PowerPoint; #003; Police Brutality in America

Production and broadcast of PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is PowerPoint, an information age clearinghouse for issues affecting the African -American community, the nation, and the world. And now, PowerPoint's Kenneth Walker. Tonight PowerPoint looks at a sensitive issue, the relationship between black males and the police. It's a complex relationship with roots extending deep to the times of enslavement, but remains as fresh and shocking as tomorrow's headlines. The relationship between the black community and police in general is one characterized by mixed signals. Pride is intermingled with disrespect. Admiration and trust become undermined by confusion, bitterness, fear, and anger. This time on PowerPoint, excessive force. Police brutality in America. That's the theme framing

tonight's discussion and our search for answers. But first, here's PowerPoint news with Verna Avery -Brown. This is PowerPoint, news and information to empower the community. I'm Verna Avery -Brown. 80 % of the women serving time behind prison walls in this country committed nonviolent crimes, drug -related crimes such as check -kiting, burglary, or selling cocaine, crimes that don't necessarily carry a death sentence. But ironically, more and more women prisoners are paying for their nonviolent crimes with their lives. In the process of me using drugs and prostitution, I became HIV positive. Valerie Osborne was convicted of accessory to murder when she failed to notify police after witnessing a homicide. She was serving time at the community treatment facility in Washington, D .C. when I spoke with her last year about her

illness. I'm dealing with it on a day -to -day basis. How does that manifest itself? Are you ill? Well, no, I'm okay for right now, but who's to say what's gonna happen, you know, a few years from now? know, am I gonna live to see my parole date? I think about things like that. Valerie Osborne did not live to see her parole date. She died from HIV while incarcerated. Osborne's story is not uncommon. According to advocates for women prisoners, medical care for incarcerated women is sorely lacking across the country. Yesterday, demonstrators rallied outside the gates of California's Chowchilla prisons, two of the largest women prisons in the world. Today, Judy Greenspan of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners conducted a legal investigation into the prison. She spoke with PowerPoint about what she's learned about conditions on the inside. Make your hair stand on end. We have seen women die because of lack of follow -up care, we have seen women unnecessarily die of heart attacks, who kept being turned away from the

medical clinic. We have seen women become permanently disabled because they didn't have access to physical therapy that had been prescribed by outside doctors. have seen women, infections in women's legs become greenest and cause the unnecessary amputation of limbs. There's really very, very serious problems, plus women with HIV that don't receive any follow -up care, that don't get their medications. We have seen women who are HIV positive get life -saving medicines prescribed and then never receive them. So, there's a real problem between what they say they're going to do and what they actually do. How much medical care is the state legally required to provide? They're required to constitutionally provide what is the community standard of care. They are supposed to provide the type of care that someone should be able to get in an emergency room of a public hospital, and they are not. They are absolutely not women are dying needlessly. They're charging women $5

every time they go to sick call, not to see a doctor, just to go to sick call. And these are women who at best make $10 a month when they work on their jobs. So, they're, you know, and when you charge women for medical care, that's incredible deterrent to go to sick call. Judy Greenspan, a spokesperson for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, settlement from a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 5 ,000 women in California's prisons, awaits a judge's signature. Meanwhile, Greenspan and others are working to establish federal medical standards of care for women inmates. One of the organizers of the upcoming Million Woman March, a takeoff of the historic Million Man March organized by Nation of Islam leader Lewis Farrakhan in 1995, is poised to file a lawsuit against the Prince George's County Police Department. Verley Taylor is considering the suit based on what she says was a false arrest last August by several officers within the department. On August 11th, six white policemen illegally and forcibly entered into my home, barbarically and

satanistically beating my door down, holding guns on me while my terrified grandchildren, niece and cousin were screaming in horror for help. The officers, they grabbed me in my chest and they hit me in the eye with a weapon while spraying me with maize. And the officer called me a nigger and other racist name. And then the officers had invited the children to jump out the window while they were beating me and they had me handcuffed on the floor and stomping me. According to Taylor moments prior to the arrest, she received a telephone threat from a woman who identified herself as a police officer and warned Taylor that her children had been playing on the telephone. Malik Shabazz, the attorney representing Taylor's case, suspects the assaults may have stemmed from disagreements Taylor was having with the management of the apartment complex. A detective or sergeant from the Prince George's County Police formed my client Mrs. Taylor that the call to come to her apartment came from the rental office.

Mrs. Taylor had had, I guess, some disagreements with the rental office before. They were white and they had just had some disagreements with her, nothing that she had done, but just low level back and forth racial disagreements. And again, a sergeant with the Prince George's County Police affirmed that a call came from the rental office. That's correct. So this is what we believe is involved with this false allegation of children playing on the phone. So it's your belief in that because the rental office called the police and said her children were playing on the phone, the police went into her apartment and beat the door down and dragged her down the steps and injected her with something. That our investigation is focusing on that at this point. Our investigation is not complete, but they came with fire trucks and paramedics. So they obviously came knowing

that there would be a confrontation. The police reportedly transported Taylor to the hospital after the assault. However, as yet, no charges have been filed against Taylor. PowerPoint's calls to the Prince George's County Police Department were not returned in time for this broadcast. For PowerPoint News and Information, I'm Verna Avery -Brown. Welcome back, I'm Kenneth Walker. Long before millions of urban

African Americans came to be called the underclass and long before the current epidemic of black on black crime, African Americans have had a relationship with police officers that was filled with tension, fear and violence. As children, many Americans were advised that police officers were their friends, that whenever they were in trouble, they should seek out an officer of the law. For many African Americans, neither their fathers, nor their grandfathers, nor their great -grandfathers could pass on such advice in good conscience. Our mission tonight is to explore why. Why even in the fifth straight year of a decline in violent crime is this country, in this country, is police brutality, violence and killing epidemic in many areas of the country. To help us explore this crisis, we have tonight in the studio an attorney, A. Dwight Pettit, who's an attorney for the family of James

