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Tag Archives: police

Ann Wagner praises police who “own” the streets

19 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Ann Wagner, Jason Stockley, missouri, police, Protests, St Louis, Stockley verdict

Thesis:

The St. Louis Police Department doesn’t have a great record for  putting its best foot forward, but, really, these guys needs some competent PR advice – which they need to follow. And Ann Wagner needs a reality check.

Discussion:

A relatively small bunch of stragglers leftover after the day’s demonstrations against the Stockley acquittal went on a petty vandalism spree that, if the descriptions I’ve read are correct, was at a far remove from the serious violence that racked Ferguson. They were met by scads of armed police decked out in full riot regalia and raring to go. A bunch of protestors were arrested. The Guardian reported claims by demonstrators of “aggressive responses from police, including the macing and violent takedowns of compliant demonstrators.”

This mighty victory pumped up the interim police chief,  Lawrence O’Toole, to the point that next day he strutted around crowing about how proud he was that St. Louis was still “safe” and the police had “owned” the night.” His officers evidently shared that opinion since they reportedly celebrated brutally beating down a group protesting police brutality against black people by chanting “whose streets, our streets.” That chant was a step too far, even for some police, as The Guardian reports, “Sgt Heather King, president of the Ethical Order of Police, a group founded by African American officers, said: “That chant goes against the very code of ethics we swore to abide by.”

I’ve read reports on Facebooks from other folks who saw what went down. They seem to think it was harsh, as in excessive. But still, protestors vandalize private property, they get arrested. That’s fine. Throw bricks and “chemicals” at the police, police get mad. That’s life. Vainglorious boasting about how armed police beat the vandals down and gratuitiously hurt them – including folks who weren’t resisting – that’s another thing entirely. Don’t any of these fools realize how hairline delicate the situation is right now? Do they want riots?

I get the impression however, that now that the adrenaline high is fading, O’Toole realizes that he’s got to control the narrative a little better. The police chief is adamant that the only folks arrested were “criminals,” although they managed to haul in a presumably non-criminal Post-Dispatch reporter who was caught in the crush when the police moved in. You’ll also notice in many reports how, when O’Toole talks about his big victory, he’s careful not to mention that the “demonstrators” he put down were no more than a relatively small group who hadn’t heeded the call of protest leaders to desist for the evening. However, O’Toole was quite willing to whine about injuries suffered by his troops – injuries that he does not actually specify, but admits to have been mostly “moderate or minor.”

Wagner enters from the Right wing:

The merest hint of police blood shed, however, was enough to provoke Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2) to paroxysms of praise for police. In her latest email newsletter, she informs us that, “on Saturday, I had the privilege of visiting the brave men and women of law enforcement who risk their lives every day to protect us. Their work this week has been nothing short of exemplary …”. This high praise followed the text of the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis, which she tells us she is offering “in light of the recent unrest in our community.” The Peace Prayer is supposed to embody “the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi’s simplicity and poverty,” two things I’m pretty sure Wagner doesn’t really know much about.

Punchline:

All this hyper-respectable, authority-loving piety is coming from a woman, who, so far as I  have been able to determine, has in no way indicated that she understands that there is any reason why some St. Louisians might legitimately be even a bit upset. Even her fellow Republicans, Senator Roy Blunt and Governor Eric Geitens, showed some sensitivity to the situation as well as a recognition that the issues are not cut-and-dried. Wagner, however, is carefully letting us know that for her, its a black and white situation and she thinks that the answer is, as it always has been, to color it blue.

Update (9/19): Well that didn’t take too long – Greitens’ restraint was too good to be true and now he’s back in prime form according to the Post-Dispatch’s Tony Messenger, playing to the deplorable gallery by poking an angry bee hive with a stick:

… we are following the lead of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who this weekend pinned a video atop his Twitter page of some of our officers in riot gear carrying a hog-tied prisoner through the streets of St. Louis. “Saturday, some criminals broke windows & thought they’d get away. They were wrong. Officers caught ’em, cuffed ’em, and threw ’em in jail,” he wrote.

