Tag Archives: Philando Castile

The Fine for Driving While Black with Expired Tabs? Death … by Yet Another Panicked Cop.

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Every time I hear about another shooting like the one that killed Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center Sunday afternoon I remember that Philando Castile was stopped by cops at least 46 times … before one of them panicked and killed him.

46 times! How is that even possible? Says the old white guy living in Edina. (I ask my fellow white guys and gals: how many times before you’d be mortgaging the house to drop a gigaton of legal hell on the city that was pulling that kind of crap?)

All the details may not yet be fully known about what went on with 20 year-old Mr. Wright. But as of this moment the story has it that a group of Brooklyn Center cops initated the incident with Wright because of … expired tabs. (My wife will confirm that every time I see a car pulled over by a city cop I say, ” Expired tabs.” And I say that because trawling for expired tabs is such a cliched, easy-revenue cop game.)

Whether, like Philando Castile, the cops involved in the Wright case first noted a black kid driving and then decided to check his tabs, will come out at some point in Minnesota’s next, long cycle of investigation, law suits and court proceedings. All likely leading again to another astonishing pay-out to the now deceased Mr. Wright’s family from a city’s self-insurance fund.

Pundits are mulling whether a conviction in the Derek Chauvin case will have any substantive impact in the way America’s cops go about their business. (At this point I always like to point out that three cars and six cops showed up — and were immediately cursing and waving guns — in The Case of the Possibly Counterfeit $20.)

Having seen enough of how this stuff goes down, I doubt anything significant will change. But one facet of America’s police violence epidemic worth re-thinking is the necessity of using city cops to churn up money for the city’s general fund. Would Castile still be alive if he wasn’t a regular target of otherwise bored cops under implicit (or maybe explicit) orders to “crack down” on expired tabs and other ticky tack offenses? (Being careful of course not to get too aggressive with drivers who look like they might know their way around City Hall.)

A few years ago The New Yorker published a story titled, “The Link Between Money and Aggressive Policing.” (One of my favorite car sites, Jalopnik, revisited the story today.)

From the New Yorker we get this: “Alexes Harris is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Washington and the author of ‘A Pound of Flesh’. Published in June, the book analyzes the rise of monetary sanctions in the criminal-justice system. Harris argues that jurisdictions have increasingly relied on levying fines for minor infractions—broken tail-lights, vagrancy, traffic violations—as a way to generate municipal revenue. For instance, a Department of Justice investigation revealed that, in 2013, police in Ferguson, Missouri, issued arrest warrants for nine thousand people, almost all for municipal-code violations such as failing to pay a fine or missing court appearances. Doing so allowed the city to collect $2.4 million in fines and fees, the second highest source of income for the city, behind taxes.”

The political indictment here is on politicians too terrified to raise adequate revenue for city operations through normal taxes, preferring instead to turn their police forces into tax collectors by another name. “Fees”, you know. Never, “taxes.” (Trademark: Tim Pawlenty.)

The racial indictment is that most cops are smart enough not to pull over a late model Mercedes for a dead LED. Far better to nail the guy in the beat up Oldsmobile. He’s not likely to come after you with a lawyer who plays golf with the city manager. Unfortunately, as we see, over and over and over again, a lot of that latter crowd are either poor, minority or both.

And that’s where poorly vetted, poorly trained aggression comes in.

The incident with Daunte Wright is classic in its tragic familiarity. Three cops. Three cops … approach his car with hyper-cautious, stalking movement. Their fear is palpable. One at the driver’s door, one at the passenger’s door and one tailing along behind just for … for … well, in case any of them suddenly finds themselves in a position where they … fear for their life.

The scene is aggressive and intimidating as hell. And sure enough pretty soon the scared kid is wrestling free of the hand cuffs and trying to drive away … before being shot — and killed — by a panicked, shrieking cop who doesn’t have enough training to know the difference between a Taser and a revolver.

The point being … traffic stops … of minorities for petty, revenue-producing “infractions.” It’s bullshit and dangerous. And now lethal, again. Considering the way nervous, aggressive cops react in these situations — resulting in millions of dollars of legal costs and pay-outs — “revenue stops” need to be seriously re-thought, if not curtailed entirely.

