They unleashed a hail of
bullets to rival the final scene in ‘Bonnie and Clyde.’ But the man and women
killed in 2012 were unarmed—and now these cops are claiming racial
discrimination.
Nine of the 13 Cleveland cops
who fired 137 shots at two apparently unarmed black civilians following a
high-speed chase in 2012 have filed a federal lawsuit saying they are victims
of racial discrimination.
Really.
Eight of the aggrieved cops are
white. The ninth is Hispanic. They charge that the city of Cleveland has “a
history of treating non-African American officers involved in the shootings of
African Americans substantially harsher than African-American officers.”
As if their race was the
deciding factor in the cops being kept on restricted duty for 16 months after a
backfire mistaken for a gunshot and an ensuing cross-town chase led to police
firing nearly as many shots at the unarmed Melissa Williams and Timothy Russell
as were unleashed upon Bonnie and Clyde in their famous final shootout—leaving
Melissa with 24 gunshot wounds to Bonnie’s 23 and Timothy with 23 to Clyde’s
25.
Replay the last scene of the
movie Bonnie and Clyde in your mind, only replace the decidedly armed and
deadly pair with a homeless duo armed with nothing in the car besides a couple
of crack pipes and an empty Coca-Cola can.
The Cleveland Nine should count
themselves lucky that they were returned to full duty after 16 months.
Just imagine if one of them had
been the cop who fatally shot a black 12-year-old named Tamir Rice after he
flashed a realistic looking toy gun in a Cleveland park late last month.
There is already a damning
common denominator between the two shootings: the Cleveland police department
itself.
After the 2012 shooting, an
investigation by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office found the department far
more to blame than the individual cops.
And some of the same failures
in communication and tactics seem to have played a major role in the more
recent tragedy involving young Tamir.
In announcing the results of
his investigation into the 2012 deaths, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine did
make clear that no report would have been necessary if Russell had not sped
wildly away from police in his 1979 Malibu with Williams at his side, reaching
speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour. Russell had been pulled over for the
most minor of traffic violations by a cop who had a hunch that he and Williams
had been buying drugs.
“To state the obvious, the
chase would have ended without tragic results if Timothy Russell had simply
stopped the car in response to the police pursuit,” DeWine said as he released
the report in February 2013. “Perhaps the alcohol and cocaine in his system
impaired his judgment. We will never know.”
DeWine went on: “We do know
that each officer at the scene believed he or she was dealing with a driver who
had fled law enforcement. They each also believed they were dealing with a
passenger who was brandishing a gun—and that the gun had been fired at a police
officer. It is now clear that those last two beliefs were likely not true.”
He said something that applies
to cops of whatever race in whatever jurisdiction.
“Police officers have a very
difficult job. They must make life and death decisions in a split second based
on whatever information they have in that moment. But when you have an
emergency, like what happened that night, the system has to be strong enough to
override subjective decisions made by individuals who are under that extreme
stress.”
He continued: “Policy,
training, communications, and command have to be so strong and so ingrained to
prevent subjective judgment from spiraling out of control. The system has to
take over and put on the brakes.”
As it was, the chase was
accompanied and spurred on by apparently erroneous radio reports of the
occupants firing and reloading a gun. And it all culminated in a middle-school
parking lot with the cops mistaking gunfire from other cops as coming from
inside the suspect’s car and blazing away as if they had encountered a modern
day Bonnie and Clyde rather than just unarmed Melissa and Timothy.
“We are dealing with a
systematic failure in the Cleveland Police Department,” DeWine concluded.
“Command failed. Communications failed. The system failed.”
After such an indictment, you
would expect the department to do all it could to remedy such failings. And
that should have prominently included communications. A test came with a phone
call to 911 on Nov. 22.
Dispatcher: “Cleveland Police…”
Caller: “Hey, how are you?”
Dispatcher: “Good.”
Caller: “I’m sitting in the
park… by the West Boulevard rapid transit station and there’s a guy and like a
pistol, you know. It’s probably fake, but he’s like pointing it at everybody.”
Dispatcher: “And where are you
at, sir?”