I’m sure it’ll play well in the boonies and some suburbs, but shouldn’t the Governor be trying to help heal divisions, not make them worse?

When people who aren’t Nazis march without tiki torches in broad daylight in Kansas City

12 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by Michael Bersin in Resist

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#resist, Kansas City, marches, missouri, police, protest

Occupy Kansas City – October 30, 2011.

Anti-Trump rally across from City Hall – November 12, 2016.

Anti-Trump rally and march from the Liberty Memorial – January 20, 2017.

January 20, 2017.

Women’s March – Washington Square Park – January 21, 2017.

When the thin blue line is black

16 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Black Lives Matter, Jeff Roorda, missouri, police, Racial bias, St. Louis Ethical Society of Police., St. Louis Police Department, St. Louis Police Officers Association

We’ve been hearing lots about policing in relation to the African-American community. We’ve seen graphic evidence of police overreacting to small or even non-existant provocations, ending in the death of black citizens; we’ve also seen, in Dallas and here in Missouri, in the St. Louis suburb of Ballwin, retaliatory violence visited on innocent police officers who were doing their jobs in an unexceptionable and even, as in Dallas, superlative fashion.

In spite of efforts to look at and address the causes of these events in a dispassionate and fair way, lots of folks insist on using them to choose sides: it’s the black or the blue, they seem to say, you can’t be both. The situation becomes even more fraught when you realize that blue is often standing in for white, as in old, white geezers who are scared s***less by black.

But police departments are themselves black and white as well as blue. How they deal with their internal integration issues so that blue trumps both black and white can tell us a lot about the credibility, or lack thereof, of our police when it comes to questions of policing and race.

And the message we’re getting isn’t really that good. In lots of police departments neither the white nor the black police officers trust each other enough to use the same organizations to voice their concerns. That’s certainly the case with the St. Louis Police Department, the dominant PD in my region, where white officers’ views are voiced by the St. Louis Police Officers Association, and black officers are represented by the St. Louis Ethical Society of Police.

In St. Louis, the concerns voiced by the black officers’ Ethical Society reinforce the perception of a department where problems of racial bias persist. The group recently issued a report, the Comprehensive Evaluation of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD), which documented claims that the STL police force is rife “with unwritten, written, and subjective practices that have hindered their [i.e. African-American officers] professional growth.” According to the Ethical Society report, the same biases also result in less effective policing in communities of color – a problem that could be partially addressed by a police force more comfortable with diversity within its own ranks.

If you question the claims of blue-on-blue bias in St. Louis, you have only to consider the behavior of the president of the white officers organization, Jeff Roorda, whose latest breach of good taste was a twitter post blaming Barack Obama for the shootings in Dallas. Roorda has a history of borderline and sometimes overtly racist statements, pitting police against people of color. His leadership role in the STL Pollice Officers Association makes it clear why black officers do not feel that that organization can speak for them or for their community.

I suspect that similar situations may prevail, even if more subtly, in other cities where black police officers feel the need to choose separate representation. And until we have police departments that can effectively deal with the diversity within their own ranks, all officers, black and white, speaking and acting in an ultimately unified fashion, we will not be able to, prima facie, trust white officers who are charged with policing black communities, no matter how diligent and well-meaning any individual officer may be.

It’ll be a cold day in the General Assembly…

01 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2015, Ferguson, General Assembly, Michael Brown, missouri, police, prefiled bills

…if these bills ever see the light of day.

Previously: You were expecting anything different? (December 1, 2014)

Today is the first day for prefiling bills for the 2015 session of the General Assembly. Several bills obviously prompted by issues pertinent to Ferguson, Missouri have been filed:

HB 38 Requires a peace officer to attend a training course in diversity and sensitivity and a course that teaches tactics and techniques during situations of unrest and peaceful demonstrations

Sponsor: Pace, Sharon (074)

Proposed Effective Date: 8/28/2015

LR Number: 0036L.01I

Last Action: 12/01/2014 – Prefiled (H)

Bill String: HB 38

[….]