Quarles, a vendor in the city of Baltimore who was shot dead and that caught on video tape, amateur video tape that was broadcast locally and nationally. On the telephone from Los Angeles, we have Dr. Earl O 'Farre Hutchinson, a political analyst and author of The Assassination of the Black Male Image. We also have Ron Hampton on the phone. He's the president of the National Black Police Association. Is everyone with me? Yes. Yes. Is that Dr. Hutchinson there? Yes, we're here. And Ron? Ron's not yet with us, but here in the studio, we have A. Dwight Pettit. Let me start with you, Mr. Pettit. You represent now the family of a victim of the police, but you in the past represented the police department, represented other victims of police violence. First of all, in your view, is the problem of police violence, police

brutality growing? The same as it's ever been? Can I think it's growing, but I think we might find that what has really brought it to the public attention in the later years is the fact that some of these events are being captured on video and therefore the things that would normally be taken for granted when the police would have a bad shooting and so forth. And they would always, as in this case, have an excuse as to why that shooting took place. Either they were being threatened or someone was lunging at them, as they said in this particular case initially, before they discovered there was a video. Those excuses are not being able to withstand scrutiny because of the fact many of these things are actually on video. We saw in North Carolina when this lady was pulled out and the officer's video was running as she was pulled out of the car and being beaten on the street and so forth. And so maybe this is highlighted and as well as it being on the increase, it's also being brought to the public attention. We want our listeners to get in early on this discussion to offer us your

views and hopefully your ideas for a solution. Our phone number here is 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. Our email address is PowerPoint at worldafrican .com. We welcome your calls. Dr. Hutchinson, how are you this evening? Very good, yourself? Wonderful. In your book I gather that you, the assassination of the black male image, I think you relate some of this hostility, much of this hostility between the police department and African -Americans around the country to this assassination of the black male image. Can you elaborate on that for us? Well, I think one of the major things that fuels a lot of the so -called police tensions, but let's even go a step further, police abuse and outright violence, is in fact very stereotypical images that

many police officers and certainly encouraged at the highest levels in police agencies have of African -American males, particularly young black males. We know some of the things that are routinely said about them, the crime, the drugs, the violence, dereliction, the menace to society syndrome. So you've got a working officer out there on the beat that is layered and colored and always being reinforced in terms of those media perceptions of African -American males, both overtly and covertly. So when they hit that street out there many times, even though they may want to do the right thing, even though they may have the most noble sentiments, and even though they may in fact want to serve the community. And by the way, we're not just talking about white officers, we're talking about police officers that could apply to African -American, Latino officers, Asian officers too, across the board. If they are driven and if they believe many of the stereotypes that are continually reinforced in society about African -American males, then we can see what stems from that. We see the Rodney Kings, we see the Louiema in New York, we see the case

in Baltimore, we see just routinely young African -American males, and I might add increasingly young African -American females too, essentially being brutalized, being abused, and even if not the most overt kinds of things, the shootings and the beatings, all of Rodney King, just the ongoing indignities. Just the approach is totally different than the approach would be the young white middle -class males. So yes, it is fueled in large part by negative typecasting and stereotypes. We have also here in our studio tonight Michelle Quarles, who is the sister of James Quarles, the vendor in Baltimore who was shot by a Baltimore police officer. This act was recorded on videotape broadcast locally and nationally. Welcome to PowerPoint, Ms. Quarles. Thank you. Give us some sense of what you understand happened to your brother, exactly what preceded the night he was shot. Well, from my understanding is there was a lack of communication directed towards Jamie.

No one in the beginning understood why he was down there. I don't even believe that the police officers realized that he was down there as a citizen, you know, just down there, standing around, waiting for a friend in the process of that, you know, earning a few dollars just to sell some socks, you know, along the mall area. So he was just down there, know, just trying to do the right thing. He wasn't down there trying to rob or steal from anyone or causing any kind of chaos or any havoc amongst the citizens that was down there at that time. Well, as you understand it, what were some of the events leading directly up to the shooting? Well, we know that there was a young lady that went to the security officer that told him that Jamie was standing around would appear to be this religious form. And he was standing there with other people in the crowd listening to people as they spoke about

religion. She notified the security person that he had a knife and from conversation that I have had with her, she wasn't threatened by him, but she just wanted the security people to go and advise him to put the knife away. Well, the security people contact called the police department and once they responded, it just seemed like it was just a total misunderstanding. They approached him around the crowd of people that had to walk up to him, touched him on his back. As he turned around, he stood in the same position that you see on the videotape. He had the knife in his left hand and the socks in his right hand. And after that, it was just put the knife down. And I believe that he was getting mixed signals from the police officers as they told him.

one officer appeared to be on the scene and he had everything under control, which had appeared to me on the videotape that I saw also from the videotape that Jamie was responding to that police officer order. And then it wasn't until a second officer came on the scene, officer Smothers, who all of a sudden felt as though that the police officer that was there wasn't qualified enough to handle the situation, told him to back away and then he took control of the situation. From the videotape, you can see that Jamie never made any movement towards the officer or to the crowd, that the police officer dominated the entire area. They set the parameters in which Jamie stood. basically, the next thing you know is the state's attorney said that time went by and he never responded to their orders. And which from the videotape and as I know him, he did respond it. He responded to them

in several ways where he attempted to put the knife down. He raised back up and I believe because he raised back up that he was getting different orders from different police officers to... And he just got confused in your opinion. think we're joined now by Ron Hampton, who's the president of the National Black Police Association. Ron, are you with us? Yes, sir. And that's me, executive director. Executive director of the National Black Police Association. I want to invite each of our guests, by the way, to remember that this is a conversation and while I certainly have questions, you may hear something you wish to respond to from one of the other guests or call her in and I invite you to do that. But Ron, now that you're with us, give us some sense of where, first of all, your organization comes out on the basic issue of police brutality. Well, we're opposed to it and we're opposed to those who committed regardless of who they are, what color they are, what sex they are. We're opposed to police brutality,

