Trymaine Lee’s interview with the closest eyewitness to the shooting of Michael Brown at MSNBC is worth reading in its entirety:
“I could see the muscles in his forearm,” Johnson said. “Mike was trying to get away from being choked.”
“They’re not wrestling so much as his arm went from his throat to now clenched on his shirt,” Johnson explained of the scene between Brown and the officer. “It’s like tug of war. He’s trying to pull him in. He’s pulling away, that’s when I heard, ‘I’m gonna shoot you.’”
At that moment, Johnson says he fixed his gaze on the officer to see if he was pulling a stun gun or a real gun. That’s when he saw the muzzle of the officer’s gun.
“I seen the barrel of the gun pointed at my friend,” he said. “He had it pointed at him and said ‘I’ll shoot,’ one more time.”
A second later Johnson said he heard the first shot go off.
“I seen the fire come out of the barrel,” he said. “I could see so vividly what was going on because I was so close.”
Johnson says he was within arm’s reach of both Brown and the officer. He looked over at Brown and saw blood pooling through his shirt on the right side of the body.
“The whole time [the officer] was holding my friend until the gun went off,” Johnson noted.
The violence started because the Johnson and Brown didn’t jump onto the sidewalk quickly enough at the officer’s insistence:
About 20 minutes before the shooting, Johnson said he saw Brown walking down the street and decided to catch up with him. The two walked and talked. That’s when Johnson says they saw the police car rolling up to them.
The officer demanded that the two “get the f—k on the sidewalk,” Johnson says. “His exact words were get the f—k on the sidewalk.”
After telling the officer that they were almost at their destination, Johnson’s house, the two continued walking. But as they did, Johnson says the officer slammed his brakes and threw his truck in reverse, nearly hitting them.
Mychal Denzel Smith has, as he so often does, written a stirring, thoughtful, anguished piece that he should not have to keep writing over and over again at the Nation.
The details are always in dispute, but the result is always the same: a young black person is dead. More parents are in mourning. Another community is enraged.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board wrote, “Michael Brown didn’t get due process.” It’s worse than that. Michael Brown was robbed of his humanity. His future was stolen. His parent’s pride was crushed. His friends’ hearts were broken. His nation’s contempt for black youth has been exposed. A whole generation of young black people are once again confronted with the reality that they are not safe. Black America is left searching for that ever-elusive sense of justice. But what is justice?
Justice for Renisha would have looked like Michael Brown being able to attend college. Justice for Trayvon would have looked like Renisha McBride getting the help she needed the night of her accident. Justice for Oscar Grant would have looked like Trayvon Martin making it home to finish watching the NBA All-Star game, Skittles and iced tea in tow. And so on, and so on. Justice should be the affirmation of our existence.
In the absence of such justice, we take to the streets. We protest, we hold vigils, and yes, we riot. What options are left? Rioting/looting (what some would call rebellion) may not provide answers or justice. But what to do with the anger in the meantime? We are told to stay calm, but calm has not delivered justice either. Do we wait for the FBI to investigate? I guess, but what to do in the meantime, as the images coming from Ferguson echo Watts in 1965? We’re told not to tear up our own communities, when time and time again we’re reminded that they don’t belong to us. Deaths like Michael Brown’s tell us we don’t belong here. What, then?
Tags: michael brown, news, police brutality, racism, violence
“Justice for Renisha would have looked like Michael Brown being able to attend college. Justice for Trayvon would have looked like Renisha McBride getting the help she needed the night of her accident. Justice for Oscar Grant would have looked like Trayvon Martin making it home to finish watching the NBA All-Star game, Skittles and iced tea in tow. And so on, and so on. Justice should be the affirmation of our existence.”
I am aching with the truth of this.
Jesus. I don’t know what to say, and I don’t know what to do, and I wish I did, beyond cry.
Cry, and cry out. Make it heard. Don’t let it be silent. Amplify the voices.
It feels like we’ve all been doing that, every time. I don’t want to sound defeatist, because I do know that things can change–I just don’t think this is how. I mean, fuck, I feel like I’ve been reading about these stories at regular intervals since I was old enough to care about the world around me, and every time we all cry out. And then those of us who are lucky enough not to be targeted go back to living our relatively safer lives (in this one respect), and then it happens again. Like this is an expectation, now.
