was not the case when I grew up . . . That freedom is a very rare gift, and we need to appreciate it is the answer to all of our problems.”

selections from Charles Creitz, “Shelby Steele: Claims of ‘systemic racism’ are ‘expanding the territory of entitlement’.” Fox News, June 7, 2020.

“In order to pursue power as they [radical Blacks] do, you need victims . . . George Floyd is the archetypal victim . . . And the whole incident, his murder, is sort of a metaphor for the civil rights agenda, the grievance agenda . . . complete innocent . . . tortured to death . . . well, Wow . . . the excitement that triggers on the left in America . . . It validates their claims that America is a wretched country . . . that they must get recourse for what’s going on . . . It feeds this old model of operation that we’ve developed . . . that America is guilty of racism, guilty of this sin and has been for four centuries . . . and minorities are victims who are entitled . . . And so when people start to talk about systemic racism built into the system, what they are really doing is expanding the territory of entitlement . . . We want more, we want more, we want society to give us more . . . Society is responsible for us because racism is so systemic . . . That’s a corruption . . . The truth of the matter is Blacks have never been less oppressed than they are today . . . Opportunity is around every corner . . . Why don’t you take some responsibility . . . Why don’t you take more responsibility . . . If we had the nerve, the courage, to look at Black people . . . and say ‘You’re not carrying your own weight . . . Are you making things happen for yourself? . . . Or are you saying I’m a victim, I’m owed.”

selections from Shelby Steele, “The Inauthenticity Behind Black Lives Matter.” Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2020.

Insisting on the prevalence of “systemic racism” is a way of defending a victim-focused racial identity.

Even today, almost 60 years beyond the Civil Rights Act, groups like Black Lives Matter, along with a vast grievance industry, use America’s insecure moral authority around race as an opportunity to assert themselves.

Both [whites and Blacks] need blacks to be victims. Whites need blacks they can save to prove their innocence of racism. Blacks must put themselves forward as victims the better to make their case for entitlements.

This is a corruption because it makes black suffering into a moral power to be wielded, rather than a condition to be overcome. This is the power that blacks discovered in the ’60s. It gained us a War on Poverty, affirmative action, school busing, public housing and so on. But it also seduced us into turning our identity into a virtual cult of victimization—as if our persecution was our eternal flame, the deepest truth of who we are, a tragic fate we trade on.

Yet there is an elephant in the room. It is simply that we blacks aren’t much victimized any more. Today we are free to build a life that won’t be stunted by racial persecution. Today we are far more likely to encounter racial preferences than racial discrimination. Moreover, we live in a society that generally shows us goodwill—a society that has isolated racism as its most unforgivable sin.

Thus, for many blacks today—especially the young—there is a feeling of inauthenticity, that one is only thinly black because one isn’t racially persecuted. “Systemic racism” is a term that tries to recover authenticity for a less and less convincing black identity. This racism is really more compensatory than systemic. It was invented to make up for the increasing absence of the real thing.

We don’t have to fight for freedom so much any more. We have to do something more difficult—fully accept that we are free.

———

Steele points to Burgess Owens, Herschel Walker, Daniel Cameron, Tim Scott — speakers at the Republican National Convention — as examples of Blacks who have succeeded, defying the existence of a systemic racism ceiling.

Scott Tim

to be continued . . .

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder 

On June 27, 2015, ten days after Dylann Roof killed eight Blacks in a Bible study class in a Charleston church, in an act of peaceful civil disobedience as American as apple pie, as they say, a Black woman, Bree Newsome, climbed the flag pole outside the South Carolina State House and removed the Confederate flag.

With her was a white man, James Tyson.

See the news story here

Gadfly talked yesterday about the image of anti-racism from “12 Years a Slave” that moved him during his participation in one of the local programs on race in the wake of the George Floyd murder.

In another one of those programs, the topic was the difference for white people between being an “ally” and a “co-conspirator” when it comes to the fight for racial justice.

That’s another way of saying the difference between being “not racist” and being “anti-racist.”

James Tyson was being a co-conspirator.

James Tyson was being anti-racist.

Simply by holding the pole.

When the Courthouse police threatened to taze Newsome, Tyson grabbed the pole, thwarting the police, who were reluctant to risk sending a “charge” through the white man.

And then he simply joined her in arrest.

A lively discussion among program participants centered on this very lively Bettina Love video (5 mins.) and the challenge to whites to be active in the fight for racial justice, to be co-conspirators. to “find your pole.”

https://vimeo.com/433544240

Something to think about.

Being anti-racist, that is.

As we approach the traditional time of making resolutions.

If somebody today asks you if you found your pole, you’ll know what they’re talking about.

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is
that they take their feet off our necks.”
Sarah Moore Grimke’ via Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It’s kind of a quiet, in-between week in the Gadfly business.

City work mainly buttoned up till we hit the new year.

Time for a little “intellectual” work.

As you might have noted, Gadfly has been taking advantage of the various webinars, conferences, programs, etc., on race offered locally (BAPL has done a great job!) in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

Will be doing homework today for a discussion tomorrow.

Ah, the luxurious gift of time: a joy of retirement.

But Gadfly has recently fretted here that the way the world turns in our manic-paced culture we’re in danger of losing the national reckoning with race his murder precipitated.

But maybe not for another week anyway.

We are entering the flush of those television year-end reviews of the big stories of 2020, and, like you, Gadfly has noticed that Floyd is much back in the news.

His murder still sharing top headline billing in a year overfilled with news.

The image of a knee [not the feet of Justice Ginsburg’s remark!] on a neck coming center stage again.

I was thinking of that image recently while watching for a local program on race the 2013 Academy Award Best Picture “12 Years a Slave” about a free Black kidnapped into slavery who for twelve years unsuccessfully attempts to free himself — a film based on a true story.

It takes the agency of a white man (Samuel Bass) to free the wronged Black (Solomon Northrup).