Caller: “I’m sitting in the
park at West Cudell, West Boulevard by the West Boulevard rapid transit
station.”
Dispatcher: “So, you’re at the
rapid station. Are you are the rapid station?”
Caller: “No, I’m sitting across
the street at the park.”
Dispatcher: “What’s the name of
the park, Cudell?”
Caller: “Cudell, yes. The guy
keeps pulling it in and out of his pan… it’s probably fake, but you know what,
he’s scaring…
Dispatcher: “What does he look
like?”
Caller: “He has a camouflage
hat on.”
Dispatcher: “Is he black or
white?”
Caller: “He has a gray, gray
coat with black sleeves and gray pants on.”
Dispatcher: “Is he black or
white?”
Caller: “I’m sorry?”
Dispatcher: “Is he black or
white?”
Caller: “He’s black.”
Dispatcher: “He’s got a camo
jacket and gray pants?
Caller: “No, he has a camo hat
on. You know what that is?...”
Dispatcher: “Yeah.”
Caller: “…Desert storm. And his
jacket is gray and it’s got black sleeves on it. He’s sitting on the swing
right now. He’s pulling it out of his pants and pointing it at people. He’s
probably a juvenile, you know?”
Silence.
Caller: “Hello?”
Dispatcher: “Do you have a
gun?”
Caller: “No, I do no not. I’m
getting ready to leave, but you know what, he’s right nearby, you know, the
youth center or whatever and he’s pulling it in and out of his pants. I don’t
know if it’s real or not.”
Dispatcher: “OK, we’ll send a
car there, thank you.”
Caller: “Thank you.”
A car was indeed dispatched,
with no mention that the suspect was possibly a juvenile and that the gun might
be a toy.
Dispatcher: "In the park
by the youth center, there’s a black male sitting on the swings. He’s wearing a
camouflage hat, a gray jacket with black sleeves. He keeps pulling a gun out of
his pants and pointing it at people.”
A surveillance video shows the
radio car driving directly into the park, just feet from the youngster. A white
rookie cop named Timothy Loehmann was in the passenger seat and police would
later insist that he repeatedly instructed Tamir Rice through the lowered
window to raise his hands.
If that is so, Loehmann must
have been shouting that even as the car was rolling up, for two seconds pass
before the startled Tamir is fatally shot. The police say he reached for the
gun in his waistband.
And if that is so, Tamir may
have been trying to show the cops his gun was just a toy, though there seems
not to have been time even for that. He more likely was just moving reflexively
as a youngster might if a radio car suddenly materialized right before him in
the park, with a cop in the window shouting something a stunned young brain
might not immediately register.
Whatever exactly transpired,
the Cleveland Police Department had not learned some important lessons from the
2012 shooting about imagined danger and restraint.
However the department deals
with Loehmann is not likely to be directly determined by his race any more than
race directly determined how the department dealt with the aggrieved nine who
have filed the lawsuit.
Race becomes a big factor when
the press and the public go generic; white cops and black victims with little
attention paid to the details and the individuals and the circumstances. The
department responds as press becomes pressure.
In their lawsuit, the Cleveland
Nine say an unnamed black cop received only “the 45-day cooling off period” of
restricted duty in the gym after shooting a black suspect.
Had the media made an issue of
the shooting, you can be all but certain that the cop in question would not
have just done a little “gym time,” no matter what his race.
One white cop who is not part
of the suit is Michael Brelo, who somehow fired 49 of the 137 bullets unleashed
in 2012, reloading twice. He faces manslaughter charges and is now awaiting
trial. The city of Cleveland recently reached a $3 million settlement with the
Russell and Williams families.
On Saturday, relatives returned
to the middle-school parking lot where Russell and Williams were killed and
gathered with the family of Tamir Rice. Highway safety flares provided light as
the clans joined by loss sought solace in prayer and song.
A report by the Cleveland Plain
Dealer describes balloons being released into the night sky. Williams’s uncle,
Walter Jackson, spoke to Tamir’s grandfather, J.J. Rice.
“You’re at the start, where we
were two years ago,” the uncle said.