an organization that's made up of police officers and I had the pleasure of serving the citizens of the District of Columbia for, you know, 23 years. And I know that the kind of things that we're seeing in our police departments in our cities around the country are something that's been going on for a very long time. I think Earl hit it on the head. It's something that is systemic to the issue of policing in this country when it comes to people of color and poor people and the communities that they live in. I think it's gotten worse myself. I remember there was a time when the officers were much more constrained with their behavior. There was some attention to an attempt to be sensitive to these type of issues. What's changed? Well, I think a number of things have changed. I think politicians

have had a great deal to do with the change when we have people like Giuliani talking about zero tolerance and trotting out that you can do these kind of things because ultimately they're going to make communities safe. the fact of the matter is that they continue to further victimize the very people who not only communities but themselves are victims of crime, drugs and violence. I think that there's no social will because we're pitted in our society to rich against the poor, the black against the white, the middle class against the poor people. In a society where we're led to believe that crime is so pervasive that in order for the police to deal with it that we got to give up our rights and privileges in order to be safe in the very communities that we live in. And I mean there are a number of examples where I think that that's the case. Also this whole notion,

I don't believe that there's no social or political will to do anything about police brutality because all of this evidence that's out there that shows that we can hide more police, we can send more police in there. We can make arrests and somehow know that's going to have an impact and that when crime ultimately is reduced, that the people who take credit for it are the police rather than the citizens. we know that police can't even solve crime or address crime unless they work with citizens. And really, citizens are the ones who solve crime. You're listening to PowerPoint. The issue is police brutality. And our number here is 1 -800 -989 -8255. We invite you to join the discussion. Dr. Hutchinson, in the course of your study of this whole issue and the issue of the assassination of the blackmail image, which is the title of your book, have you had the occasion to consider how the black

police officer figures into all of that? Yes, I have. As a matter of fact, not just in the assassination of the blackmail image, but in earlier book, The Mugging of Black America, I have a whole section on that, looking at policing, but specifically black officers and how they're involved with that. Both the pros and the cons and all points in between. And also out in Los Angeles, too, I work very closely with the Black Officers Association, LAPD out here called the Oscar Joe Bryan Association. No many of them, and certainly I'm well aware of the problems that they face. And really, when I look at a black officer, I'm almost reminded of someone who's eternally stranded in space between two places. There are many African American officers that certainly go on the force. They have very good intentions. Many of them will tell you, we join the police force because we want to serve the community. We want to protect the community. We want to be the guardians and protectors of the African American community. High noble ideals and aims. Problem is, once they get in this system, and certainly Ron is well aware of this, his many years with the DC police, it's a

system. It's bigger than an individual. There are certain codes of conduct. There are certain procedures and etiquette, and then the mentality that goes with it. So after a while, what happens, you may take someone who may be as pristine and noble in their intentions as St. Paul and Mother Teresa together, but after a while, that corruption sets in, the conduct and the pressure to conform, and that regimentation, and that militarization which goes into it. So after a while, it's almost like they made a Faustian pact. They sold their soul to the devil. The things that they went in there, pristine, uncorrupted, noble, pure, after a while, they find themselves in many cases. I don't want to over -generalize. There are still many that still try to do the right thing. I mean, you hit on them, it's also as simple as that the police department don't pay people in the department to be activists in the avocation of... In fact, Ron, many police departments penalize them, don't they? You have to worry about

promotions, in some case death threats, some case retaliation from other officers. What about this idea of the code of silence? Oh, it exists. It exists so much so in policing in a much more dangerous form because you could work for IBM and be a whistleblower and you might be under the threat of harassment and other things, but when you blow the whistle on somebody who you work with who wears a gun and then also has the power and authority to use a gun against you and if they kill you, then it's only going to be one start. And I mean, Frank Sifico can talk about that. He was the detective in New York City who testified about corruption among the New York City police, right? That's exactly right. so it's a very real thing. And I know they talk about it. People talk about it as if there's somehow another that is not serious or that they have overcome this code of silence. And it's still very much

alive and well. And it continues to be very strong. Mr. Pettit, as an attorney who is active in these kinds of issues, is it your sense that the number of suits and the dollar amount of awards is going up over the years? I think it is. I think they are rather. The suits are increasing throughout the country. I think the dollar amounts. But the thing about it that still doesn't have the or appear to have the impact of causing any type of disease or slowing down of what's taking place. I think until you have the police departments where they're going to be real repercussions, meaning until you have some type of oversight in terms of civilian review boards where they can really take action against individual police departments, individual police officers. Until you have active grand juries, for example, that are actually going to indict rather than just saying we find as a matter of fact that there is no police misconduct. I think

those are the type of repercussions and penalties that we have to look forward to in terms of impacting the systems and the police departments because obviously they're not going to clean house. They're not going to police themselves. So I don't think, Ken, if your question is, is this increase in civil action or monetary damages? Is that having significant impact in fact to confront the issue or the question and to subside it? I think not. I think we have to look forward to real active grand juries in terms of investigatory processes, which we did not get in the case in Baltimore City. I think real active juries in terms investigatory did get