Sometimes it is not possible for a Black to “rise” on his or her own, though not for the lack of trying. [Think systemic racism]

At considerable risk to himself — a white man living in the South defying the laws of the South — Bass contacts white people in the North who arrange to free Northrup.

Northrup is able to reconnect and reclaim his life, once more becoming a valuable contributor to his society.

But it takes the agency of a white man, a white man performing an anti-racist act, a white man who moves from a hands-off passive intellectual repulsion at slavery to an active physical repudiation of and personal rebellion against the racist system, the very world in which he exists.

Gadfly was very much moved by this image of an anti-racism act.

We can’t have too many images of anti-racism, acts which are never easy.

to be continued . . .

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“There’s no compression on the wounds, no attempts at CPR, not even a hand on the shoulder and an encouraging word that medics were en route. To see him lying in the driveway minute after minute after minute after minute with no attempt to render aid and comfort. To be honest, I had never seen body worn camera footage like that.”
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther

“Columbus voters in November also approved a city charter amendment to create a Civilian Review Board and inspector general, which will conduct independent investigations into police misconduct and policies. The city is currently accepting applications for the review board, which it hopes to seat early next year.”
NPR,  December 23, 2020

Gadfly gets no pleasure out of this.

And Gadfly makes no inferences about our police department, which, as far as he knows, has a fine record.

But the headlines read “Ohio Officer’s Bodycam Shows He Shot Unarmed Black Man Within 10 Seconds Of Encounter” and “Columbus officer who fatally shot unarmed Black man has history of excessive force, misconduct” and “Columbus mayor calls for termination of officer who killed unarmed Black man.”

Something is wrong with the way these “first contact” situations are handled. And perhaps with the way officer misconduct is handled.

And Gadfly feels that there should be open discussion of such topics in the wake of the George Floyd murder.

And the sooner the better.

We don’t want such occurrences to happen here.

The way the world turns, soon people will be saying, “George who?”

Consider this latest case of “first contact” gone wrong.

See news story here:

Bethany Brunner, “Here’s video and a timeline of the Andre Hill shooting by Columbus police.” Columbus Dispatch, December 23, 2020.

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

The headline on the Associated Press story on p. 13 of the print version of the Morning Call yesterday was “KC Star reckons with its past.”

KC Star. That’s the Kansas City Star. A major midwestern newspaper for over 140 years. Meaning it was founded in the post-Civil War generation. Just after the end of slavery. In the Reconstruction Era.

Gadfly has been fond of saying that the murder of George Floyd spurred a “nationwide reckoning with race.”

On December 20, the Kansas City Star editor Mike Fannin reckoned with the paper’s racial past: “The truth in Black and white: An apology from The Kansas City Star.”

It was brutal.

Today we are telling the story of a powerful local business that has done wrong.

For 140 years, it has been one of the most influential forces in shaping Kansas City and the region. And yet for much of its early history — through sins of both commission and omission — it disenfranchised, ignored and scorned generations of Black Kansas Citians. It reinforced Jim Crow laws and redlining. Decade after early decade it robbed an entire community of opportunity, dignity, justice and recognition.

That business is The Kansas City Star.

Before I say more, I feel it to be my moral obligation to express what is in the hearts and minds of the leadership and staff of an organization that is nearly as old as the city it loves and covers:

We are sorry.

The Kansas City Star prides itself on holding power to account. Today we hold up the mirror to ourselves to see the historic role we have played, through both action and inaction, in shaping and misshaping Kansas City’s landscape.

It is time that we own our history.

It is well past time for an apology, acknowledging, as we do so, that the sins of our past still reverberate today.

This spring, the Memorial Day death of George Floyd in Minneapolis beneath the knee of a white police officer ignited protests worldwide over racial injustice. In doing so, it has forced institutions to look inward.

Inside The Star, reporters and editors discussed how an honest examination of our own past might help us move forward. What started as a suggestion from reporter Mará Rose Williams quickly turned into a full-blown examination of The Star’s coverage of race and the Black community dating to our founding in 1880. . . . Reporters were frequently sickened by what they found — decades of coverage that depicted Black Kansas Citians as criminals living in a crime-laden world. They felt shame at what was missing: the achievements, aspirations and milestones of an entire population routinely overlooked, as if Black people were invisible.

Reporters felt regret that the papers’ historic coverage not only did a disservice to Black Kansas Citians, but also to white readers deprived of the opportunity to understand the true richness Black citizens brought to Kansas City. . . .

We encourage other Kansas City businesses to come forward and own their history as well, tell their stories, get the poison out — for the sake of the community and their employees.

It still pains me personally to know that in The Star’s monopolistic heyday — when it had the biggest media platform in the region — the paper did little to unify the city or recognize the inherent rights of all Kansas Citians.

But our history doesn’t have to own us.

We are grateful for how far we’ve come. We are humbled by how far we still have to go.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the Kansas City Star has taken an anti-racist step.

Gadfly has been scribbling such examples of institutional anti-racism he comes across on the back of an envelope. There have been many. Like Major League Baseball this month recognizing more than 3,400 players from seven distinct Negro leagues that operated between 1920 and 1948 as “major leaguers.” The New York Times called it “righting a wrong.”

The Kansas City Star and MLB took a knee.

Gadfly finds such “anti-racism” morally aphrodisiac.

And totally appropriate for this Christmas season of good will to all.

While he has been excited by the targeting of systemic racism in the discussions of our Community Engagement Initiative, he has been impatient with, in his opinion, the slow speed that concrete actions are taking place here.

He is afraid we are in danger of missing the George Floyd wave of concern for racial equity, and he hopes that anti-racism will be a feature of mayoral and Councilpersonic campaigns that are probably now shaping up for the spring.

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“Stop, Stop, Stop, Stop.
I have a right to stop you because you are being suspicious”
Aurora, Co., police officer

NBC News video, June 27, 2020, 6 mins.

Gadfly notes this segment on 60 Minutes two Sundays ago.

You may have seen it.

The specific focus was on the phenomenon of “excited delirium” and the use of Ketamine to control it by public safety personnel.

