Across the country unarmed civilians continue to be murdered by police and nobody seems to be immune to police brutality and overuse of force.
Antonio Zambrano Montez cast his last stone before police killed him with bullets — another murder at the hands of those who have taken an oath to protect and serve.
As police in Pasco, Washington, responded to a 911 call, they saw Zambrano throwing rocks into traffic. He then threw a rock at police. In no way are his actions acceptable, but while not acceptable they were not deadly.
Rocks don’t kill people but bullets sure do. Zambrano’s actions were not just met with a single gunshot, but a barrage of bullets. In what is comparable to an execution by firing squad, Zambrano was shot 17 times by three different officers. A video that captured the incident shows Zambrano with his hands in the air as he walked toward police.
In Grapevine Texas, Ruben Villalpando a 31 year old father of four was shot two times in the chest after disobeying orders to stay in his vehicle. Though he was being non-compliant, as dashcam evidence shows, the same video shows that he was not armed with a deadly weapon.
“it shows the officer acting unprofessionally. It shows how my brother-in-law was mistreated,” said Villalpando’s brother-in-law Fernando Romero after seeing the video.
“I mean, the police officer could have taken different actions, more professional, a professional way to handle the situation to de-escalate not escalate. He didn’t, he didn’t do that.”
Now a wife and four children are left without a husband, father and provider.
These cases are becoming all too familiar across the country. With the highly publicized Michael Brown case in which an autopsy shows he must have been shot dead while on his knees. Then the Eric Gardner video that shows the unarmed passive victim assaulted, taken to the ground, handcuffed then choked to death. Justice for those responsible has yet to be served. The institution that is the police department appears to take care of its’ own. Unfortunately nobody is holding these officers accountable for their lethal actions.
The usual use-of-force model says if a perpetrator does not possess a means of deadly force, then deadly force is not authorized.
Deborah Cameron of Imperial Beach California says, “The attitude of the police department since getting all this military gear, and no training is no longer to protect and serve. They are getting a mindset of a commando.At some point this officer, knew he could let go and handcuff, but he made a choice to kill cause he could.”
In each of the cases that are sweeping the country, a Taser could have been warranted, yet officers are pulling out guns and ending peoples lives. One can only assume this will become an unacceptable norm as long as no one is held accountable for their actions. “I’m horrified at what police officers are getting away with in so called lands of freedom and democracy,” said Kelly Durkin.
The consensus is that if officers are brought to justice, these killings will stop. Unfortunately justice seems to only be served to an unarmed minority in the form of gunfire. In Grapevine nearly 100 protesters packed a city council meeting, asking for justice and these killings to cease.
University of Florida law professor Katherine Russell said, “the public face of a police brutality victim is a young man who is Black or Latino. In this case, research suggests perception matches reality.”
Research by The American Conservative a print magazine and daily site for political analysis based in Washington, D.C. reported that one Florida city’s “stop and frisk” policy has been explicitly aimed at all black men. Since 2008, this has led to 99,980 stops which did not produce an arrest in a city with a population of just 110,000. One man alone, according to the publication, was stopped 258 times at his job in four years, and arrested for trespassing while working on 62 occasions. Failure to address this issue communicates to police that minorities are a safe target for abuse.However, a precedent seems to have been indirectly set.
The highly publicized Trayvon Martin murder at the hands of George Zimmerman, a non law enforcement person seems to have sent a country-shaking message to the minority community and law enforcement.
Minorities are liable to be murdered for wearing a hoodie while walking down a public street. For law enforcement, it’s open season on anyone who is not like them, and there is no fear of repercussions.
A widely publicized report in October 2014 by ProPublica, a leading investigative and data journalism outlet, concluded that young black males are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than their white counterparts: “The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police.”
Killings like this do not happen to the affluent privileged class, but to the lower and middle working class members of our society, which make up most of the United States population. Eventually the cries of “No Justice, No Peace” are going to go well beyond cries and into actions.
In an interview with Photography Is Not A Crime, Matthew Fogg, a retired United States Marshal spoke about the Ferguson uprising over the non-indictment of officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown , predicting we will see more of the same as police killings not only continue to rise, but continue to go unpunished. Less than 24 hours after that interview, another grand jury chose not to indict New York City police officer Danny Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, even though that incident was captured on video.
Most recently during a demonstration outside of the Ferguson police department, 20 year old Jeffrey Williams allegedly shot two officers and now could face up to life in prison if convicted. Keron Alleyne of the Brooklyn chapter of the National Action Network said, “it’s a double standard that’s been set by the police departments and the judicial system, for one man (Eric Garner) to be surrounded by three officers, handcuffed, and choked to death and no charges filed against those responsible is an absolute spit in the face of the minority community.
As the American Civil Liberties Union calls for federal intervention, little has been done to support the people and their communities. With all the protests against police brutality, there is no movement leader.
According to Martin Berger a professor of art history at the University of California at Santa Cruz who has written two books on the civil rights movement, “The lack of movement leaders is both a strength and a weakness, it is a strength in that these are grass-roots movements of people coming together with a lot of different grievances, but that lack of leadership often leads to a fracturing down the road when there is disagreement among the participants and when it becomes difficult to move change.”
“Hopefully the efforts being displayed by those involved are not being put forth in vane.”Bonnie Kristian of The American Conservative says “the lack of consequences is a big contributor to the police brutality. Only one out of every three accused cops are convicted nationwide, while the conviction rate for civilians is literally double that.
In Chicago, the numbers are even more skewed: There were 10,000 abuse complaints filed against the Chicago PD between 2002 and 2004, and just 19 of them ”resulted in meaningful disciplinary action.”
On a national level, upwards of 95 percent of police misconduct cases referred for federal prosecution are declined by prosecutorsbecause, as reported in USA Today, juries “are conditioned to believe cops, and victims’ credibility is often challenged.” Failure to remedy this police/civilian double standard cultivates an abuse-friendly legal environment. Due to the development and convenience of camera phones, Citizens who, in increasing numbers, have taken to arming themselves with their own kind of weapon, their cell phones. “The police out here are crazy. Nobody trusts them. So I decided to pull out my camera every time they come over here,” said Ramsey Orta. So while there is no leader out front heading the charge for federal change, the citizens have become their own leaders, and their own news reporters by making sure the rest of the world can see what’s being done and force all people to be held accountable for their actions
There are multiple ways the federal government can intervene in order for the changes to be made. Much like integrating the schools, the responsibility and decision can not be left up to the state.
Apparently it is the state who has allowed police brutality to grow into what has become. According to Color Of Change, Americans want to live in a safe city where the police treat all residents with dignity and respect, where they are protected from illegal searches and seizures and where police are not considered to be above the law. A federal “Right To Know Act” would be based on the New York City Right to Know Act which would accommodate citizens’ fair treatment