in Baltimore I juries City. That's right. What happens is liability is assumed by the city and or the county and or the state. So as a result of that, you know, it's a minor inconvenience for the officer involved. there's no, there's no financial repercussions. That's right. We're going to go to the phones. But before we do, I want to remind you our number here is 1 -800 -989 -8255. The issue is police brutality. We're going to go to Walter in Washington, D .C. listening at Sister Station W -E -A -A -F -M. Welcome, Walter. Welcome to me and to you. Hey, this is, this is good to Dr. Hutchinson, to my brother Ron, who I've met in D .C. play times, and to Mr. Pettit, peace and respect to the Qualls family and to the other victims of this police murders. That goes on daily in the United Snakes of America. But my problem, fellas, is this. We have a community. Walter, before you get to that point, I've just been informed that we have to take a quick break, but stand by. Yes. with us, and we'll get right back to you. No way. In the meanwhile, our issue

here is police brutality. Our number is 1 -800 -989 -8255, and we'll be with you when we come back. Internet services for PowerPoint are provided by World African Network. Offering news, information. PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund. Welcome

back. I'm Kenneth Walker. This is PowerPoint. The issue is police brutality. To Walter, our last caller from Washington, D .C., I want to apologize. I accidentally hung up on you. Call us back and we'll put you right through. But in the meanwhile, let's go to Ramia, I believe, is how it's spelled, out of Atlanta. Hello? Hello? Hello, are you with us? Let's try Johnny in Baltimore. Johnny, are you with us? We're having some difficulty there, but let's continue the discussion here in the studio while we get those worked out. Ron, on the issue of the brutality question, I'm beginning to sense that black police officers themselves are increasingly becoming the victims of brutality by other officers, some in undercover situations. I think there were

two infamous cases in New York City where undercover black officers were shot, seriously injured. To what extent do black police officers have to contend with this kind of thing on a regular basis? Well, this has been going on for a long time. There's a brother that has retired from the New York City Police Department there who has put together and collected some information and documentation on the number of, not just in New York City, but all over the country. And then one magazine here, a couple of Emerge magazines a year before last did a big piece on east coast, west coast, north and south. African -American officers assault this shot as a result of undercover work along with also just being off duty and seeing something out there on the street happening and then respond to it and then you get mistaken for the criminal. And see, that's because, again,

this whole notion that Earl raises in his book about African -Americans are demonized, they're criminalized. And so when the police see them, then all of a sudden, rather than to think that this person who's out there trying to help someone is a good Samaritan or a police officer, a good Samaritan, this is a criminal, so I'm going to shoot them because they're conditioned to believe that in the socialization process. And it happens on the east coast, the west coast, north and south. And it's not just a new phenomenon, it's one that has been around for an awful long time. So we're under a double threat, not just in terms of the kind of racism and discrimination, but then we're also endangered as a result of the people we work with every day seeing us as criminals because they're socialized to see us as criminals. And then that stuff is even internalized by African -Americans and Hispanics and Asians on police departments, so they come to see us. Ron, let me piggyback on that if I might just for a second. I've done a lot of work also, not only in the civil and criminal aspect, but a lot

of work in terms of the profile stops. And when you talk in terms of black police officers being undercover, it's very interesting because that goes in many cases to exactly what that profile is for the criminal in whatever particular urban jurisdiction or urban area. Young black male, this case has been litigated throughout the country and has gone to the Supreme Court in many instances, but they say they don't do profile stops, but we know the profile is very, very much a tool. In many cases, the young black undercover officer is falling, I would think, right into that profile, which is making him the target rather than being considered an assistant. That's exactly right. You and Earl were talking about earlier this whole issue around liability. Let me tell you what the state of Massachusetts did recently. And that is that they talked about that they have a provision where they will not indemnify officers who commit criminal acts

while performing their police duties. And that's where we have to go. We have to begin to go into the pockets of those individuals who commit these acts. I mean, I think we have to have a multi -pronged approach. need strong for being reviewed. We need accountability in the police department. We need to get rid of people. When people commit acts, they need to be fired. I understand the civil aspect in terms of the pockets and having an impact, I think unless you have strong prosecutors who are independent and willing to say, hey, if a person acts illegally, if he acts out of bounds of law, he will face criminal sanctions and criminal penalties. Until you have that, then they really don't feel any type of repercussions are coming forth. Let's go to the phones, please. We're going to go to Lucille, who's talking to us out of Montgomery, Alabama, from Sister Station WVAS. Lucille, are you with us? Yes, I am. to PowerPoint. It's very obvious, as you stated, that the frequency and the amount of awards does not mean anything. Many years, this has been going

on in L .A. from Debtwalder with Johnny Cochran many years ago, and prior to that, it does not reduce it. What we need is community policing. It's time that people stop coming in, like troopers and SS troops who live 100 miles away in Simi Valley, Long Island, come in with the they and them mentality. We need severe review. It's no point of talking about more cases. I felt so sorry for the cause, lady, but did her brother really have a death wish? Why was he standing with a weapon in his hand? Let me cut you off right there. just can't let that go down. It wasn't a weapon. In Maryland, you can carry a knife under certain circumstances. He was not doing anything illegal. I didn't say he Many times the paper said he was brandishing a weapon or whatever. That weapon only becomes illegal if you're threatening bodily injury to another person. He was standing on the street. You can go down the street in terms of the shipyard. You can see men with daggers using them, large knives,

and they were cutting ropes and what have you. He was using that knife in the process of opening up the bags to take out the socks. He was doing nothing wrong. sounded like he was out of it. He was listening to a sermon. There was nothing in his blood. Nothing came back. I'm not trying to blame him. I just want to make sure we have the record straight. There was nothing in his blood. There was no alcohol. There was no type of narcotics substance. He had no criminal record. He was using the knife in the process of a vendor. He was startled. He was like the deer in the headlights. He was startled and he did not know what to do. He froze. That officer became judge of death and executed him on the spot and murdered him when this young man was all he was trying to do was find the best way to comply with the confused situation and get that knife on the ground. Every witness that I talked to said he was in the process of putting the knife on the ground. His hand was coming open. The knife was touching the ground at the time he was killed. But Lucille, know you had three concrete suggestions