City desperately needs the cash from expired tabs and broken tail lights? Trawl the parking lot at Walmart and leave tickets on windshields. Walmart won’t let you do that? Trawl city streets for parked cars.

Someone got outstanding warrants? Get a de-escalation expert and go knock on his door.

Among everything else that is completely screwed up about the way the U.S. enforces law and order, getting the average street cop out of the infraction–for-profit business would do something to reduce the number of Philando Castiles and Daunte Wrights haunting our collective memory.

“He Feared for His Life” Isn’t Going to Cut It This Time

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While we wait for County Attorney Mike Freeman and his advisors to assure themselves they have an “airtight” case against Derek Chauvin and the three other ex-cops who killed George Floyd, I’m preparing myself for the appearance of Earl Grey, or someone of his, um, stature.

A slick, high-priced lawyer like Grey (who successfully defended the hapless, panicked cop who killed Philando Castile) is, in my mind, umbilically linked to the tried and true cop defense, “He feared for his life.”

The argument being that the average cop (pick any of them from any of the hundreds of dead black man/woman incidents) faces such constant peril protecting and serving their city they have every reason — and therefore right — to operate with a hair-trigger for “resistance” to their authority.

Grey’s problem — of whoever accepts the high-profile challenge of defending Chauvin and his band of brothers — is all the video documentation of Floyd’s killing. Not being a great legal mind, I can’t imagine how you create a situation of peril … to the cops … with killing an unarmed man already on the ground and in handcuffs. But based on experience we’ve all seen with the American court system, given enough time and money, I’m sure there’s a way.

But until the logic-bending court room theatics begin, you have to feel overwhelmed by the reaction to this particular incident of race-based violence. This one is as stark a case of “depraved indifference” as you could imagine. Newsfeeds are filling with police chiefs, retired law enforcement officials, legal scholars and such making unequivocal condemnations of Chauvin and partners. With them — right now, based on videos alone — there’s no “wait to see all the evidence”. It’s right there. Caught in the act. You’re looking at a capital crime.

With all this, and searching for solutions, I’ve found myself most interested in … police union contracts. The outrageous thuggery of Chauvin and the jaw-dropping complicity of the other three proves that stricter guidelines and all the city/community hours spent improving “dialogue” are a futile waste.

Police culture is diseased. It’s infected. And will continue to undermine its own authority unless and until you A: Hire better quality people to be cops, and B: Make them sign contracts with swift and heavy penalties for what, let’s face it, is regarded within “the brotherhood” as sanctioned brutality.

I’ve said before there’s a solution to this institionalized thuggery in better, tougher psychological screening of cop candidates. Half-facetiously, I’ve also said the red warning lights should start flashing when any candidate tells you they’ve always “dreamed of being a cop.”

Obviously, pay and benefits would have to be a lot better than they are if you want to attract and hold people who don’t get a secret tingle over being “the man”, the dude in uniform, with a badge … and nearly unlimited authority over whoever they cross in the street. Because as we’ve seen, there’s obvious racism in that “tingle”. A racism that becomes more overt and less restrained once out on the job and interacting with a lot of marginal people.

As of this morning Keith Ellison is telling CNN he expects charges soon.

That’s already overdue and will be one small step. The big ones come with thundering criminal penalties on the heads of Chauvin et al and a top to bottom re-write of the current police union contract.

The Public Deserves All Available Information in the Justine Damond Shooting … Now.

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While no more outrageous and appalling than the police killing of Philando Castile and the nearly 600 others (many unarmed minorities) gunned down by American law enforcement officers this year alone, my reaction shifted slightly from the moment I first heard that two young Minneapolis cops were involved in the death of a 40 year-old white woman in her pajamas.

Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted in Castile’s death despite clear evidence he panicked, purely and simply, at a seat-belted black man with a woman and child in the car. So my reaction to Saturday’s night’s events was that yet again the city and the shaky reputation of the police will suffer as a result of a very poorly vetted and trained officer sent out on the streets with a license not just to enforce the law but to act as summary executioner should he feel “a threat to his life.”

The twist in this incident that places the responsibility on a Somali cop, a two-year veteran of the force, sets the sadly normal racial dynamic askew. As of today, Tuesday, the public — which is vast considering the international attention the story has received — is waiting for even the most basic explanation from city officials.

