Opinion
Cops Lied about ‘Suicides’ of 2
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in October 1975, is a weekly publica-
tion, published each Wednesday by
IMM Publications Inc.,
415 N. Killingsworth St.,
C
aught cheating by his wife,
comedian Groucho Marx
asked, “Who you gonna
believe, me or your lying eyes?”
In case after case, when police
are caught killing an unarmed
African American – and trying to
cover it up – they expect us to sus-
pend our sight and our common
sense. This is particularly true in
the case of 22-year-old Victor
White, III in New Iberia, La.,
about two hours south of his fami-
ly home of Alexandria, La. and
more than two hours west of New
Orleans.
Authorities want us to believe
that White, who died March 2 in
the back seat of a police cruiser,
shot himself in the back while his
hands were cuffed behind his
back. Even the nimblest among us
couldn’t pull off such an acrobatic
feat.
In a press release issued March
3, Louisiana State Police said,
“The initial investigation indicates
that last night at about 11:22 p.m.,
deputies with the Iberia Parish
Sheriff’s Office were responding
to the report of a fight in the 300
block of Lewis Street. Upon
responding to the area, deputies
located [Victor] White and discov-
ered he was in possession of
illegal narcotics. White was taken
into custody, handcuffed behind
his back, and transported to the
Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office for
processing. Once at the Sheriff’s
Office, White became uncoopera-
tive and refused to exit the
deputy’s patrol vehicle. As the
deputy requested assistance from
other deputies, White produced a
handgun and fired one round strik-
more implausible that he could
have shot himself in the right chest
T HE C URRY while in police handcuffs.
R EPORT
NBC said the forensic patholo-
gist found gunshot residue in the
wound, but not the kind normally
George E.
associated with a close-range
Curry
shooting. White’s hands were
never tested for gunpowder
residue. Two lacerations were
found on the left side of White’s
ing himself in the back. White was face. Still, Dr. Carl Ditch, the
transported to a local hospital by Iberia Parish coroner, declared
ambulance where he was pro- White’s death a suicide.
nounced dead from an apparent
The Louisiana case is strikingly
self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
similar to that of Chavis Carter in
According to the coroner’s Arkansas. Carter also supposedly
report on White, “A small caliber committed suicide July 28 while
pistol was found and a projectile in the backseat of a Jonesboro
was found within his shirt.” How- patrol car.
Authorities want us to believe that
White, who died March 2 in the back
seat of a police cruiser, shot himself in
the back while his hands were cuffed
behind his back
ever, two separate police searches
of White prior to his being placed
in a patrol car produced no
weapon.
An investigation by NBC News
revealed that the Iberia Parish
coroner’s report found that White
was shot in the front, not the back
as police had contended. The bul-
let entered White’s right chest and
exited his left armpit. That White
could have shot himself in the
back while handcuffed behind the
back is difficult to fathom. White
was left-handed, making it even
A crime lab report obtained by
the Associated Press under a Free-
dom of Information Act request
said, “In consideration of the cir-
cumstances of death and after
autopsy of the body, it is our opin-
ion that Chavis Carter, a
21-year-old black male, died of a
gunshot wound of the head. The
agencies responsible for the inves-
tigation of his death were the
Jonesboro Police Department and
the Craighead County Coroner’s
Office. They reported that he was
detained during a traffic stop.
“He was cuffed and placed into a
police car, where apparently he
produced a weapon, and despite
being handcuffed, shot himself in
the head.”
Like Victor White, III, Carter
was Black and left handed. Also
like the Carter debacle, authorities
want us to believe that he man-
aged to conceal a pistol – in
Carter’s case, a 380-caliber semi-
automatic – during two police pat
downs. Despite being left handed,
police would have us believe he
used his right hand to shoot him-
self in the right temple.
The Associated Press reported,
“Carter’s death came after police
stopped a truck in which he was
riding. The driver and another pas-
senger eventually were allowed to
go, but police said Carter had an
outstanding arrest warrant. Court
records show it had to do with a
drug charge.
“Carter was searched twice and
police said they found a small
amount of marijuana, but no gun.
After the first search, an officer
put Carter into a patrol car without
handcuffing him. He was later
searched again, handcuffed and
returned to the same car.