about what can be done about this problem. And I think that they are particularly pertinent because they are actually among the suggestions put forward by a group called the National Emergency Conference on Police Brutality and Misconduct. By the way, 22nd, they are scheduled all across the country rallies, meetings, conferences on this issue of police brutality. But let me for the benefit of our listeners and our guests read just the brief. May I ask one other question? Yes, but hold that thought just for a moment, okay? There are eight things that the National Emergency Conference on Police Brutality and Misconduct think ought to be done. I think, Lucille, you hit three of them. Those eight are, they want hearings on the issue of police brutality in the Congress of the United States. They want local police departments to be required to collect and compile statistics data on the total number of civilian complaints of police brutality. They demand that the Justice Department publish an annual report with statistics and data on the number of civilian complaints and disciplinary action taken as it relates to police brutality, killings, and misconduct. They want residency

requirements for police officers in local areas. They want the creation of civilian complaint review boards with subpoena power, independent prosecutors, and enforcement powers. They want police officers to be held to a strict standard of accountability. They should be, according to this list, those who are accused or indicted of brutality and killings, jury trials should be mandatory. They encourage, finally, that local citizens and organizations hold candidate forums for persons seeking elective office to determine their positions on combating police brutality. Those are the eight issues suggested by the National Emergency Conference on police brutality and misconduct. Lucille hit three of those. We invite our guests and our listeners to come forward with any other suggestions or variations of these themes that they may have in mind. Lucille, you have one other question. Can we have it quickly? Should

black people be involved as police officers in the criminal justice system at all? Do they not become blue rather than remain black? And the other wish list that you have without enforcement, people inherit what ice water? That's true. That's very true. Thank you so much, Lucille. I guess, Ron, you're the logical person to take on Lucille's last question. Given the pressures in the police department against African American officers, given the kind of that you guys fit the profile, Dr. Hutchinson points out, what's the point? Well, I mean, I think that there was a time where I would have been early in the history of this country before there was a decent environment. One, not even welcome environment, but a decent environment, I would have supported that position. But at some point or another, in order for change to take place inside the institution, someone has to be in there to

start that change. The process has to confront the racism, the white supremacist mentality that existed, has to begin to do the kind of things. I take pride in the fact that I did not permit those things to happen, that I spoke out against police brutality inside the institution. Citizens, and I know an awful lot of people who are involved in the police accountability movement, knocking on the door on the outside of this closed society. But I also know that officers like myself and other officers all over the world of African descent who are speaking out, are refusing to permit police brutality to take place, it doesn't happen once you take that stand. Once you draw the line, it doesn't happen in your presence. The problem is that we don't have enough African American officers or officers of good will willing to take that position because of the real threat of on your life and your family if you begin to speak out. But we wouldn't be able to have that level of impact on this problem if we all

boycotted and refused to join the police department. Then the white boys of this world would have the police state that we, that I think we really in now because again, the majority, we like to think that the majority of police officers are good and that the bad apples are about 5%. And I mean, I agree with that, but the fact of the matter is that the 95 % stand around and watch the 5 % do bad things and don't do anything about it. Then what does that say about the 95 %? Ken, I'd also like to add something on that too, from two experiences I had to bring a little bit more body to that. First of all, I think African Americans do need to be on police forces. And I'll tell you why, whether we like it or not, you know, we can criticize all day and we should point out all the problems that are there. But the fact is, people want police. The fact is, police do serve a purpose if they do it right. And I think it's an institution that we're stuck with in our society as long as you have crime and violence. So I think we have to be realistic about that. It is a democratic right. African Americans should be in, as Ron said, they should be in there and they need support. We had black

officers after the riots in LA in 1992 that begged. mean, literally came to meetings and I sat in on some of the meetings. I sat there and listened to a number of African American officers on the LAPD saying, you know, we want to speak out within the Los Angeles Police Department about what's going on, everything we're talking about here. But who's going to support us? Where's the organization to back us up and we stick our neck out there? And where's the community that's always talking about, you know, effective policing, justice in the police force. When we take a stand, is the community going to support us? I mean, you know, there's a lot of things that go into that. one other thing, Willie Williams, who was the police chief out here, African American chief, first one LA's ever had. There were a lot of problems with him, admittedly. lot of criticism, some inflated and exaggerated and some valid. But one thing I did notice in Watts South Central LA, which is certainly a major black Latino area in the United States. I noticed that in the latter two years of his administration, despite all the flaws and the problems, I noticed that there was a definite sea change in terms of the attitudes of cops on the street.

The brutality did go down. The shootings went down. The beatings went down. And there was much more of a cooperative spirit that was there. So someone can make a difference if they have the right attitude and consciousness. Let me try to bring Ms. Quarles back into the discussion. Randall Kennedy, a professor of law at Harvard University, has a book called Race, Crime and the Law. And he has a significant amount of it dedicated to the idea that black communities for many years, historically in America, have suffered from under protection by the police and over enforcement in their communities. I want to get a sense of what you and perhaps your friends and family in the area where you live, your sense is of the level of police protection from actual crime going on, and then as opposed to what your experience is when they actually show up. Well, basically in my area where I live at, I have had the occasion where I had to call a police in. One thing that I did realize is that they were not of my community.

