by LINN WASHINGTON JR.
hiladelphia – Back in 1978, a respected
newspaper columnist in in this city blasted local black elected officials for
their failure to criticize police brutality – the scourge that ravaged blacks
for decades, often with the sanction of white elected officials like then
Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, a former city police commissioner.
“Those black elected officials lack
courage,” respected journalist Chuck Stone wrote three-decades ago, slamming
Philadelphia’s four top black officials as servile, betraying their
constituents.
During the weeks before publication of
Stone’s July 18, 1978 news commentary, Philadelphia police had killed two
unarmed black men and viciously beat scores of people including a group of
black teens attending a party at the home of a Methodist minister.
Now, 36 years later in 2014,
Philadelphia black elected officials again face harsh criticism for their
failures both to publicly condemn continued police brutality and to utilize
their electoral clout to end that festering scourge.
Once again, black officials are being
disparaged as servile and and betraying the people who elected them. And once
again, the trigger for this latest volley of criticism against Philadelphia’s
black elected officials is their collective failure to publicly condemn a
high-profile incident of alleged police abuse. That incident in question was a
vicious January 7 police assault on a teenage honor-roll student [1] that left
the 16-year-old needing emergency surgery for a damaged testicle.
“We are outraged by their silence,”
activist Paula Peeples said as she castigated the muted criticism about police
abuses like that recent teen assault on the part of too many of Philadelphia’s
black elected officials.
Peeples is an official in the
Philadelphia chapter of NAN – the National Action Network founded by civil
rights leader, Rev. Al Sharpton. Since 2008, Philly NAN has unsuccessfully
petitioned the White House three times for a federal probe into brutality by
Philadelphia police – each time without support from Philadelphia’s top black
elected officials.
Peeples was a part of efforts in the
late 1970s to end abuses by Philadelphia Police that ironically helped
energized a wave of political activism that elected many more blacks to pivotal
posts in Philadelphia’s City Hall plus seats in the state legislature.
Black elected officials in Philadelphia
now occupy the top posts of mayor, City Council president and district attorney
plus the appointed position of police commissioner. Philadelphia’s 17-member
City Council includes eight blacks on that governing body. Sixteen blacks from
Philadelphia serve in the Pa state legislature, 12 in the state House and four
in the state Senate. There are also many more blacks serving in the police
department compared to in 1978, when they were a rarity.
Yet conditions for blacks on police
abuses (and other social ills) have not improved appreciably, leaving many
dubious about the efficacy of electoral politics in reducing misconduct by
police. Philadelphia Blacks remain the prime targets of police abuses from
beatings to false arrests and fatal shootings, according to reports from
Philadelphia’s Police Advisory Commission – a city agency that monitors police
misconduct.
“With all the political power in the
hands of people of color in Philadelphia, nothing has changed with the violent
and racist practices,” imprisoned radical Edward “Eddie” Africa said in a
recent letter. Africa is one of nine MOVE members convicted for an August 1978
fatal shootout with Philadelphia police that culminated a five-year brutal
onslaught by police against the MOVE organization who fought against police
brutality–an assault that included the bombing of a house by police which
resulted in 11 deaths, including five children,who were known to be in the
building at the time that a helicopter dropped the weapon on the roof.
Like those black elected officials
lashed in 1978 by columnist Stone for failure to “stand up for their
community,” Philadelphia’s current crop of black officials are being blasted
for their apparent reticence about assailing abusive, racially discriminatory
practices by the city’s police, particularly the city’s controversial
Stop-&-Frisk program.
Blacks, in 2012, comprised the
overwhelming majority of the 215,000 Philadelphians ensnared by
Stop-&-Frisk. Philadelphia’s controversial Stop-&-Frisk – currently
under federal court review for alleged abuses – is the signature anti-crime
program of black Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and is implemented by
Nutter’s handpicked black police commissioner, Charles Ramsey.
Nearly half of the 215,000
Stop-&-Frisks in 2012 were conducted without the ‘reasonable suspicion’
required by law, according to a detailed analysis of Nutter’s controversial
program released last year by the Pennsylvania ACLU.
That ACLU analysis also undermined the
key premise for Stop-&-Frisk advanced by Nutter, Police Commissioner Ramsey
and DA Seth Williams, who all claim Stop-&-Frisk has reduced the number of
illegal guns used in street crimes ranging from robberies to homicides.
The ACLU analysis examined 1,852 stops
during 2012. That examination showed police recovered only three guns – an
exceptionally small recovery rate compared to the exceedingly large numbers of
intrusive encounters.
A Stop-&-Frisk encounter reportedly
sparked that January 7, 2014 assault on Darrin Manning, an African-American and
straight-A student, allegedly by two white Philadelphia police officers, where
an improper and unnecessarily rough “pat-down” search by a policewoman
allegedly damaged the 16-year-old’s testicle. Ire from black community leaders,
including Sharpton’s NAN branch, to that assault on Manning forced
Philadelphia’s Police Commissioner and District Attorney to belatedly launch an
investigation into the alleged incident.Police and prosecutors initially
downplayed that incident, but it has now, in the wake of media attention,
morphed into a grand jury investigation.
Despite public outrage and protests,
Mayor Nutter has still taken no public position on this incident of abuse,
failing even to publicly request an investigation. A spokesman for Nutter said
Manning and his family have recourse through legal actions like filing
complaints or lawsuits.
None of Philadelphia’s eight black City
Council members has taken a public position on the Manning incident either.
City Council President Darrell Clark, whose district is where the assault
occurred, has criticized Stop-&-Frisk, but has taken no legislative actions
against the program that he contends is flawed.
Only one of those 16 blacks from
Philadelphia serving in Pennsylvania’s state legislature has publicly condemned
the alleged mistreatment of Manning, who is awaiting court action on charges
that he assaulted a policeman and resisted arrest. (Police in abuse cases
typically charge the person who is abused, often trumping up offenses.)
State Rep W. Curtis Thomas, who
represents the district where the assault occurred, called for the suspension
of the policewoman who caused damage to Manning’s testicle. Additionally,
Thomas called on DA Williams to drop the charges against Manning. “I don’t
understand why the District Attorney has charged Darrin with assault when he’s
the one who’s been brutalized,” Thomas said.
Dr. Tony Monteiro, a professor of
African-American Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia and a veteran of
campaigns against police abuses, said too many black elected officials embrace
the misbelief that reflexive support of police is a required posture for
elected office.
Too many black politicians, Dr.
Monteiro said, have become part of “the law-&-order establishment that used
to be the exclusive territory of white politicians,” and thus have become
“unwilling to protect the community against the police.”
One of America’s worst urban riots of
the 1960s took place in Newark, NJ, triggered by a July 1967 police brutality
incident. That riot, rooted in reactions to institutional racism, ushered the
1970 election of Kenneth Gibson, the first black mayor of any major city in the
Northeast. Yet, in 2010, Newark’s then black mayor, Cory Booker, brushed off an
ACLU report documenting police brutality in that city. That ACLU report led to a
U.S. Justice Department probe, the kind of examination Philadelphia activists
have sought, so far unsuccessfully.
Zayid Muhammad, an activist in Newark,
NJ, finds the silence on police abuses from so many black elected officials in
his city, in Philadelphia and nationwide “disgusting, especially with the long
history of police brutality” in America.
Muhammad said blacks must back
candidates for elected office who are “supportive of social justice and not
just nice people selected by political machines. We need to change our
conditions and need people who will stay on point.”