Can’t you just see an amendment offered by the majority exempting National Football League player introductions?

HB 39 Requires video cameras to be worn by uniformed police officers while interacting with the public and in police vehicles primarily used for traffic stops

Sponsor: Pace, Sharon (074)

Proposed Effective Date: 8/28/2015

LR Number: 0037L.01I

Last Action: 12/01/2014 – Prefiled (H)

Bill String: HB 39

[….]

HB 40 Requires peace officers to undergo a psychological evaluation every three years

Sponsor: Pace, Sharon (074)

Proposed Effective Date: 8/28/2015

LR Number: 0039L.01I

Last Action: 12/01/2014 – Prefiled (H)

Bill String: HB 40

[….]

A cold day indeed.

The Ferguson Commission: Change agent or spinning wheels?

25 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ferguson, Ferguson Commission, minorities, missouri, police, policing, race relations, St. Louis Metro area

A few days ago Governor Nixon announced the formation of a commission to “address the ‘social and economic conditions’ highlighted by protests after the killing of Michael Brown.” While the names of the members of the commission  have been made public, their formal charge hasn’t been released so far as I  have been able to determine. The only statement about what the Commission is supposed to achieve are the three goals that the Governor described when he stated his intention to form the Commission last month: “to study the underlying causes of the unrest, to tap into expertise needed to address those concerns, and to make specific recommendations for ‘making the St. Louis region a stronger, fairer place for everyone to live.'”

You have to admit that as detailed above, the Commission has been given a very  big task. I’m sure that the members of the Commission are all able and dedicated people and perhaps the Governor will give them a realistic, focused charge with a set of clearly delineated deliverables. And if he doesn’t, perhaps they’ll do it for themselves.

Certainly, there are lots of big issues that have to do with race, class and demographic change that need to be addressed in the St. Louis area. However, I’m not sure that sixteen folks working over six months to a year, as the Governor has described the timeframe, will provide the key to solving them. It did occur to me, though, that six months to a year is time enough to let emotions raised by the Ferguson killing cool somewhat while folks are told that their problems are being addressed somewhere off-stage. The Commission allows the Governor to claim that he is serious about change while at the same time leaving him more immediately free to pander to those who want a punitive, authoritarian response to Ferguson unrest – which the Governor signaled he intended to provide when he prematurely called out the National Guard. Nixon, like County Executive Steve Stenger who felt the need to stand in tandem with a county prosecutor tainted by a pereption of bias, knows who butters his bread – or thinks he does – and wants to make it clear to Missourians who seem to harbor unrealistic fears about the extent of the Ferguson protests that strict disciplinarian Daddy Jay won’t take no back-talk from uppity protestors.

It will be a shame if this Commission ends up as yet another missed opportunity because there is a very real, very specific problem that needs to be effectively addressed by just such a group:  police and minority relations. It is this topic that seems to me to lie at the heart of the uproar in Ferguson. And it’s not a little topic; it comprehends overt bias, police brutality, and the disrespectful exercise of power over folks who have little or no recourse against what they perceive as unfair, oppressive police. There are cultural misapprehensions on the part of both police and minority citizens that have to be expunged if our police forces are to be effectve in keeping the peace and combatting crime and we need to addres this divide if we want to see change – and unlike other the more global problems of racial relations, this issue is amenable to fairly rapid change if we give it the focused attention it needs.

Of course, the Justice Department is currently conducting a review of Ferguson police practices. However, the federal effort does not obviate the need for a local examination of policing problems that should be widened to cover the entire county and take into consideration issues relating to potential consolidation of County resources. It should be possible to work cooperatively or build on the federal efforts.