But we have here again a “first contact” situation that goes out of control and ends up in a tragic death.

The police and paramedics followed policy.

Goddam.

To Gadfly, it just makes sense to say that police have to do better than this.

Gadfly assumes that with our dual accreditation that our police department is trained as best can be expected, but he fears for this kind of thing happening here and, again, looks forward to open discussion of how our department handles “first contact” situations.

And what can be learned from case studies like this one.

John Dickerson, “Excited Delirium: The Controversial Syndrome That Can Be Used to Protect Police from Misconduct Charges.” CBS 60 Minutes, December 13, 2020.
video and transcription

• District Attorney: “Well, the escalation started when [the 140-pound] Elijah McClain didn’t stop walking. They took it to the next level and say, ‘All right. This person’s not complying with our lawful commands. Now we’re gonna stop him and go hands on.'”
• District Attorney: “They have a policy in the city of Aurora that says, ‘Paramedics do this when you have these circumstances.’ And they follow that policy.”

It gets worse, believe me, officers were fired for re-enacting the chokehold on McClain.

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

December 9 news video

Add the Columbus, Ohio, case of Casey Goodson, killed by a police officer in front of his home December 4, to the necrology list of what Gadfly calls “first contact” situations.

This case probably has flown under your radar because there is no body cam footage or witness video.

Nothing visually shareable to cause “sensational” national coverage.

The details, the facts, are particularly obscure here even going on three weeks after the incident.

The Columbus police department apparently has a history of such incidents and a history of being charged with systemic racism.

Our police department has neither of those histories, but Gadfly is looking forward to the promised Public Safety committee meeting in January, where, among other things, we might hear how our department is trained to handle such situations.

What troubles Gadfly is seeing police departments/unions time and again defend officers in such situations by saying they acted properly according to their training.

Which means we should hear about that training, especially applied to a specific situation.

Gadfly has wondered aloud here several times about whether our department uses such situations as the GeorgeFloyd as opportunities to review training with officers.

———–

Bill Chappell, “Casey Goodson Update: Death At Deputy’s Hand Is Ruled A Homicide.” NPR, December 9, 2020.

“What we know about the fatal shooting of Casey Goodson Jr.,” Columbus Dispatch, December 17, 2020.

Danae King, “‘This has to stop:’ Faith leaders angry over Casey Goodson shooting, hot potato handling.” Columbus Dispatch, December 19, 2020.

Bethany Bruner, “Casey Goodson had a concealed handgun license. Here’s what that means.” Columbus Dispatch, December 21, 2020.

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

Councilwoman Negron made the Lehigh Valley Good Neighbors Alliance social media when she remarked that 9-1-1 wasn’t working well, a remark that was taken to mean she is suggesting that the 9-1-1 system be abolished. Which caused some alarm. And which is not true.

Here’s the idea Councilwoman Negron was referencing in a new bill introduced by Senator Casey: “The HELP Act would divert non-criminal, non-fire and non-medical emergency calls from 9-1-1 systems to state and regional 2-1-1 systems [United Way], while providing resources and funding to improve 2-1-1 referral systems.”

The idea is to exercise some “discrimination” (pun intended) about what calls police respond to.

Such systems are already in operation as Gadfly learned when he was reviewing programs in cities that were re-imagining how they do public safety and reporting on them here.

In fact, Philadelphia has such a pilot program, but the mental health person was unfortunately not in the dispatch center when the call that would eventuate in the death of Walter Wallace came in.

———–

Selections from “Casey to introduce Police Overhaul that Would Reform the Way Law Enforcement Interacts with People with Disabilities”

Following Spate of Encounters in PA and Across the Nation, Casey’s Bill Would Enhance State and Regional 2-1-1 Call System.

As the Nation reckons with the high profile killings of Black Americans at the hands of police officers and growing calls for policy changes to prevent future violence, U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) is launching the Law Enforcement Education and Accountability for People with Disabilities (LEAD) Initiative, to help bring about racial justice and address the high incidence rate of police violence involving people with disabilities.

The LEAD Initiative is comprised of two bills – the Safe Interactions Act and the Human-services Emergency Logistic Program (HELP) Act – which would reduce calls to 9-1-1 call systems regarding non-criminal emergencies and provide robust training to law enforcement on interacting with people with disabilities, including those experiencing a mental health crisis.

“The families of Walter Wallace, Jr., Ricardo Munoz and Osaze Osagie needed mental health crisis support and they didn’t get it,” said Senator Casey. “We must take action to ensure that someone’s ethnicity or mental ability does not preclude them from receiving protection and fair treatment. My LEAD initiative aims to protect the promise of liberty and justice for all by reforming our emergency systems so that people and police are connected with the resources they need.”

“United Way and the 211 network are deeply grateful to Senator Casey for introducing the HELP Act,” said Suzanne McCormick, U.S. President, United Way Worldwide. “211 is a vital resource supporting over 95 percent of communities in the U.S. and this expansion of coverage means that more people can get the help they need, particularly those with mental health illnesses and other disabilities. United Way looks forward to working with Senator Casey to expand critical services to the American people during these difficult times.”

The Washington Post database of police shootings estimates that at least 25 percent of shootings involve a person with a mental health disability. A 2016 Ruderman Foundation report estimated that between one-third and half of 2015 shootings involving a law enforcement officer included a person with a disability.

The HELP Act would divert non-criminal, non-fire and non-medical emergency calls from 9-1-1 systems to state and regional 2-1-1 systems, while providing resources and funding to improve 2-1-1 referral systems. The bill would create an oversight system for the 2-1-1 networks comprised of community members who represent older adults, people with disabilities, ethnic and racial community members and members of other communities.

The Safe Interactions Act would provide grants to enable non-profit disability organizations to develop training programs that support safe interactions between law enforcement officers and people with disabilities. The training would be directed to both new and veteran officers and would include people with disabilities in the training as instructors.

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

Gadfly keeping an eye on what’s happening in Minneapolis. The George Floyd ground zero. Very complicated.

