September 8, 2014 Jazelle Hunt
News No comments
By Freddie Allen
NNPA Senior Washington
Correspondent
National Bar Association
President Pamela J. Meanes.
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – In an
effort to combat police brutality in the Black community, the National Bar
Association (NBA) recently announced plans to file open records requests in 25
cities to study allegations of police misconduct.
Pamela Meanes, president of the
Black lawyers and judges group, said that the NBA was already making plans for
a nationwide campaign to fight police brutality when Michael Brown, an unarmed
Black teenager was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a White police officer
following a controversial midday confrontation in a Ferguson, Mo.
Meanes called police brutality
the new civil rights issue of this era, an issue that disproportionately
impacts the Black community.
“If we don’t see this issue and
if we don’t at the National Bar Association do the legal things that are
necessary to bring this issue to the forefront, then we are not carrying out
our mission, which is to protect the civil and political entities of all,” said
Meanes.
The NBA, which describes itself
as “the nation’s oldest and largest national network of predominantly
African-American attorneys and judges,” selected the 25 cities based on their
African American populations and reported incidents of police brutality.
The lawyers group will file
open records requests in Birmingham, Ala.; Little Rock, Ark.; Phoenix; Los
Angeles; San Jose, Calif., Washington, D.C.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Miami;
Atlanta; Chicago; Louisville, Ky.; Baltimore; Detroit; Kanas City, Mo.; St.
Louis, Mo.; Charlotte, N.C.; Las Vegas; New York City; Cleveland, Ohio,
Memphis, Tenn., Philadelphia; Dallas; Houston; San Antonio, Texas, and
Milwaukee, Wis.
In a press release about the
open records requests, the group said it will not only seek information about
“the number of individuals who have been killed, racially profiled, wrongfully
arrested and/or injured while pursued or in police custody, but also
comprehensive data from crime scenes, including “video and photographic
evidence related to any alleged and/or proven misconduct by current or former
employees,” as well background information on officers involved in the
incidents.
Not only will the NBA present
their findings to the public, but the group also plans to compile its research
and forward the data over to the attorney general’s office.
Meanes said that the group’s
ultimate goal is to have a conversation with Attorney General Eric Holder and
to ask him, and in some cases, demand that he seize police departments or take
over some investigations that are going on in states or run concurrent
investigations.
Meanes said that federal law
prohibits the Justice Department from going into a police department unless a
pattern or history of abuse has been identified.
“The problem is that the
information needed for that action is not readily available in a comprehensive
way on a consistent basis with the goal of eradicating that abuse,” said
Meanes, adding that the open records requests is the best way to get that
information.
Meanes said that the NBA was
concerned that the trust was already broken between the police force and the
residents of Ferguson and that the rebellion and the protests would continue.
“We don’t think St. Louis
County should investigate this. We don’t think the prosecutor should
investigate this. There should be an independent third-party investigating this
and that is the federal government,” said Meanes.
Phillip Agnew, executive
director of the Dream Defenders, a civil rights group established by young
people of color in the aftermath of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an
unarmed Black teenager in Sanford, Fla., said that law enforcement officials
taunted, antagonized and disrespected peaceful protesters who took to the
streets of Ferguson and at times incited the violence that they attempted to
stamp out in the wake of the shooting death of Michael Brown.
“An occupying force came into
the community, they killed someone from the community, and instead of being
transparent and doing everything they could do to make sure the community felt
whole again, they brought in more police to suppress folks who were exercising
their constitutional rights,” said Agnew.“If your protocol results in greater
violence, greater anger, and greater disenchantment of the people, you have to
chart a different course.”
On the heels of the NBA
announcement, Attorney General Eric Holder launched two initiatives designed to
calm anxiety and frustration expressed by Ferguson’s Black residents towards
the local police department over allegations of misconduct, harassment and
discrimination. The Justice Department also introduced a “Collaborative Reform
Initiative” to tackle similar concerns with the St. Louis County Police
Department and to improve the relationship between police officers and the
communities they serve.
During a recent press
conference to announce the new initiatives in Missouri, Attorney General Eric
Holder said that the Department of Justice is working across the nation to
ensure that the criminal justice system is fair, constitutional and free of
bias.
The interventions in Missouri
are an important part of that commitment,” said Holder. “While there is much
work left to do, we feel confident that there are solutions to any issues we
find and that community trust in law enforcement can be restored and
maintained. Ferguson and St. Louis County are not the first places that we have
become engaged to ensure fair and equitable policing and they will not be the
last. The Department of Justice will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that
the Constitution has meaning for all communities.”
The new programs will work
separately from the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the
Brown’s shooting death.
Although Ferguson city
officials were widely criticized for the lack of diversity of their police
department, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch study revealed that only one town out of
31 St. Louis County municipalities where Blacks accounted for at least 10
percent of the population, had an equal or greater share of Black police
officers.
“While areas patrolled by St.
Louis County Police are about 25 percent black, 10 percent of the county police
force is black,” the Post-Dispatch reported.
As the NBA applauded the
Justice Department’s latest efforts to protect the civil rights of American
citizens, the also urged the attorney general to commit to investigations in
the same cities where they are filing open records requests.
According to the NBA, Dallas
tops the list for police misconduct in the South and more than 60 unarmed Black
men have been killed by the Dallas Police Department, since 2001.
Agnew said that the days where
police officers are able to kill people with reckless abandon are over.
Meanes said that the NBA will
plans to train community stakeholders and local lawyers to effectively try
police brutality cases without damaging the evidence and without becoming
witnesses themselves and is also educating citizens about what to do when they
are stopped by police.
“This is not a war on police
officers,” said Meanes. “This is a war on brutality and in any kind of system
where people are paid to protect, we ought to be advocating for that
protection.”
.