BEYOND RODNEY KING: POLICE BRUTALITY CAUGHT ON VIDEO

Walidah Imarisha, Former Program Assistant,
Criminal Justice/Anti-Death Penalty Program, Philadelphia, PA

Photo: AFSC

After September 11, 2001, police wer

e trumpeted as heroes. Far less publicized than police roles on that day have been several videotapes of police beating civilians that have come to light since then. These tapes raise the question: to what communities are police heroes and to what communities are they a military force?

One taped incident took place in New York City on August 11, 2002. When an altercation at a softball game escalated, police arrested Anthony Carty. After they cuffed him, they struck and maced him repeatedly. When Carty's wife tried to tell police that her husband had a history of asthma, she was arrested as well.

Two earlier tapes depict similar incidents across the country.

On July 6, 2002, 16-year-old Donovan Jackson was a passenger in a car stopped by Los Angeles County police in his hometown suburb of Inglewood for having expired vehicle tags. A bystander with a video camera caught a white police officer lift the already cuffed African American minor to his feet and slam his face onto a squad car before repeatedly striking him in the face with his fist. Within a week of Jackson's arrest, two white Oklahoma City police officers were caught on tape violently striking and using pepper spray on Donald Reed Pete, a Black man arrested on charges of lewd behavior and illegal substance possession. According to the Oklahoma City Police Department, Pete was "slow to respond to police orders," but not "actively resisting."

The last two incidents took place in routine stop-and-search situations. According to the widely accepted United Nations Code of Conduct for Enforcement Officials, force should be used only as a last resort and must be proportionate to the threat posed. Given that both Jackson and Pete were handcuffed and presented little or no actual resistance, the blatant police aggression is in clear violation of United Nations standards.

At a California state commission hearing on police conduct, convened in response to the Jackson case, University of Southern California law professor Erwin Chemerinsky stressed that that incident should not be dismissed as an isolated incident, but was part of a pattern of police culture. "It's a culture that causes officers to think in an 'us-against-them' mentality, to think of those in the community as less than human," Chemerinsky said.

The AFSC Criminal Justice Program publishes a "Know Your Rights Training Manual," designed to give youth, especially youth of color, the information they need when dealing with situations with the police. Copies are available at AFSC offices or by mail.

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