Selections from Liz Navratil, “Divided Minneapolis City Council votes to cut $8 million from police budget.” Star Tribune, December 10, 2020.

The Minneapolis council preserved a plan to hire more officers in future years, avoiding a political showdown with Mayor Jacob Frey.

The late change to the department’s staffing projections, passed along a narrow 7-6 vote, does not change the number of officers who will work in 2021. The move, instead, avoided a political showdown with Mayor Jacob Frey.

The city expects a monthly average of 770 police officers will work in 2021, if council agrees to release funding for some recruit classes.

The City Council had initially planned to drop the force’s authorized size to 750 officers starting in 2022, but reversed course late Wednesday. Frey, who sought to keep the current target level of 888, had said he was considering vetoing the budget because he was concerned about “the massive permanent cut to officer capacity” in future years.

In a statement early Thursday, Frey lauded the council’s vote on the budget.

“My colleagues were right to leave the targeted staffing level unchanged from 888 and continue moving forward with our shared priorities,” Frey said. “The additional funding for new public safety solutions will also allow the City to continue upscaling important mental health, non-police response, and social service components in our emergency response system.”

The 2021 budget served as the latest venue for debates on changing the police department after George Floyd’s death and a subsequent pledge by a majority of council members to end the department. As the talks unfolded, city leaders deliberated whether they should leave the department mostly intact while building out new services, or cut the department to fund them.

While the city is seeking to change its public safety system, it is also experiencing a crime wave that includes more than 500 shootings.

Frey pitched a $1.5 billion spending plan that included about $179 million for the police department, down from about $193 million initially approved for it in 2020.

The council cut an additional $7.7 million from the police department. That money will fund mental health crisis teams, train dispatchers to assess mental health calls and have other employees handle theft and property damage reports.

The council also placed $11.4 million in a reserve fund they created. That fund will include about $6.4 million that was included in Frey’s plan to hire two police recruit classes, and about $5 million that could be used to offset cuts council members made to police overtime. To access that money, the police department will need additional approval from City Council in votes next year.

Arradondo said the department — which had 874 officers at the beginning of the year — is effectively down 166 officers, between officers who have resigned and officers who are on leave. The department’s leave figures are far higher than average this year, in part because a large number of officers filed PTSD claims after the summer rioting.

In recent days, the negotiations focused on a different budget provision. The City Council, in a meeting Monday, voted to reduce the authorized force size to about 750 officers in 2022 and future years.The mayor, though, hoped to keep the target level at 888, its authorized size, which he said would make it easier for them to hire back amid the shortage.

The council voted 7-6 Wednesday night to restore that level to 888, with Vice President Andrea Jenkins as the swing vote.

Jenkins said it was a difficult decision. She had voted the opposite way earlier in the week.

“The reality right now is that Chief Arradondo is woefully understaffed for a variety of reasons,” Jenkins said. “Do I believe that this effort will resolve all of our problems, all of our crime issues overnight? Absolutely not. Neither will all of the social service programs and initiatives. It’s going to take all of these things together to lower the crime rate.”

If Frey approves the budget, the discussion next year will be about whether to cut or add to a department authorized to employ 888 officers. Had the council’s earlier plan remained in place, the discussion would have been about whether to cut or add to a department designed for 750 officers.

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

Tip o’ the hat to follower M.D.

Mapping Police Violence

Very often discussions of police violence involves battles of statistics.

You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.

There is a ton of statistics in this web project.

Lots to chew on here.

Gadfly is not sure what you might want to look at.

Would somebody better at this than he is want to focus us on what you think is a meaningful or contested statistic?

We should know something about the source of the site. A Wikipedia article says it’s “a project affiliated with Black Lives Matter.” It is used and referenced many places with authority as Gadfly discovered browsing the web.

See also the Washington Post database: Fatal Force.

Mapping Police Violence

Latest in series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

re: “Do not let lethal force be the means by which you de-escalate the situation”

Gadfly:

Does BPD’s training compare to or include anything similar to ICAT?

I think I recall considerable efforts to improve the Dept, especially since the failed, lethal siege of some two decades ago. This is not to say, angrily, defensively, or otherwise, that BPD is near perfect or imperfect. That’s why we must look inward. To serve ALL.

Thankfully, Philly Councilman Gauthier used the phrase “sanctity of life,” which I don’t hear much anymore. Does it ever end? WHEN does one’s conflict with another’s?

While we all want to keep things simple — such as “When someone threatens another’s life,” recent and  historical events show us otherwise. And it’s not always the same for different people. So many scenarios involving the mentally ill (and not just among the poor). And then there’s systemic and personal bias which relate to lack of socio-cultural understandings, and others, as well as early childhood education that takes place in the home.

Clearly, our system — our paradigm — of justice needs correction. I am grateful for the protection I have received thanks to police and also for the actions demanded to reevaluate Bethlehem’s approach to policing and, more broadly, to strengthening community through uniting and using our resources to help HEAL ALL of its subgroups.

To me it is a MUST. Many have called for it. You might want to see no change. Then express that. Hopefully all will do so open-mindedly.

We owe ALL our brothers and sisters no less.

Greg Zahm

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

ref: Lots for Council to think about

Gadfly:

Having said the above, and being quite ignorant on the reasoning behind defund/abolish, the June ‘20 NY Times essay, link below, explains the argument for “why.”

(https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.amp.html)

Have you educated yourself before publishing or speaking an angry, disbelieving, rant to the contrary?

Council, have you lead from a more informed position that this essay and that Professor Ochs’ full data could provide?

Four HUNDRED years of trauma and damage and its legacy are not overcome in . . . well, it’s been 400 YEARS! For most of us, it has been many fewer, NOT to our credit. Not entirely against it, either. (When one part suffers . . . 1 Corinthians 12:26, right?)

Let’s do the responsible thing: ACTUALLY HAVE A THOROUGH DEBATE, INFORMED BY SCIENCE, DEEP THOUGHT and MORALITY until the end of which we can agree. (Rather than spout anecdotes or exasperation like “That’s crazy! And I don’t have the time!”)

