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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 20, 2014)
Opinion White Cops Kill Two Blacks A Week “Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now” B ERNIE F OSTER Founder/Publisher B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER Executive Editor J ERRY F OSTER Advertising Manager L ISA L OVING News Editor H ELEN S ILVIS Multimedia Editor P ATRICIA I RVIN D AVID K IDD Graphic Designer M ONICA J. F OSTER Seattle Office Coordinator J ULIE K EEFE S USAN F RIED Photographers The Skanner Newspaper, established in October 1975, is a weekly publica- tion, published each Wednesday by IMM Publications Inc., 415 N. Killingsworth St., P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228. Telephone (503) 285-5555. E-mail: info@theskanner.com World Wide Web site: http://www.theskanner.com Fax: (503) 285-2900 The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Associ- ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re - spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. © 2014 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED. To see The Skanner News on your smart phone go to theskannermobile.com or scan this QR code with your app. • • • • • • • • Local news Opinions Jobs, Bids Sports Entertainment Music reviews Bulletin board RSS feeds O ccasionally, police officers behave in such a dastardly manner that it captures international attention. There was the 1997 famous video of four White LAPD officers taking turns clubbing and kicking Rodney King nearly beyond recognition after a high-speed automobile chase. In 1999, on the opposite coast, an unarmed, 23-year-old Amadou Diallo was killed after four policemen fired 41 times into his Bronx, N.Y. apartment, strik- ing him 19 times. In New Orleans, Robert Davis, a retired elementary school teacher, was returning to his hometown after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to inspect the damaged family home. He went to the French Quarters to purchase some cigarettes. Four White officers, who suspected him of public drunkenness, accused Davis of resisting arrest and began beating him. An Associated Press producer filmed a video that showed no indication of resist- ance. Timothy Thomas, 19, was shot to death in Cincinnati in 2001 by Patrolman Stephen Roach. The officer said he thought Thomas was armed – he wasn’t. The shoot- ing touched off the largest urban unrest in the U.S. since the L.A. uprising a decade earlier. And the list doesn’t stop there: Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Frank Jude, Jonathan Ferrell, Kathryn Johnson, Kendrec McDade, Timo- thy Standsbury, Jr., Kenneth Chamberlain and so many more. Three more names were added to the list in the past month: Eric Garner of Staten Island, N.Y.; Ezell Ford of Los Angeles, and now Michael Brown, the 18-year- old unarmed victim in Ferguson, annual 96 Black deaths at the hands of White cops could be as T HE C URRY high 2,170 a year or almost 42 R EPORT (41.73) per week – nearly six per day (5.94). To be conservative, let’s pre- George E. sume that the death rate for the Curry non-reporting law enforcement agencies is only half of those now reporting. That would still be approximately three Blacks killed Mo. by a White police officer every Police kill African Americans day. more frequently than you may According to Officer Down realize. Memorial Page, which catalogues According to stats compiled by the deaths of all law enforcement the U.S. Department of Justice, an officials, 416 cops were deliber- unarmed African American died at ately killed in the line of duty from the hands of an armed White 2005 to 2012, an average of 52 a police officer at the rate of nearly year from 2005 to 2012. An unarmed African American died at the hands of an armed White police officer at the rate of nearly two per week from 2005 to 2012 two per week from 2005 to 2012. Over that 8-year-period, 400 police killings were reported per year. White officers killed a Black person, on average, 96 times per year. Of those, 18 percent of the African Americans killed were under the age of 21, compared to 8.7 percent of Whites. As bad as those figures are, they grossly understate the problem. The FBI statistics are based on the voluntary reporting of local law enforcement jurisdictions. Cur- rently, approximately 750 of 17,000 law enforcement agencies regularly report their figures to the FBI. That means if the ratio holds true for all 17,000 agencies, the Using the most conservative data, Blacks are almost twice as likely to be killed by police as cops are likely to be murdered in the line of duty. In most of the high-profile cases of police killing unarmed Blacks, there was no justification for the use of deadly force. One case, Tennessee v. Garner, grew out of an incident in Mem- phis where a Black 8th grader was shot fleeing from a home burglary after stealing a purse. The judges said cops couldn’t shoot someone simply because they were escap- ing. In another case, Graham vs Con- nor, the judges said police have the duty to protect the public. Therefore, it’s okay to use force in apprehending violent offenders. But in the Memphis case, police would not be allowed to shoot at a non-violent offender even follow- ing the commission of a crime. Of course, personal prejudice enters the picture long before an officer pulls his or her gun. “When we ask