They were from the outskirts of the surroundings of where I live. One reason why I'm saying that is because it was a situation where I needed the police officer to go down to the school, which was in a ten block radius of where I live. He had no idea where the school was located. And his comment to me was that, oh, well, we don't get very many calls from their school area, so it must not be a troubled school. So I was pretty, like, disappointed that he did not even know the community. And I have police officer who are friends of mine. And they basically told me that normally the police officer comes from normally the county and out of areas they really don't live in the city. So they really don't have any interaction within the city. As far as the area where James Qualls was killed, that's a mall area. Shopping mall. Well, you could consider a shopping mall area.

normally it's a lot of vendors down there, a lot of people that are less fortunate than some people are. And I believe that the reason why they came in the way that they did that day is because they do not have any respect for the people that comb that area. That's an area where they would like to see like a low key area. It's not a high crime area, but there are certain individuals within the boundaries of that area that they particularly care not to be there. So I believe that was one reason why they came in there and why they handled the situation in a hostile manner that day. Our phone number here is 1 -800 -989 -8255. Our subject is police brutality. Mr. Pettit, again, as a

lawyer who's involved in these kinds of cases, you would think that over time that solutions begin to be built into institutions for problems. That after losing so much money, after so much outcry, after so many deaths, things would start to get solved. Why is this dynamic missing in this area of police violence? Well, I think what is happening over the years and goes back to one of the questions that Ron and Earl were entertaining. We cannot advocate from the system as black people, and so therefore we have become involved. We have become involved not only as police officers, which is a necessity, but we've become involved as judges. We've become involved as prosecutors. When I first started practicing law in Baltimore City 25 years ago, we might have had maybe two black prosecutors on a whole prosecutorial force of 150 people. I think we had three black judges on the circuit court out of 25. Those numbers have changed tremendously, and

that, of course, helps us in terms of protecting our own within the system. In fact, at one point I even ran for state's attorney myself in Baltimore City and was up for U .S. attorney. But beyond that, what has happened in America, this shift in terms of this hysteria being created in terms of what has happened with narcotics and what have you, that crime is on the rampage, that crime is under control, that zero tolerance, as Ron said earlier, that all these other factors have shifted the pendulum back to where there is an over -aggressive and zealousness that we are, in fact, the victims, or we are, in fact, perpetrators instead of the victims, and therefore the police action has come down harsher in the black community. Over -aggressiveness, over -zealousness, our topic is police brutality. This is PowerPoint. We'll continue with our guests, A. Dwight Pettit, an attorney from Baltimore City, Michelle Quarles, a survivor of a gentleman who was killed by police action. Ron Hampton, executive director of the National Black Police Association, and Dr. Earl Hutchinson from Los Angeles,

when we come back. I'm Kenneth Walker. Welcome back to PowerPoint where we're discussing police brutality, police violence, police killing. We're going to go to the phones. We have Ramia, I believe it's how it's pronounced from Atlanta, Georgia, with sister station WCLK. Ramia? Yes. Welcome to PowerPoint. Thank you. Good evening and enjoying your brothers

and sisters and your comments and your insight. It seems that police brutality is just another form of keep them in a place that sort of came out the slavery issue, the control of the people. kill one and keep the fear in the heart of the people. And I like to know, the stress from working on the street a sustained period of time, does this play into this at all? And if it does, is it possible to rotate people out of positions and back to the street or is it possible to juggle positions like that to ameliorate the condition? the sister brought up another point. I have two questions. I hope I'm not... Let's take that one first. Stand by. You get a chance to answer this. Ask the second one. All right. But I imagine, Ron, but any of you who cares to take a shot at that question about whether there's some adjustment that can be made in the working conditions of police officers to minimize police violence? I had to be honest. I'm going to tell you, I found, and this is my experience,

I've talked to other African -American police officers, I found the institution was oppressive. Not only did I find the institution oppressive, but I also found that just the general working conditions of policing from an institutional standpoint was a problem that I had. I didn't have any problem working in the street, working in my community. I lived in the same community. I worked in. walked to work. People knew I was a police officer. And I just generally enjoyed my job, and I didn't have the stress because the way I went about doing my job, I didn't have that level of stress. Well, Dr. Hutchinson, Ron talks about the institution that's being the problem. How do you really separate today's problem from the historical role that police officers, law enforcers, have had in the maintenance of the system of white supremacy in the United States? Well, it's very difficult because I think, as the caller said before, you have to look at the

nature of policing anyway, just moving away from the issue of black and white, even the issue of abuse. Essentially, the police are there basically to protect property and maintain order. That is a function of a police department in any system, in any society. Okay, when you start with that proposition, then you move out from there. First of all, who is a police officer generally? Generally, you don't find the white middle class in the context of America. Generally, you find the working class, usually white working class, now increasingly black working and Latino working class. So right away, you've got a class point of view. And generally, when we're talking about preserving law and order and maintaining the establishment and the state and property and all of that, you're talking about money and power there. In other words, you already know the lines are pretty much clear. So when we come to this troubling issue about what can be done, yes, you can say implement more sensitivity classes. Yes, you can talk about requiring cops to live in an area. Yes, you can talk about grand juries. Yes, you can talk about more community input advisory boards. And by the way, in many places, these things are being done, but we still have this discussion because fundamentally,

it doesn't change what that institution is about. So I think one of the major things that really has to happen is continually, know, Communion Ron said this early on in the game, that you're really talking about if you see who solves crime, i .e. the public and the community and citizens, then that also indicates to me what is going to go into structural change, namely people in the political process getting involved and saying this is what we want of our police department in our particular area. And I think those are, then you will see that kind of change, but it's not going to come from inside. You've got to come from outside. That's right. We're going to take another call. We're going to go to Ernest from Baltimore at Sister Station W -E -A -A. Ernest, are you with us? Yeah, I'm going to return to Baltimore City Police. Welcome to PowerPoint, Ernest. And I think like Mr. Dwight Pettit, who was a strong brother, that was a bad shooting down Lexington Market. But the state attorney had a problem in that because that it was been a number of bad shootings of African -Americans in Baltimore City where black people did not complain and no one was prosecuted.