‘Cause our neighbors, all human beings, all flawed, all worthy of compassion, are suffering.

Greg Zahm

Carrie who called in to City Council Tuesday night to support the police and to oppose defunding, gave the phone numbers of the county crisis intervention folk as alternatives to police for those who choose.

Northampton: 610-252-9060

Lehigh: 610-782-3127

Ironically, the “police abolitionist” at the NCC conference in October suggested that counties have a poster of important numbers to distribute to residents.

Seemed to Gadfly a good idea.

Do we have one? If not, who would do one?

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

The 2020 NCC Peace and Social Justice Conference

Police-Free Future panel, October 15, 2020
video

Remember what we’re doing here in this string of posts.

We’re taking our time and listening to a police abolitionist. Hearing his case. So we can know it and have an informed opinion about it.

Crazy, right? Who else does this kind of thing?

in this section of his presentation, PV suggests that we ask ourselves what already exists in our town in lieu of calling the police.

So that the police or 911 is not necessarily the first place we call in certain circumstances.

And then that we put a list together.

Such as you see here below.

And put it on the fridge or home bulletin board.

And put the numbers in our phones.

And then these places would be targets for reallocated money from the police department budget.

Gadfly wonders if such a list is already available for Bethlehem/Northampton County. Anybody know?

Resources by city

Latest in series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

Gadfly ever alert to sources that help him think about policing in the wake of the George Floyd murder. This article thoughtful about a certain officer training program and the wider need for a culture change.

Selections from William Bender, “Can Philadelphia transform its police force from ‘warriors’ to ‘guardians’?” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 29, 2020. (Reprinted in the Morning Call, November 30)

On a mild November night in 2015, Camden police sped to Crown Fried Chicken at Broadway and Mickle, where a distraught man with a knife had just threatened to kill a customer inside.

When cops arrived, the 48-year-old man was outside, waving the knife, clearly a potential threat. Repeatedly, he refused police orders to drop his weapon.

The encounter could have been his death sentence in many cities in America — or, a few years earlier, in Camden itself.

Instead, police officers recognized the man was in the throes of a mental health crisis and backed off. An officer with a Taser, well over an arm’s length away, walked with him for several blocks, trying to break through to the agitated man, all of it captured on video.

The officer fired his Taser, which didn’t incapacitate the man, but he eventually dropped his knife and was taken into custody. No shots were fired.

Five years later, in similar circumstances in West Philadelphia, Walter Wallace Jr., a 27-year-old father of nine with a history of mental illness, emerged from his family’s home holding a knife after police received a call that he was threatening his parents.

This time, two police officers, only a few years from the training academy, pulled their guns, shouted orders, and 41 seconds later fired 14 shots, killing Wallace.

“I understand he had a knife, and their job is to protect and serve,” Anthony Fitzhugh, a cousin of Wallace, said the day after the shooting. “By all means do so, but do not let lethal force be the means by which you de-escalate the situation.”

Investigators here may conclude that the officers followed their training and were justified in opening fire on Wallace.

But the Oct. 26 incident, which led to widespread protests and unrest, may result in the Philadelphia Police Department reintroducing more extensive de-escalation training — similar to what had been in place more than decade ago but was quietly discontinued.

Camden and more than 80 other police departments around the country use a version of the training known as ICAT (Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics), and the results are promising. Developed by the Police Executive Research Forum, its techniques are designed for scenarios in which a person is armed with a weapon other than a gun, particularly those involving people in crisis or attempting “suicide by cop.”

ICAT teaches officers to create space, taking cover behind their squad cars or other barriers if possible, and buying time. Ideally, one officer takes the lead in speaking with a subject and uses open-ended questions — rather than multiple officers yelling commands down the barrel of their guns.

Wexler said. “In America, we train them that if someone has a knife, pull out a gun and bark orders.”

For someone with mental illness, Wexler said, “that might be the worst thing you can do.”

ICAT and other forms of de-escalation training have won over skeptics who initially were concerned that a less aggressive police response would put officers in harm’s way.

“You have to be open-minded as an officer,” said Camden Police Chief Joseph Wysocki. “Policing has to evolve. ICAT is the next generation of training. It works and it keeps everyone safe — the officers and the citizens we encounter.”

Capt. Kevin Lutz, who oversees Camden’s ICAT training, said officers need to recognize — and avoid — “officer-created jeopardy” situations, when officers place themselves in danger unnecessarily and increase the likelihood of using lethal force.

Training, of course, can go only so far.

In Philadelphia, modern de-escalation tactics will need to be accompanied by a culture change throughout the rank and file, a shift from a “warrior” to a “guardian” mentality of policing, like what has taken place just across the river in Camden, to some national acclaim.

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, whose district includes the West Philadelphia neighborhood where Wallace was killed, said the initial response from the Fraternal Order of Police was not encouraging.

“Stuff like that is not helpful,” Gauthier said. “There’s training, but there’s also a culture that really needs to be changed.”

“I’m intrigued by it,” she said, “because it is a training that emphasizes the sanctity of life for everyone involved.”

Latest in series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“This is something you talk about, the systemic racism, which is part of the problem in this country, and it’s embedded in criminal justice, housing, and a lot of other things. . . . what you’re saying is exactly what the Captain has said, the Deputy has said, we talk among ourselves. It may not be here in the City, but it’s in the overall system.”

Mark DiLuzio, Bethlehem Chief of Police, 2014-2020

———–

George Floyd died 6 months ago this week. The Washington Post’s six-part series, “George Floyd’s America,” examines the role systemic racism played throughout Floyd’s 46-year life. Gadfly would like you to join with him in reading one part of that remarkable series each day this week.

———-

“A knee on his neck: Police were a part of George Floyd’s life from beginning to end, an experience uncommon for most Americans, except other Black men”

HOUSTON — From the day George Floyd moved to Texas as a child to the day he was killed in Minneapolis, the police were omnipresent in his life.