The unaccountability of variably racist, corrupt, and militarized police forces that freely abuse their power up to and including murder seems like a national problem that needs an organized solution. People have been crying out for years and it hasn’t done dick. I mean Amadou Diallo — I was in freaking high school.
Of course you’re right: it’s not enough to keep the voices raised, to keep the focus on the perpetuation of systemic racism and brutality that is flat-out murdering and terrorizing a generation of black men and women. It’s not enough. Working toward dismantling the system of militarized police and calling to account those who kill and those who close ranks around them aren’t done just by keeping those events in the public eye. It’s hard, and it’s taking too goddamned long, and I often don’t know what the next step is, so I look to our black community leaders and pundits and I follow their advice and send on their messages.
But keeping the voices raised is important. It’s useful to keep pointing out the biases present in media coverage of these stories, for example. It’s useful to keep the pressure on the police to be more open about both the specific cases and the general practices that lead to such blatant, tragic profiling. It’s important not to shut up, not let the horrific repetition of the racist brutalities shut down the outcry. For me, it’s especially important to use my relative position of privilege as an amplifier that boosts the signal for people talking about their own experiences of racism.
It’s not enough to keep the voices raised. But it’s important.
Your local city may already have a group that’s involved in trying to ride herd on the police department — some kind of citizen’s accountability board or project (here we have the Religious Coalition for a Non-Violent Durham, which I can’t say enough good things about; they are amazing). They’re often dealing with the more routine, non-deadly but still abusive and oppressive situations that arise continually between the police and the black community. I’d say the thing to do is not to get too fixated on St. Louis (unless you’re from St. Louis); this is happening where *you* are, too, and that’s where you can build relationships and coalitions and have measurable impact. Make *your* cops accountable.
We’re told not to tear up our own communities, when time and time again we’re reminded that they don’t belong to us.
This is such a great way of explaining that bizarre and disgusting phenomenon where the oppressors smugly lecture the people that they are oppressing about the dignified way to respond to oppression. Kids get murdered on the street, and you get a fucking tone argument.
And that Salon article by Brittney Cooper is amazing.
“Justice should be the affirmation of our existence”
Damn that’s good, and damn that’s right, and damn this whole damn thing.
A lot of us, we feel like all we can do where there’s serious shit going down is RT and read and look at the images and RT and RT and RT… but then we also see that black feminists get told their twitter activism is divisive or pointless. No one’s told me that shit about my helpless RTing. So in that last quote above, where the writer talks about how communities aren’t our own, that is literally everywhere. Online, in the streets. Shit.
On what to do about this: don’t forget to use your privilege to vote for people who are willing to change the criminal justice system and speak out about anti-black racism! The week before Michael Brown was killed, this study on how white voters are more likely to support mass incarceration if they know it disproportionately affects blacks was publicized. There’s no study on how non-black POC would vote, but I would be curious about that as a non-black POC.
Everything about this–the deaths of Renisha McBride, Michael Brown and others–is making me furious, and I’m tired of just tweeting about it. I don’t know if it means calling for wholesale transparency of police dept trainings and practices or what. I don’t know if it means calling out politician when they talk about being harsh on crime, or if it means calling for an ongoing evaluation of who is being stopped in a locality…
Getting a bit rambly here. I have a friend who works on community-based social market/behavior change development, and I don’t know if there’s anything similar to get people to stop unconsciously acting on racist preconceptions. I know there’s been some effort on doing this with schoolteachers bc of the the racial disparities in education outcomes, would be curious to know if there’s something similar with police depts. blegh.
Who? Serious question. Police forces are usually governed at the city incorporation level, right? Every city has it’s own particular flavor of bullshit, but I haven’t heard of one where anyone tried to campaign on seriously reforming the police forces and then did anything about it. I think it’s very difficult to go to war with the police on a local level.
And I’ve never heard of anyone calling for federal action of any kind. I just…there’s no one to vote for. There’s no one cause or organization to give money to.
I would support the fuck out of some kind of federally mandated independent law enforcement for law enforcement with actual authority, though. Or…something. I don’t really know enough about the policy issues, tbh, but fucking Christ something is wrong.
