Imaginary Weapon, Real Corpse : Police Have True Reasons for Fear, but Not for Distortion

Most Americans support and applaud the diligent efforts of law-enforcement officers to maintain order and secure our streets. Random and brutal crime has increased to the point that our reliance on the police is overwhelming. Highly publicized incidents of violent street crime have shaken our society to the point that we often fear to leave our homes. We cry out to our guardians in blue for relief from criminals. Yet in calling on the police as a solution, we have commissioned a law-enforcement response against the criminal that too often is turned against the law-abiding. I know well the daily threat of violence and danger that police officers face. However, no American should justify or commend abuses by police officers under the pretense of enforcing the law.

While incidents of police abuse are not exclusive to African-Americans or people of color, the likelihood of it happening to them is far greater. Black youth do not graduate into adulthood without the mark of police intimidation or police violence sealed in their memory. Unfortunately for Marcus Donel, his recent encounter with the police ended tragically. Unarmed and shot down without a trial or conviction, the 30-year-old Hawthorne man’s misfortune again raises the greater questions: What is legitimate use of deadly force by police officers? What are the parameters? Marcus Donel’s loved ones grieve their loss and await answers to this awful killing. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has already given its answer to this killing. Less than 48 hours after the shooting, sheriff’s investigators pronounced the shooting “tragic” but justifiable.

This script is not new. Indeed, any kid in South-Central or East Los Angeles can recite it to you. A black or Latino man is stopped because he is a “viable” suspect in a crime. He is described as being belligerent and aggressive in his posture. He supposedly reaches for a weapon or “a flashy metal object.” He is shot down in the street. No weapon is found. Typically, the man was unarmed, or certainly less armed than the police. Nonetheless, it is considered a good shooting by police standards.

Though blacks account for less than 12% of the population in the United States, they compose nearly half of those killed each year by police across this country, according to a 1986 article in Black Scholar Magazine. Absent extraordinary evidence, all but a handful of shootings are confirmed as justifiable by police officials. Less than 3% of the fatal encounters involving police and private citizens in Los Angeles County result in prosecution of the officer, according to information provided by the District Attorney’s office. Lacking legal resources, African-Americans who are the disproportionate victims of these encounters are forced to rely on law enforcement’s own internal investigations, which often result in a questionably objective evaluation of the facts and evidence.

History has taught African-American men that to be in the vicinity of a crime could lead to a deadly encounter. In the past, lynchings were a frequent solution to alleged criminal conduct by African-American males. Today’s lynching, however, does not take place in the rolling fields of the Deep South. Today’s lynching takes place on the concrete streets of the inner city. The burn of a rope around one’s neck is now replaced by the explosion of a metal projectile from a gun barrel or the squeeze of the infamous chokehold around a gasping throat. The results are the same. And so are the explanations. Here and nationwide, the list of victims reads like a war memorial.

The chain of events leading to the use of deadly force follows a disturbing pattern when cases are viewed collectively. One situation that stands out in nearly every shooting is that the officer feared for his life and the safety of others. Does fear for one’s safety excuse a mistake or poor judgment? We all acknowledge that police officers have good reason to be scared. Yet when fear is out of control and clouds judgment, it must be eliminated by training and experience. Fear is no excuse for seeing imaginary weapons, imaginary movements and imaginary demeanor. Are some officers firing their weapons at life-threatening suspects--or are they allowing fear to alter the circumstances that may exist? Fear at times exaggerates the size and strength of people who wind up as police-shooting victims. It can also change a beer can into a chrome-plated automatic.

The circumstances of many shootings by law-enforcement officers over the years raise questions about the integrity of police investigations into their own alleged misconduct. An abbreviated Southern California roll call: 1966, Leonard Deadwyler, unarmed, shot in the chest by a Los Angeles police officer while driving his pregnant wife to the hospital. Police said the shooting was an accident. 1979, Eulia Love, shot eight times in front of her home in the presence of her daughters by Los Angeles police officers. Police, called following a dispute over Mrs. Love’s gas bill, said she was in the process of throwing a kitchen knife at them. 1985, Danny Smith, unarmed, shot seven times by Los Angeles and Culver City police officers. They said they thought they heard a sliding gun bolt and fired after he failed to raise his hands as ordered. 1986, Yusef Bilal, unarmed, shot three times in the back by a California Highway Patrol officer. The officer said the shooting was self-defense after he scuffled with him. 1988, 18-year old Frank Martinez, shot in the presence of his family at their home by Westminster police. The officer said Martinez charged at him with a beer bottle. 1988, an African man shot and critically wounded by Newport Beach police as he strolled along the beach with his wife. Officers said they mistook his portable radio for a gun. 1989, transient Betty Jean Aborn, shot 18 times by Los Angeles County sheriffs in the Antelope Valley. She had threatened a clerk with a butcher knife after she allegedly stole several ice cream bars from a store.

In all of these cases, my question does not focus so much on the officers’ intent or conduct, as malevolent as they may appear to be. Rather, my questions address the processes by which law-enforcement officers reach such speedy conclusions about the need for force when the suspect and subsequent victim is nonwhite.

The patented excuses do begin to ring hollow. To say in almost every black or Latino male shooting that it is correct because an officer saw things that no one else saw is an insult to the intelligence of the public. The public must seek a higher standard of conduct to prevent these deadly mistakes. Most people killed by the police are not gang members. Everyone who exits a car to ask questions is not standing in a “karate stance” or with “clenched fists.” Police officials must raise the integrity of their investigations to a level beyond question. It is tragic to think that any citizen in this country, has to fear attack by the very police officials who are paid to protect him or her.