They were there when Floyd and his siblings played basketball at the Cuney Homes housing project, driving their patrol cars through the makeshift courts. They were there when he walked home from school, interrogating him about the contents of his backpack. They were there when he went on late-night snack runs to the store, stopping his car and throwing him to the ground. They were there, surrounding his mother’s home, as his family prepared for their grandfather’s funeral.

They were at the bus stop, on the corner, and on his mother’s front porch. And they were in Minneapolis — 1,200 miles from where Floyd first said “Yes, officer,” to a patrolman — when he took his last breath in handcuffs.

The frequency of Floyd’s contact with police during his 46 years of life is an anomaly for most Americans, except for other Black men. While the majority of public interactions with police begin and end safely in the United States, according to 2015 survey data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, for Black Americans, those encounters are more likely to happen multiple times in a year, more likely to be initiated by police and more likely to involve the use of force.

continue . . .

———-

the sixth and final part in a 6-part series

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“[The officer] was doing, the union argued, what he was trained to do.”

Gadfly keeping an eye on subject shootings. This may be the first time San Francisco charged a police officer with homicide. In the post-GeorgeFloyd era officers are being held more accountable. We need to review training for “first contact” situations among other aspects of officer conduct. That the unnecessary death occurred from the actions of an officer following his training is precisely what needs to be reviewed. It’s increasingly clear that officers will no longer get a pass in such situations.

———-

The District Attorney describes the incident (3 mins.):

———-

Selections from Paulina Villegas, “In a possible first, San Francisco charges an officer with homicide over fatal on-duty shooting.” Washington Post, November 24, 2020.

Latest in series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“You and me, we had hurdles [speaking to Councilman Reynolds], but we were able to get over them. But everybody doesn’t go that same route. I’m in agreement with what you’re saying. I don’t know how we change that whole system.”

Mark DiLuzio, Bethlehem Chief of Police, 2014-2020

———–

George Floyd died 6 months ago this week. The Washington Post’s six-part series, “George Floyd’s America,” examines the role systemic racism played throughout Floyd’s 46-year life. Gadfly would like you to join with him in reading one part of that remarkable series each day this week.

———–

“Racism’s hidden toll: In Minneapolis, the physical and mental strain of a lifetime confronting racism surfaced in George Floyd’s final years”

MINNEAPOLIS — George Floyd came to this city with a broken body and wilted dreams, his many attempts at a better life out of his grasp. He was left with no college degree, no sports contract, no rap career, not even a steady job. At 43, what he had was an arrest record and a drug problem, his hopes hinging on one last shot at healing.

So in February of 2017 he decided to board a bus in Houston and ride more than 1,100 miles on Interstate 35 almost straight north to Minneapolis. Waiting for him was his friend Aubrey Rhodes, who had taken the same journey a year earlier. Rhodes was now sober and working as a security guard at the Salvation Army.

“Damn, bro, it’s cold,” Rhodes recalled Floyd saying on what was, for Minnesota, a balmy 50-degree winter day.

“You ready for this?” Rhodes asked him. “You can get yourself together here. You can find a way to live.”

Finding a way to live has never been a sure thing for Black men in America, who are taught from an early age that any misstep could lead to a prison cell or a coffin. They have higher rates of hypertension, obesity and heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are twice as likely as White men to die of a cocaine overdose, twice as likely to be killed by police and, in Floyd’s age group, 10 times as likely to die of a homicide.

Public-health researchers and scientists once held that these disparities were the result of poor choices — bad diets, lack of exercise, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But experts are increasingly pointing to another culprit: systemic racism. Being Black in America, they have found, is its own preexisting condition.

continue . . .

———-

the fifth part in a 6-part series

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“A young kid should expect to grow up in a good family, go to high school, go to college, have a good paying job, but there’s a lot of hurdles placed in front of certain kids, and they can’t get over those hurdles. You and me [speaking to Councilman Reynolds], we had hurdles, but we were able to get over them.”

Mark DiLuzio, Bethlehem Chief of Police, 2014-2020

———–

George Floyd died 6 months ago yesterday. The Washington Post’s six-part series, “George Floyd’s America,” examines the role systemic racism played throughout Floyd’s 46-year life. Gadfly would like you to join with him in reading one part of that remarkable series each day this week,

———–

“Profiting from prisoners: Communities and companies made money off George Floyd’s imprisonment. Inside, Floyd withered”

BARTLETT, Tex. — The prison transport to this tiny city north of Austin took George Floyd past ranch land and cotton fields — worlds away from his home in Houston. But for the then-36-year-old Floyd, the spring of 2009 was another turn through a cycle of incarceration that would be both familiar and futile.

Floyd had been through stints in jail for drug possession since his 20s, spending up to several months at a time behind bars. But Bartlett State Jail was his first taste of extended time. He was sentenced there after pleading guilty to an armed robbery in Houston in 2007 and would spend nearly two years at the 1,049-bed facility.

He was one of several men accused of holding a woman at gunpoint and ransacking her home for money and drugs until they realized they had the wrong house and hustled away — but not before pistol-whipping the woman in front of her children. Floyd was arrested months later, driving what witnesses had identified as the getaway car. He is the only person who has served time for the incident, records show. The victim says she remembers Floyd’s face, and a police report states that she “tentatively” identified him in a lineup — though the photo lineup techniques investigators used are no longer approved.

At Bartlett State Jail, Floyd bunked with childhood friend Cal Wayne, who said Floyd long contended that he was innocent of that crime but took a plea deal out of concern that a jury would unfairly judge a man with previous felonies. He accepted a five-year sentence rather than risk decades in prison. He paroled out in four.

The Texas prison system’s mission was to end the type of recurrent incarceration that Floyd experienced by rehabilitating inmates and returning them to society with skills that would help them live law-abiding lives. But Floyd’s time in Bartlett State Jail only furthered his downward spiral. Behind its walls, Floyd found few opportunities to better himself, friends and relatives said, and the experience only exacerbated his depression, drug dependency and claustrophobia — the very issues that would play a role in the final moments of his life nearly a decade later.

continue . . .