Hahah criminal justice policy is outside of my wheelhouse but I follow a lot of urban policy stuff so here’s my reaction to your questions:
-def the city-level is crucial, and mayors in strong-mayor format cities have been advocates for racist police policies (hello, Bloomberg and stop and frisk) so at the very least, let’s try to keep an eye on who supports what
-I have no idea who the people to keep on eye on are in weak-mayor (city manager led) format
-that being said, it would be really swell if this drives local advocates to run for city council/mayor positions based on police reform
-I live in MD, which is mostly unincorporated and localities are largely driven on a county level, so all of this could and should apply to counties if appropriate.
-there are “stat” programs (again, hi, I’m from Baltimore) that are suppose to provide performance-based metrics on different local agencies. hell, the model was founded on a stat program in NYC. Why can’t we (the public) demand something focused on police brutality and arrest? Maybe driven by an independent entity, enforcable by DoJ Civil Rights office?
There are organizations out there that I just read about that might be helpful to follow. They’re included at the end of this piece by Next City on the Sketch Factor app and how to channel one’s anger on it.
-Million Hoodies and their #occupymap
-Color of Change and their Cop Watch NYC app
-Communities United for Police Reform has a Know Your Rights toolkit
-New York Civil Liberties has a Stop and Frisk app
Okay so a lot of those are NYC-oriented, but I think there’s good examples of orgs and potential ways to engage on this further. I’m not sure if ACLU is doing a ton on this as well but they need to. Same with NAACP
WOW you are amazing. I said “serious question” but I didn’t really expect anyone to have anything approaching an answer, so in my head it was also rhetorical, but nope, you know about this! Thanks.
I’m from NYC, which seems to have been in a steady state of police fuckery since I’ve been paying attention, and no amount of outrage seems to have done anything. You vote for BdB, and then…big sad fart sound of fury signifying absolutely nothing. From what little I have read, it seems like police departments are often designed to be politically independent? Which…yes, good idea, but as a result there’s very little accountability. (I could be 100% wrong, or I might be thinking about the LAPD?)
I think my frustration is from the sense that it appears to be a national problem that no one’s trying to address on a national level. I just don’t even know anymore. Clearly outrage and frustration and voting isn’t getting the job done. I would LOVE to see a national (or a nationally ambitious) politician with the nads to make this their major issue.
Also, we are all trolling Sketch Factor by making lots of reports of theft in and around Wall Street, right?
I think you’re right re. police depts and independence to some extent, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it varied from locality to locality. LAPD got away with a ton of crazy-ass shit in the 80s and 90s I think (the Shield was based on a notorious LAPD task force) so the idea of organizational independence would explain it. However, I know that in Bmore City (at least), the Mayor appoints the police cief.
I totally hear your frustration, and I think in an ideal world, DOJ would be the place to do it. However, I know very little about how interact with state and local level agencies so I’m very tentative around this issue. I do think that the big underlying issue is anti-Black racism and the fact that we have all internalized to varying degrees that Black = criminal. I think that is the underlying force that is fueling these instances of police brutality, and there are significant swaths of our fellow residents who support this or think that these victims had it coming. Can’t stop the brutality if people don’t see black men and women as fellow humans.
I don’t know how you fix it on a large scale.
So, I do remember a presentation I saw a couple of years ago on Oakland and their efforts to deal with this issue of disproportionate arrest of black and latino youths. It was relatively successful according to this presentation, and I think it was rooted in deeper community partnerships. So there’s one good example at least, although I have heard of some instances of Oakland PD that were terrible.
ETA: I had not considered trolling Sketch Factor but I just saw this article on NBC News about Kristina Wong trolling it. I read it right before getting your response and now I want to…
This is a great rundown of places to start. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Anecdotally, non-Black PoC will often still vote along with white people to disproportionately harm Black people and communities (unless the laws obviously harm them too, of course) or just abstain, which is the same as being complicit in oppression. Colourism, respectability politics, and ultimately ingrained and encouraged general anti-Blackness is rife in my and other NBPoC communities, as it really just boils down to “don’t be like them” and “at least we’re not them”
I don’t hold much hope for the numbers being promising, if they exist at all – American politics tend to only be split on white/black binary when it comes to topics such as this, with only a thought for Latino demographic when it comes to immigrant issues (everyone else functionally doesn’t exist). Because black = crime and Latin = illegal immigrant is the only way the popular narrative is framed and consumed right now, and it’s maddening.
Damn but I am angry.
Weak people have no choice but to riot. Nothing else works for them.