The delay in explaining what happened, if not why, is inexcusable. There are only two witnesses, Officer Mohammed Noor and his partner, Matthew Harrity. Where is their version of the event? We’re told from early reports that Harrity was “stunned” by the gunfire and that Noor has issued his condolences to the family of the dead woman, Justine Damond.

We’re told Damond, who made the 911 call had run out to speak to the cops and was in some kind of conversation with Harrity, the driver, when Noor shot her. For me, the “conversation” part is critical. If she said anything to Harrity it should have been obvious she was not the suspected attacker, which suggests Noor shot her for some reason other than panicked fear, as in Yanez’ case.

If there is “some other reason” this thing is going to get very, very weird.

My assumption is that there was no actual conversation between Damond and Harrity, other than perhaps Damond running out from the darkness into the alley trying to get their attention … at which point Noor panicked and began shooting out the patrol car across his partner’s face.

The fact that Damond was killed by a shot to the abdomen suggests she was still several feet from Harrity’s side window when Noor opened fire. Up against the door in “conversation” with Harrity she would have been struck in the chest or face.

The point being, this element of the incident can and should be explained now, not days and weeks from now. Even if Harrity and Noor are telling conflicting stories, an event this high-profile involving — to understate the obvious — critical public employees, requires extraordinary expeditiousness and transparency.

It’s hard to imagine a scenario that dampens down the already burgeoning racist demonizing of the on-line alt-right. That disease will spread even if there isn’t a whiff of affirmative action, racial quotas or special “outreach” in Noor’s hiring. The alt-right crowd isn’t exactly in the facts game, as we know.

Getting expeditious with bureaucratic formalities may not spare the local Somali community a fresh round of venom from racists, but it will provide responsible citizens a foundation of fact upon which to assess the hows of a cop who shoots a pajama-clad woman in one of the safest, quietest neighborhoods of the city.

 

Justice for Castile v. the Authoritarian Juror

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The charge, “So we have reached a point where it’s been proven a cop can do anything he wants when stopping or confronting a black person?” is entirely valid and worth broad discussion in the wake of the “not guilty” verdict in the Philando Castile case.

But leaving police hiring criteria and training aside for minute, what is it about juries, supposedly a random sampling of every day Americans that leads them to reject a seemingly cut and dry situation like this one, where a nervous young cop panics and kills a man who by the weight of 99% of available evidence was being fully compliant?

The questions I think ought to be rolled more heavily into the mix of topics related to the Jeronimo Yanez verdict and (the rare) other cases where cops are brought to trial, are these:

1: A shrewd defense attorney like Earl Gray, (he of the “it shouldn’t even have been charged” quote), has to have developed a well-tuned sense for jurors with an authoritarian mindset. “Authoritarian” is often confused as solely the attitude of the dominating personality, the one demanding or manipulating others to his will. But in jury selection the “authoritarian” aspect refers to those on the receiving end, people who have been acculturated to give uncritical respect to any authority figure, be they parents, teachers, government leaders or cops. When you’re raised to defer to the judgment of such people — people you regard as superiors, and with bona fides well beyond you’re own — it becomes an enormous leap of intellectual courage as a juror to see any such person being in critical error, much less guilty of felony behavior.

2: Added to that is the relative ease — or so it seems to me — with which defense attorneys are able to gum up what objective critical faculties remain in average jurors with a kind of absolutist concept of “reasonable doubt”. In this case “reasonable doubt” was laid heavily upon jurors trying to decide whether Yanez actually did see a gun — i.e. Castile going for the weapon he told Yanez he had on him. The end result of their thinking being that since there was “reasonable doubt” about whether Castile was not going for his gun, authoritarian-minded jurors gave the authority-figure the benefit of the doubt and voted for acquittal … because, you know, they were in “reasonable doubt” about what actually happened.

i don’t know what the solutions to these issues are.

Perhaps, in the latter, more articulate jury instructions from the presiding judge on what “reasonable doubt” means and doesn’t mean

But on the former, the prevalence of the powerful authoritarian impulse built into a society (I would argue human nature) trained by family, institutions and culture to accept the judgment of anyone in a position of authority, I suspect we have a monumental problem for every prosecutor who follows Ramsey County Attorney John Choi’s path and takes the case of a panicky cop before a jury of peers.