———–

the fourth part in a 6-part series

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“You and me [speaking to Councilman Reynolds] had one path in life, and we got to where we are because of that path. There’s other people who don’t have that path, don’t have those opportunities.”

Mark DiLuzio, Bethlehem Chief of Police, 2014-2020

———–

George Floyd died 6 months ago today. The Washington Post’s six-part series, “George Floyd’s America,” examines the role systemic racism played throughout Floyd’s 46-year life. Gadfly would like you to join with him in reading one part of that remarkable series each day this week,

———–

“Segregated from opportunity: Nearly three decades after George Floyd first left Cuney Homes, another generation tries to make it out of Houston’s oldest housing project”

HOUSTON — The last time Kimberly Gibson made a cake for her son was on his first birthday. But she knows 18 is a milestone, especially for a young man on his way out of the projects, destined to play college football.

So on a September afternoon, Gibson dumped two boxes of Betty Crocker vanilla cake mix into a bowl, added eggs, water and oil, and stirred the lumpy batter in her cramped galley kitchen.

Baking hadn’t been an option for birthdays past, when she was exhausted by the daily tasks required to simply keep her son out of trouble and alive in a neighborhood ridden with violence. In this part of Third Ward, where Black men are referred to as an “endangered species,” each untimely death is memorialized on the orange brick wall of the corner store. The “ghetto angels,” as they are collectively known.

The most prominent of those is now George Floyd, the former Cuney Homes kid who has become the embodiment of police brutality and systemic racial inequality in America.

For Gibson, Floyd’s death has been more personal, an unsettling reminder that the future for her son Daniel Hunt remains precarious. His goal of making it out of Houston’s oldest public housing project on a football scholarship echoes Floyd’s journey nearly three decades ago. She knew Floyd as a “gentle giant,” and his face, now emblazoned on neighborhood murals, serves as a solemn warning of the obstacles ahead for Daniel.

“Sports was supposed to have saved him,” Gibson said of Floyd. “I told my son: ‘That is you. That is you all day, every day.’”

Daniel had been accepted to a historically Black Christian college a three-hour drive away in Tyler, Tex., on the prospect of an athletic scholarship. But the novel coronavirus halted those plans. With college turning to virtual classes until at least January and the football season canceled, so, too, was his chance to escape a neighborhood that, by design, remains segregated from opportunity.

Decades of government-sanctioned housing discrimination reverberate through this city. In one of the nation’s most diverse metropolises, much of the housing occupied by low-income Black families is segregated into the shape of a backward “C” around the city center, pierced by wealthier, Whiter neighborhoods to the west that form the shape of an arrow.

The pattern, formed by Jim Crow-era policies dictating where African Americans could live, is cemented today by state law allowing landlords to discriminate against Section 8 voucher holders, weak enforcement of federal civil rights laws promoting integration and White residents’ objections to the construction of affordable housing in affluent communities.

continue . . .

———–

the third part in a 6-part series

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“You and me [speaking to Councilman Reynolds] had one path in life, and we got to where we are because of that path. There’s other people who don’t have that path, don’t have those opportunities. Ok, that’s part of the problem, that goes back to housing, poverty, education, medical assistance in this country and a lot of other different issues. . . . This is something you talk about, the systemic racism, which is part of the problem in this country, and it’s embedded in criminal justice, housing, and a lot of other things. . . . And I do have to agree with you, I’m not disagreeing with you . . . but what you’re saying is exactly what the Captain has said, the Deputy has said, we talk among ourselves. It may not be here in the City, but it’s in the overall system. And that’s what we need to go after. And I understand the anger of people out there. I understand the anger of people of color out there. They have the feeling they are not getting their part of the American Dream. And that’s what it is. A young kid should expect to grow up in a good family, go to high school, go to college, have a good paying job, but there’s a lot of hurdles placed in front of certain kids, and they can’t get over those hurdles. You and me, we had hurdles, but we were able to get over them. But everybody doesn’t go that same route. I’m in agreement with what you’re saying. I don’t know how we change that whole system.”

Mark DiLuzio
Bethlehem Chief of Police
2014-2020

———–

George Floyd died 6 months ago this week. The Washington Post’s six-part series, “George Floyd’s America,” examines the role systemic racism played throughout Floyd’s 46-year life. The reporting explores the institutional and societal roadblocks Floyd encountered as a Black man from his birth in 1973 until his death. The series is based on a review of thousands of documents and more than 150 interviews with Floyd’s friends, colleagues, public officials, and scholars.

Gadfly would like you to join with him in reading one part of that remarkable series each day, using as your frame the remarkable statement above about the reality of systemic racism by retired Chief Mark DiLuzio at the August 11 Public Safety Committee meeting as part of a conversation with current Chief Michelle Kott and Councilman Willie Reynolds. The entire 6-minute exchange is worth listening to.

Disputes over the reality of systemic racism disrupt and divide us nationally and locally, but our officers and our councilman agree that systemic racism not only lives but it haunts us.

———–

“Looking for his ticket out: At Jack Yates High, No. 88 pinned his dreams on sports”

HOUSTON — Shortly before the kickoff of the 1992 state championship game, George Floyd, the starting tight end for mighty Jack Yates High School, stepped onto the field at the University of Texas.

As he took in the stadium, packed then with nearly 78,000 seats, Floyd bumped into Ralph Cooper, a sports radio personality who had had him on his show a few times. Over the years, he had gently pressed the basketball and football star to take the school part of school more seriously.

There, surrounded by the state’s flagship university and all it had to offer, Floyd wondered aloud whether he should have listened. “Now I see what some of you all were talking about in regards to making that extra effort in the classroom,” Cooper recalled Floyd telling him.

At that moment, Floyd’s future was already in jeopardy. He had tried and failed at least twice to pass a mandatory state exam. If he couldn’t pass it, he wouldn’t graduate. A big-time college scholarship would be out of the question.