“Officers a short time later saw
Carter slumped over in the back-
seat and covered in blood,
according to the report, which
concluded he had managed to con-
ceal a handgun with which he shot
himself. He later died at a hospital,
and the report listed his death as a
suicide.”
Unlike Grouch Marx, you don’t
have to worry about your lying
eyes. Instead, we need to worry
about lying police.
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The Lessons of Ferguson, Part I: Economics
“T
he ultimate measure of
a man is not where he
stands in moments of
comfort and convenience, but
where he stands at times of chal-
lenge and controversy.” Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.
I am haunted by the words spo-
ken by Lesley McSpadden
immediately following the shoot-
ing death of her son, Michael
Brown, at the hands of Ferguson,
Mo. police officer Darren Wilson
almost a month ago. She said, “Do
you know how hard it was for me
to get him to stay in school and
graduate? You know how many
Black men graduate? Not many.
Because you bring them down to
this type of level, where they feel
like they don’t got nothing to live
for anyway.”
Lesley McSpadden’s words
reflect more than her own deep
anguish. They have been echoed
by many of Ferguson’s citizens
and civic leaders who have rallied
for justice since Brown’s killing.
They also expose the pervasive
problems of joblessness and hope-
lessness fueling so much of the
anger and tension in communities
of color across America.
Michael Brown’s death was the
spark that ignited a long-smolder-
ing fire in Ferguson; and while the
immediate goal of the National
Urban League and our affiliate
network is the arrest and indict-
ment of Officer Darren Wilson,
T O B E
E QUAL
Marc Morial
this column represents the first in
a three-part series that aims to
examine some of the root causes
and identify solutions that must be
implemented to avoid crises simi-
lar to Ferguson in the future.
Let’s begin with the lack of jobs
chasm of misunderstanding and
distrust that is behind much of the
violence that has erupted between
police and citizens.
Four years out of the recession,
America’s private sector is
expanding, but too many people
have been left behind. In fact,
many communities like Ferguson
are worse off. According to a
recent Brookings study, “Between
2000 and 2010-2012, Ferguson’s
poor population doubled.”
The National Urban League has
long been leading the charge for
targeted federal and state action to
bring jobs and opportunity to
‘We’ve got to be here for the long
haul and turn our chants into change,
our demonstration into legislation’
and the epidemic of unemploy-
ment in Ferguson, a city that is 67
percent Black. The National
Urban League’s 2014 “State of
Black America Report” found that
the St. Louis metro area, which
includes Ferguson, had a Black
unemployment rate of 19.6 per-
cent and a White unemployment
rate of 6.9 percent – resulting in an
unemployment Equality Index of
35.2 percent on a 100-point scale.
This level of economic inequali-
ty reflects a glaring disparity of
opportunity and has created a
Page 2 The Portland and Seattle Skanner September 3, 2014
hard-pressed communities across
the nation. Our “Jobs Rebuild
America” campaign is a $100 mil-
lion, five-year effort to engage
federal government, business, and
nonprofit resources to create eco-
nomic
opportunity
in
50
communities across the country
through the Urban League affiliate
network with a special emphasis
on vulnerable youth.
In response to the crisis in Fer-
guson, Vermont Senator Bernie
Sanders sent a letter to his Senate
colleagues calling for both a thor-
ough federal investigation of the
shooting death of Michael Brown
and targeted legislation to bring
jobs to Ferguson and similar strug-
gling cities. Sanders points out,
“There is an economic crisis fac-
ing our nation’s youth, particularly
young
African-Americans.
Nationwide, the youth unemploy-
ment rate today is more than 20
percent and African-American
youth unemployment is nearly 35
percent. The legislation would
provide $5.5 billion in immediate
funding to states and localities to
employ 1 million young Ameri-
cans between the ages of 16 and
24.”
At Michael Brown’s funeral
service, Rev. Al Sharpton called
on the nation and our community
to task: “We can’t have a fit, we’ve
got to have a movement. We’ve
got to be here for the long haul and
turn our chants into change, our
demonstration into legislation.”
One of the big lessons of Fergu-
son is the importance of investing
in jobs, education and other tools
to combat poverty in our commu-
nities instead of militaristic
weapons for use against our com-
munities.
We
hope
that
Washington and America are lis-
tening – and preparing to act.
Marc H. Morial, former mayor
of New Orleans, is president and
CEO of the National Urban
League.