Thank you for writing about the Michael Brown shooting. I’ve been sticking to mostly local St. Louis sources for coverage, so I missed the ones you highlighted here.
Holy mother of – what kind of murderous rage? Shooting a kid not just once, but SEVERAL times, after he raised his hands? How on any planet is that anything less than straight up cold blooded murder? I mean, shooting him even once was clearly murder already, but that police officer didn’t give any fucks, he just shot the hell out of a kid for shits and giggles. I desperately hope he’s held accountable for what he did.
Here is what I don’t get – why does this officer make the decision to make things WORSE? He emptied an entire clip into this boy, but not all at once, oh no. According to the friend, there was the first shot, then two more shots, then the “I’m unarmed” plea, then the last several shots.
You’ve already got a disaster at the first shot, but I wonder what sort of fog of war comes over a person to make them take the situation from bad to worse.
Also, the refusal of St Louis County PD to interview material witnesses is so obviously a head in the sand move I can’t stand it. As if by ignoring it they can make their storyline stick.
I don’t know, but to me it seems “dead kids don’t talk” – cop may have realized it was a mistake after the first shot, and the adrenaline said “if he’s dead he can’t tell anyone what happened” and just kept shooting.
Anyway, I agree. Seems very clear that St Louis PD is not interested in anything except covering their ass. I expect no justice, just more police militarization to crack down on any public dissent. (And in coming years, more money flowing into police militarization because of a “history of riots” in the area.)
This is a great rundown of places to start. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
When on the hunt for Christopher Dorner the cops fired 100 rounds at a blue pickup truck with two women delivering papers. The women who each got hit got a settlement. The cops who felt that it was necessary to try and blow the truck to shreds, based on the sound of a newspaper hitting the pavement, are back on the streets. Same day they also deliberately hit and shot a black truck. Neither truck was silver, which was the color of the truck Dorner was driving. LAPD has not changed much.
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/16/lapds_indefensibl…
When the cops arrested that poor mom at McDonalds, my boyfriend was listening to a debate about it on a radio show and he said one woman said, "I tell my kids don't go to the cops first. I don't trust cops." and he was like, "I'm starting to agree with her." Which for me, that's always how I've felt. I have had TERRIBLE experiences with police. My mom's hippy friends were beat up in protests. I see racist cops out being racist all the time. I know of cannibal cops, rapist cops, cops who fire hundreds of rounds in busts. Cops are like politicians. Not all cops, but so many, you are talking about a stable job, semi militarized, open to all socioeconomic groups, where you have to be comfortable with exposure to, and infliction of violence and power over other people. I'd say that's rarely the same psychological profile that people called to be nurses, or teachers or plumbers or rabbis. And then they get PTSD and then what? It's bullshit.
Tell you what if cops didn't have guns, like in the uk, this would be some real different shit.
And now the FAA is closing the airspace over Ferguson, and no one is reporting it.
RIGHT. WTF is up with that?
Right, the cops can get away with anything by just saying that "they feared for their lives." I'm sorry, but isn't putting their lives in danger part of their job? That was part of what was so terrifying about the Dorner situation — not that Dorner himself was running around loose (and I live very close to where the original murders happened), but there were a bunch of emotional cops running around with itchy trigger-fingers. "Fearing for their safety" makes it okay for them to blow away a guy who's sitting on his porch playing with a waterhose sprayer, a guy who is running out of his house to get away from the actual suspect who had broken in, whoever.
And the language is always this elaborate, tortured abuse of the passive voice: "at that time, an officer-involved shooting occurred." Really, a shooting just occurred? All by itself? I expect that from the cops themselves, but the media follows their lead on all of it, too. Everything is always on their terms. SUCH BULLSHIT.
Not applicable to Dorner necessarily, but it's also worth noting that police often say violence was inevitable, and maybe it was at the point they pulled the trigger, but it was the police themselves who escalated the situation to the point where violence was inevitable.
Not my idea, comes from Police Misconduct: Law and Litigation by Michael Avery.
RIGHT. WTF is up with that?
I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I remember talking to a police officer (who not coincidentally was a PoC woman) about that. She thought it was a gendered thing, with men going into situations with the "violence is/may be inevitable" mindset, while all the women she knows believed that violence was never inevitable, and if things got violent it was a sign of failure on their part. She thought it made a significant difference in how things ended up playing out.
Basically, everything’s the worst.