In the context of the DoJ review, it is worthwhile to note that its leader, Christy E. Lopez, has researched issues surrounding the the breakdown of police authority in minority neighborhoods, concentrating on “the ‘widespread’ problem of cops illegally arresting citizens simply because they perceived them as disrespecting their authority, which has been a common occurrence in protests in the St. Louis area over the past two months.” It’s espeially pertinent since video recently surfaced of the police officer at the heat of the Ferguson protests, Darren Wilson, throwing his official weight around in just such dishonest and disrespectful fashion. This fact alone suggests that the findings of the federal probe could profitably be mined to create an action oriented charge for our local Commission that might go a long way to changing the dynamics of police community relations in Ferguson and elsewhere in the St. Louis Metro area.

I am not suggesting that the bigger issues that devil race relations in the St. Louis area do not need to be addressed, just that we need to be smart about how we go about doing so. Making sure that goals are stated in concrete terms and can broken down into bites that are small enough to be easily digested is usually a good way to get something useful from a group. Overlarge, vague charges usually beget overlarge and vague recommendations that go nowhere and it would be a shame to see that happen this time.

WTF?

14 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ferguson, Media, Michael Brown, missouri, police

Tonight in Ferguson, Missouri, via Twitter:

Eli Rosenberg ‏@EliKMBC

“We’re dealing with 4,000 animals in there, & you want to give me attitude?” The deputy yelled, mad I was taking a pic #Ferguson #MikeBrown 8:43 PM – 13 Aug 2014

Eli Rosenberg

@EliKMBC

Reporter at KMBC 9 News….

Wall Street: they went after the wrong people

26 Monday Sep 2011

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

New York, police, Protests

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Pepper Sprayed by New York Police Department

The New York Daily News reported that over 50 arrests were made by the New York Police Department on September 24, 2011 in connection with the “Occupy Wall Street” protest movement. The same story mentioned “there were unconfirmed reports that mace may have been used” and the online story contained an embedded video that clearly shows a noxious gas being deployed by a police officer. USLaw.com’s slow motion analysis of the same video shows a senior New York Police Department officer deploying a spray cannister in an unorthodox manner on a small group that were being ‘kettle netted’ by a half dozen officers, some of whom were also affected by spray….

You know, the titans of arbitrage and other speculative financial alchemy could easily calm the seas by taking a few lousy percentage points in their top marginal tax rate. They won’t. Who do you think will spray protesters after they break public safety unions in the interest of accumulating an even higher proportion of wealth? Just asking.  

You think?

05 Tuesday Jul 2011

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alto, layoffs, police, Rick Perry, Texas

The smack your forehead meter pegged at “permanent brain damage”:

Texas Town Dismisses Police Because Of Budget Crisis

Jun. 29 2011 – 6:59 pm

“…We had to do something drastic,” says Jerry Flowers, a city councilman in Alto, Texas. “The police department,” the curiously named Mr. Flowers goes on, “being a non-money-making entity, was the easiest to get rid of while we catch our breath and build up some cash….”

[emphasis added]

Because public services are supposed to be money making enterprises?

Nobody could have anticipated this, right?:

Published: 7:40 p.m. Thursday, June 30, 2011

Robbery tried in police-less town

Four people have been caught allegedly trying to rob a bank in an East Texas town where the police force recently was laid off to save money.

The Cherokee County sheriff’s office has handled law enforcement in Alto, located 130 miles southeast of Dallas, since the City Council furloughed the five-person police department in mid-June….

June 30, 2011

Alto bank robbers caught

….The time from the initial call to the Sheriff’s Department to the time of the arrest was about 30 minutes.

The incident is still under investigation by the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department and the Rusk Police Department.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and City of Rusk civilian employees helped recover the items thrown from the car during the pursuit….

Will the Rusk Police Department send a bill to the bank? Just asking.

If he runs for president do you think Texas Governor Rick “good hair” Perry’s (r) vision for America will sell? That’d be a really nice campaign slogan:

Pray for rain, more tax breaks for the really rich, and a police force in every other town.

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