police officers directly, ‘Who looks criminal?,’ they choose more Black faces than White faces. The more stereotypi- cally Black a face appears, the more likely officers are to report that the face looks criminal,” according a study in Stanford’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In addition, the U.S. Commis- sion on Civil Rights found that, “most white officers (95 percent) do not believe police are more likely to use physical force against blacks and other minorities than against whites in similar situa- tions. The majority of black and other minority officers (69.5 per- cent) believe persons who look like them are more likely to receive physical force from police.” But Blacks are treated different- ly from Whites – even when they are part of the law enforcement hierarchy. As Attorney General Eric Hold- er recounted before the NAACP last year, “I was stopped by a police officer while simply run- ning to catch a movie, at night in Georgetown, in Washington, D.C. I was at the time of that last inci- dent a federal prosecutor.” If that can happen to Eric Holder in Washington, you know what can happen to Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. Obama Strengthens Trade With Africa O nce United States involve- ment in Africa focused on humanitarian aid; Obama has refocused on trade and invest- ments that benefit both America and the African continent. “I stand before you as the presi- dent of the United States and a proud American. I also stand before you as the son of a man from Africa. The blood of Africa runs through our family. And so for us, the bonds between our countries, our continents, are deeply personal.” – President Barack Obama At a time when much of the world seems to be tearing apart in places like Iraq, Israel, Gaza, Syria and Ukraine, President Obama hosted leaders from nearly 50 African nations for a three-day U.S.-Africa Summit, described by the administration as reflecting “the common ambition that the people and government of the United States share with the peo- ple and governments of Africa to leave our nations better for future generations by making concrete gains in peace and security, good governance and economic devel- opment.” Themed, “Investment in the Next Generation,” the summit was the largest gathering of African heads of state in our nation’s history. The president acknowledged the Page 2 The Portland and Seattle Skanner August 20, 2014 T O B E E QUAL Marc Morial personal aspect of the meeting by referencing his father, Barack Obama, Sr., who was born in Kenya, as well as the painful lega- cy of the African slave trade. But the primary focus of the meeting security and governance remain, the fact is that Africa has six of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world. Its population is expect- ed to double by 2050, when two-thirds will be young people under the age of 35. Deputy National Security Advi- sor, Ben Rhodes explained, “Insofar as we can promote trade and investment, that is going to create new markets for our goods… and ultimately create jobs in both the United States and Africa. So this is about seizing the ‘The bonds between our countries, our continents, are deeply personal.’ – President Barack Obama was on strengthening economic ties between the United States and Africa in ways that spur African development and create tens of thousands of American jobs. President Obama used the sum- mit to announce a shift in America’s relationship with what he called “the new Africa.” Where once United States involvement centered on providing humanitari- an aid to Africa, it will now concentrate on expanding trade and investments that benefit both America and the African conti- nent. While challenges of health, opportunity of African growth and development in our mutual inter- ests.” In his post-summit press confer- ence, the president announced that the three-day gathering had gener- ated some $37 billion for Africa’s progress on top of substantial efforts that have been made in the past. This includes $33 billion by U.S. companies in new trade and investment, a U.S. government investment of $110 million per year for three to five years to help build the peace-keeping capacity of more than a half-dozen African nations to deal with militant extremists like Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Soma- lia, a tripling of the United States’ Power Africa Initiative goal, which now aims to bring electrici- ty to 60 million African homes and businesses, and an increase in efforts by both the Obama admin- istration and American non-governmental organizations to combat HIV/AIDs and improve maternal and child health. The president made it clear that “Africa’s prosperity ultimately depends on its greatest resource – its people.” None of the invest- ments and trade agreements will matter unless African countries do more to promote good gover- nance, the rule of law, open and accountable institutions, strong civil societies and the protection of human rights for all citizens.” Africa, America and President Obama are inextricably bound by the ties of blood and history. We applaud the president’s commit- ment to bind our futures with stronger partnerships in economic development and in meeting the health and security challenges that affect America, Africa and the world. Marc H. Morial, former mayor of New Orleans, is president and CEO of the National Urban League.