And only because this thing was on tape that gave African -American people the courage to speak out. furthermore, that black people, we asked for a lot of things. This war on drugs. We're asking the president of the city council with African -American is for zero tolerance. The legislature down in Annapolis, the African -Americans put across the seatbelt law knowing that just recently that the state police is in a litigation now where they arbitrarily stops and search African -American people in a racist manner. But we as African people, we allow these things to go on. We know that the war on drugs is a war on African -American people. We know that drug deals and the people that sell drugs and bring this devastation among us are criminals and something needs to be done to them seriously. When you say, Ernest, we allow these things to happen, meaning I suppose police brutality, what do you mean by that?

And what could we be doing differently to prevent it? Well, let's put it, you know, in New York, the African -American, I mean, the African people from Haitian, that were from Haiti, when Abner and Ouina was brutalized and almost was murdered, was attempted murder on Abner and Ouina. They had two, the streets was loaded with people, 200 ,000, I think, 200 ,000 people marching in New York. All over the country, have people, black people that's been murdered. It's not just in Baltimore City, you have Johnny Gammage and black people are very quiet when it comes to these things. But we also have to recognize this. It's something that Thurgood Marshall said, and we have to hold black people accountable when they're on airways. Now, this brother, Ron Hampton, I've been following him. I met him in Baltimore when a sergeant died who was in the Vanguard Justice Society, and I

told him how much I loved and respected him because of way he acted on television. But, with all due respect, I saw Dr. O 'Farrie Hutchison on Geraldo, but we had four white, perjurists, police officers, Furman, Lang, Phillips, and that other guy, I mean. Ernest, we're going to have to cut you off there. No, we don't have time, I'm sorry, but we do thank you for your points, and hopefully you can get back to us. We are running out of time, but as we know communication is the key, and if you want to communicate with us to share ideas, suggest stories, or topics for the show, write PowerPoint at Post Office Box 451385 Atlanta, Georgia. Zip Code 31145, or email us. The address is PowerPoint at worldafrican .com. I'm Kenneth Walker.

This is PowerPoint. PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund. is PowerPoint, a production of Hicks & Associates. This is Public Radio, and you're listening to PowerPoint. Our program will continue in just a moment. This is PowerPoint, an information age

clearinghouse for issues affecting the African American community, the nation, and the world. And now, PowerPoint's Kenneth Walker. Welcome back to PowerPoint. I'm Kenneth Walker with StudioGuest, who will help us look at the social impact, legislation, and other issues that must be addressed in any discussion about police violence. Here's a question to think about. In a violent society, how do we define excessive force by the police? These and other pertinent questions frame our discussion, and as always, we'll take your calls for questions, comments, and ideas. These are your stories, your voices. Our search for answers begins again right after PowerPoint News with Verna Avery -Brown. This is PowerPoint, news and information to empower the community. I'm Verna Avery -Brown. What may have been one of the largest religious rallies in U .S. history took place yesterday in Washington, D .C. The Promise

Keepers, an all -male evangelical Christian movement founded by former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney, flooded into the nation's capital to rededicate themselves to their wives and their children. Speakers recited the failings of Christian men from moral impurity and family abuse to sectarianism and racism. Yesterday's gathering of the predominantly white organization was noticeably diverse. A sociology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, says the government's attempt to counter the crack cocaine epidemic with harsh sentencing laws and mass imprisonment of racial minorities has made it an accomplice, not a solution. In his book, Crack in America, Demon, Drugs, and Social Justice, Craig Rearman cites a 1997 Rand Corporation study that found investing $1 million in drug treatment would cut consumption and reduce crime 15 times as much as investing the same amount in mandatory minimum prison sentences. Communities around the country are

rising up against what they believe to be an increase in overzealous behavior on the part of police officers. On October 22, activists in 40 cities across the U .S. will participate in the annual National Day to Stop Police Brutality. James Lafferty, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, is one of the organizers. PowerPoint asked Lafferty if police brutality is actually on the rise or merely perceived to be because of increased media coverage of cases like Rodney King and, more recently, the beating of Haitian immigrant Abner Luima. It's a fair question. Part of the problem that we're discovering here at the National Lawyers Guild is that people do not keep accurate figures. For example, we're sponsoring something called the Stolen Lives Project. This is an effort of the National Lawyers Guild and the October 22nd people to learn the names of everyone murdered by the police in the last five or six years or so in this country. And you would think that would be some information readily obtained from the Justice Department. Not so. And so we've been having to gather this information the hard way. We know that there have been

thousands of people killed, but we don't really know how many. With respect to police abuse itself, we know that in some cities it goes up or down depending on any number of circumstances. If you look at the amount of millions of dollars being awarded in claims, that can sometimes give you some idea of whether police abuse is going up or down over the long haul. But these figures are not accurately kept. It's kind of a dirty secret in this country. part of what October 22nd and part of what the Stolen Lives Project is about is trying to uncover the truth about the real degree of police brutality. Well, now when a person is killed, they don't list on the death certificate that he was killed by police abuse. So how do you make sure that your accounting, your documentation is accurate? Very difficult. And we don't pretend that we can do that at this point. What we do attempt to do is get the police reports, talk to whatever witnesses we can, do whatever kind of investigation we can with respect to the incidents that come to our attention. In some cases,

they've been well documented because their lawsuits have been brought off of this shooting, and so we have a fair amount of evidence to go on. many cases, the police departments of cities have paid money to the victims, thereby acknowledging, if you will, that the shooting and the murder was wrong. But we cannot in all cases make a full determination because the folks who should be making these kinds of determinations, the justice department and the police departments of our... and the country can't be trusted to make that determination objectively either. James Lafferty, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, an organizer of the October 22nd National Day to Stop Police Brutality. In Chicago's Cabrini Greens infamous housing projects, there's a growing movement, literally. It's an experiment in biodynamic farming, and it involves children who live in Cabrini Greens. Then Underwood, a father of 10, is co -founder of the project. He's in Charlestown, West Virginia today for a conference on urban

farming. PowerPoint spoke with Underwood about the Cabrini Greens. It's an inner city gardening project using children from the inner city to grow gourmet vegetables, organically growing gourmet vegetables to sell to restaurants in the area, which I have to say are some of the most expensive restaurants that you could imagine. They buy from the children that live in Cabrini Greens. Exactly. What do you grow? Greens? What do we grow? No, not really. We grow specialty crops. Pink tomatoes, purple potatoes, miniature size, cucumber squash, carrots, the real tiny things that the chefs go crazy about. Those little teeny corns that you see? You're kidding. often wonder who grew those. grow stuff like squash blossoms and other edible flowers.