 

Our Plague of Panicked, Terrified, Emotionally Unfit Cops

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NEW BLOG PHOTO_edited- 3Every time we have another of these police killings, like in Baton Rouge earlier this week and St. Paul yesterday, I find I’m asking the same questions of the cops involved. 1: How did this guy get hired? And 2: What sort screening goes on that someone this terrified and panicky is sent out on the streets with a loaded gun and an implicit license to kill?

All the deeply imbedded racial attitudes of white cops to minorities, mainly blacks, absolutely apply. The data, as President Obama reminded the country again in his remarks from Poland, are real and bona fide. The chances of a cop pulling me over for a broken tail light are ridiculously miniscule. The odds of me — a guy with serious authority issues, or so says my wife — being told to put my hands up before I even dig out my driver license are even far more implausible, and the likelihood of some freaked out cop pumping a half dozen bullets into me because I was reaching for my wallet are essentially zero. It’d never happen.

With blacks, as everyone knows, even pasty, cossetted white suburbanites, it is an entirely different story. And the only tangible explanation, something you can do something with in the short term — before purging 400 years of racial superstition and animus from the social system — is accepting that these cops are fundamentally terrified of the black men they are stopping. They are not properly vetted for their basic law enforcement judgment and they are not screened well enough for police forces to discern the instinctual level of fear … they bring to the confrontations they so often initiate.

The facts of the Philando Castile shooting in Falcon Heights may yet tell a completely different story from his girlfriend’s post-shooting Facebook video. If that is the case, I’ll revisit this rant and make apologies. But by all appearances we have yet another example of a guy, a cop, fundamentally unequipped, psychologically and emotionally, for the job he’s in. No one as plainly terrified and panicked as that guy should have a job carrying a loaded gun with, as I say, the implicit understanding that he will never be prosecuted for overreacting and killing someone.

I think I’ve written before that I fail to understand why any cop, especially suburban types, are brandishing guns with lethal ammunition. The number of times any cop in the country gets into a raging life or death Hollywood-style gun battle with some psycho is surpassingly small. In most cases of that sort the cops have a pretty good idea in advance who they’re closing in on. They could dig the heavy stuff out of the trunk and call in backup.

But making traffic stops and waving a loaded gun in some guy’s face? Give me a break. A gun armed with chemical darts, or even rubber bullets, which hurt like hell, would cover — guessing here — 99% of the “extreme force” incidents city cops deal with. More to the point, after, what is it? 560 of these cop killings this past year? The end result of another of these police freak out/panic/overreaction incidents is a citizen bruised and zonked out but revivable to make his case in court … instead of, you know, dead.

Our legions of (mainly) white cowboy gun nuts would no doubt recoil in horror at the thought of cops stripped of the ability to kill and ask questions later. But they’re nuts and that’s nuts, if only considered on the level of the enormous mistrust of police that is building not just among blacks but sane citizens of every variety. No cop can be as effective as he/she needs to be if a fat chunk of the population spots them on the street and regards them as some kind of emotionally unstable, racist powder keg.

The solution? Well, for one thing, and I’m serious about this. I suggest police academy psychologists, the people screening applications, take a particularly hard look at the sort of people who have a deep, obsessional interest in being a cop. That might be a clue to the type of person you don’t want it in uniform, packing a gun.

Maybe that is a red flag in basic police candidate screening. I don’t know. But if it is, I think they’re missing a few.

Everyone may have an example, but there’s someone we know in our social orbit who in no way shape or form should be in law enforcement and packing a gun on city streets. But he is. It took him a while to land a gig. But eventually he got hired on. Given the same set of circumstances — a black guy in his suburban neighborhood — he could easily be the Falcon Heights cop. At best, proper vetting would have stuck him in a desk job. But, well, beggars can’t be choosers. And small cities with small police budgets take what they can get.

It would probably help if the average cop were paid more than, say, a WalMart assistant manager, but that’s a whole other fight.  You know, precious taxpayer dollars being wasted on more gubmint employees with cushy pensions.

Last time I checked gun technology was pretty advanced. Lots of “cool” shit on the market for “sportsmen” and “enthusiasts”. Anything your Second Amendment-hugging heart desires. Building a police revolver that fired chemical darts isn’t science fiction.

And it might go a small way to re-shaping a sickening reality.