Floyd had long seen sports as his path out of the poverty, crime and drugs of Houston’s Third Ward. At 6 feet 6 inches, he excelled at basketball and then football, and his talents repeatedly gave him a shot at a different life. But, just as often, Floyd’s shaky education stood in his way.

Jack Yates High School has long been a source of identity, pride and affection in Houston’s Black community. Founded in 1926, it was named for a formerly enslaved man who became an influential minister. Graduates include city leaders and national figures such as broadcaster Roland Martin, actress Phylicia Rashad and her sister, the choreographer Debbie Allen. It has thrived in sports, producing, in 1985, what some say is the best high school team in Texas football history.

But for decades Yates has struggled in its central mission to educate students, a victim of a U.S. educational system that concentrates the poorest, highest-need children together, setting them up for failure.

continue . . .

———–

the second part in a 6-part series

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“You and me [speaking to Councilman Reynolds] had one path in life, and we got to where we are because of that path. There’s other people who don’t have that path, don’t have those opportunities. Ok, that’s part of the problem, that goes back to housing, poverty, education, medical assistance in this country and a lot of other different issues. . . . This is something you talk about, the systemic racism, which is part of the problem in this country, and it’s embedded in criminal justice, housing, and a lot of other things. . . . And I do have to agree with you, I’m not disagreeing with you . . . but what you’re saying is exactly what the Captain has said, the Deputy has said, we talk among ourselves. It may not be here in the City, but it’s in the overall system. And that’s what we need to go after. And I understand the anger of people out there. I understand the anger of people of color out there. They have the feeling they are not getting their part of the American Dream. And that’s what it is. A young kid should expect to grow up in a good family, go to high school, go to college, have a good paying job, but there’s a lot of hurdles placed in front of certain kids, and they can’t get over those hurdles. You and me, we had hurdles, but we were able to get over them. But everybody doesn’t go that same route. I’m in agreement with what you’re saying. I don’t know how we change that whole system.”

Mark DiLuzio
Bethlehem Chief of Police
2014-2020

———–

George Floyd died 6 months ago this week. The Washington Post’s six-part series, “George Floyd’s America,” examines the role systemic racism played throughout Floyd’s 46-year life. The reporting explores the institutional and societal roadblocks Floyd encountered as a Black man from his birth in 1973 until his death. The series is based on a review of thousands of documents and more than 150 interviews with Floyd’s friends, colleagues, public officials, and scholars.

Gadfly would like you to join with him in reading one part of that remarkable series each day for the next six days, using as your frame the remarkable statement above about the reality of systemic racism by retired Chief Mark DiLuzio at the August 11 Public Safety Committee meeting as part of a conversation with current Chief Michelle Kott and Councilman Willie Reynolds. The entire 6-minute exchange is worth listening to.

Disputes over the reality of systemic racism disrupt and divide us nationally and locally, but our officers and our councilman agree that systemic racism not only lives but it haunts us.

———–

“Born with two strikes: How systemic racism shaped Floyd’s life and hobbled his ambition”

His life began as the last embers of the civil rights movement were flickering out. Its horrific, videotaped end ignited the largest anti-racism movement since, with demonstrators the world over marching for racial justice in his name.

During the 46 years in between, George Perry Floyd came of age as the strictures of Jim Crow discrimination in America gave way to an insidious form of systemic racism, one that continually undercut his ambitions.

Early in life, he wanted to be a Supreme Court justice. Then, a pro athlete. At the end, he just longed for a little stability, training to be a commercial truck driver.

All were bigger dreams than he was able to achieve in his version of America. While his death was the catalyst for global protests against racial inequality, the nearly eight minutes Floyd spent suffocating under the knee of a White police officer were hardly the first time he faced oppression.

Throughout his lifetime, Floyd’s identity as a Black man exposed him to a gantlet of injustices that derailed, diminished and ultimately destroyed him, according to an extensive review of his life based on hundreds of documents and interviews with more than 150 people, including his siblings, extended family members, friends, colleagues, public officials and scholars.

The picture that emerges is one that underscores how systemic racism has calcified within many of America’s institutions, creating sharply disparate outcomes in housing, education, the economy, law enforcement and health care.

continue . . .

———–

the first part in a 6-part series

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

George Floyd died 6 months ago this week. Gadfly’s been worried that the impact of that dramatic event and the subsequent national reckoning with race is ebbing on the local level.

There may be some relevant public safety discussion in upcoming budget hearings, a Public Safety Committee hearing is promised for early in the new year, but Gadfly is not aware of any movement on the Community Engagement Initiative yet.

There is nationally as well as locally conflict over whether such a thing as “systemic racism” exists.

This 6-part Washington Post series ran in October.

Gadfly is going to suggest that you follow him as he reads one part of the series each day beginning tomorrow to keep both George Floyd and the idea of systemic racism on our front burner.

———–

Washington Post staff, “George Floyd’s America:
Examining systemic racism and racial injustice in the post-civil rights era”

The Washington Post’s six-part series, “George Floyd’s America,” examines the role systemic racism played throughout Floyd’s 46-year life. The reporting explores the institutional and societal roadblocks Floyd encountered as a Black man from his birth in 1973 until his death. The series is based on a review of thousands of documents and more than 150 interviews with Floyd’s friends, colleagues, public officials and scholars.

———–

• “Born with two strikes: How systemic racism shaped Floyd’s life and hobbled his ambition”

• “Looking for his ticket out: At Jack Yates High, No. 88 pinned his dreams on sports”

• “Segregated from opportunity: Nearly three decades after George Floyd first left Cuney Homes, another generation tries to make it out of Houston’s oldest housing project”
• “Profiting from prisoners: Communities and companies made money off George Floyd’s imprisonment. Inside, Floyd withered”
• “Racism’s hidden toll: In Minneapolis, the physical and mental strain of a lifetime confronting racism surfaced in George Floyd’s final years”
• “A knee on his neck: Police were a part of George Floyd’s life from beginning to end, an experience uncommon for most Americans, except other Black men”