Opinion
White Cops Kill Two Blacks A Week
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
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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.