Edible flowers? Edible flowers, yes. So now they're called sort of designer vegetables, aren't they? The designer veggies. Now, how do you grow designer veggies, organically grown designer veggies in the heart of Cabrini Greens? I would think that the soil itself would be so polluted or contaminated. When they built the housing projects over 40 years ago, they hauled all the old topsoil away and brought in good topsoil. When they put those buildings in, they were like 15, 16 -story buildings. They hauled all that stuff out and they brought in really good soil. And when we started the project about seven years ago, spent a lot of money on soil testing and found out that our soil was some of the best around. Dan Underwood, co -founder of the Cabrini Greens Urban Farming Project, he's hoping to replicate this urban farming program in cities around the country. For

PowerPoint News and Information, I'm Verna Avery -Brown. Welcome back to PowerPoint. I'm Kenneth Walker, and our topic is police brutality. Continuing with this discussion is Ron Hampton. He's the executive director of the National Black Police Association. Yvonne Estime, who's the executive director of the National Organization for the Advancement of Haitians. Father Lawrence Lucas, a Black Roman Catholic priest in New York City. He's a chaplain at Rikers Island Prison and a counselor to many police officers. Father Lucas has also been extremely outspoken against police brutality in New York City. Everyone, welcome. Father, there? Father, are you there? Yes, can you hear me? Yes, I can

now. What about you, Ron? Are you still with us? Ron Hampton, are still with us? Yes, I'm still here. Great, I'm glad to have all three of you here. I want to remind our listeners to please get in on this discussion. Our number here is at 1 -800 -989 -8255. Our email address is powerpointatworldafrican .com. Miss Estime, you represent the organization for the Advancement of Haitians. Could you begin by giving us... Most of us have probably heard about the story involving Mr. Louima in New York City, but for those of us who haven't, can you give us some sense of what that case was about? Certainly. Mr. Louima was returning from a party in Brooklyn, New York on the night of August 9th, 1997. There was some sort of scuttle that occurred outside the nightclub, and at that point, from our understanding, the police

arrived, and there was a confrontation between Mr. Louima and the police officer. He was then taken into a police car, and as far as we understand, he was beaten in the police car, me, from the location to the police precinct, and then when he was taken into the police precinct, we understand that his pants were pulled down around his ankles. He had been handcuffed. He was exposed, he was nude, exposed in the precinct, and then he was eventually taken to the men's room, at which point a plunger, the handle of a plunger, was forcefully jammed into his rectum, causing severe internal damages to Mr. Louima. Mr. Louima is still hospitalized, and he is recuperating from his wounds. We do not know whether or not he will ever recover completely from the damages caused by this attack. Ron, give us some sense about what really is going on with other

police officers in a situation like this. Since Mr. Louima's injury, have been two officers in New York who were arrested for directly being involved, and I imagine several others were at the very least suspended because they didn't do anything. What on earth can be going on in the minds and the environment at a police precinct among the other officers not directly involved in that kind of thing about what they should be doing? Well, I think that the fact that there was inaction, the fact that the screams, the brutal beating that took place on the way from the scene to the police present are indications of the systematic, systemic problem that exists in the police department around these very issues. And when we talk about, there are those who want to talk about this as an aberration that somehow or another, this is bad and this is not reflective of what happens every day. It is because the culture, the environment has to be in place, the

value system has to be in place to permit ultimately that they would perform in that fashion, and then not only just do it, but know that they could get away with it. And then the rest of the officers, I mean, again, that's evidence that there's a culture there that says that these kind of things can take place and do take place. And officers just go along with it because they don't want to. They don't want to tell because they know telling the results of telling all the police officers who did it would be worse than anything else. that's evidence, again, that that exists. I would tell you that to me, the most disgraceful thing about this is that nobody questioned the screams and the holler that took place in the police precinct. And this seemed like, to me, was the usual deal, apparently. That's exactly right. And anybody who believes less than that is inhuman. mean, it's unbelievable. those kind of things happen. mean, remember working as a police officer the

first time I reported a police officer. A police brutality was when they had brought in some kids from shooting crap out on the street. They bring them in the precinct and the police just kept talking and then he turned around and hit the police. then all of a sudden, when all of the police jump on them and start beating them, we managed to get the police off of them. The fact of the matter was that when the story went down, the police story was that the defendant struck the police without provocation. Without provocation. Now, that wasn't what I said. That wasn't in my documentation. I said that the police officer taunted the citizen and kept taunting him and then with frustration, the citizen struck the police. I want to remind each of our guests, Ms. Estime Ron, Father Lucas, that this is a conversation. And obviously, I have questions. But if you feel or hear something you want to react to or respond to, feel free. But Father Lucas, I do want to have a specific question for you. are chaplain at Rikers Island Prison

and a counselor to many police officers. You're kind of standing in the gap, as it were. And I'm wondering from that vantage point how it is you see the alleged or potential victims of police brutality, their view on that side of the situation as well as, you know, the police officers. I mean, just what is your unique viewpoint on the situation here? Well, first of all, I've been a Roman Catholic pastor in the Holland community in I was born and raised. I've been a pastor for over 30 years before I'm now full -time with the New York City Department of Correction. But I've also been chairperson for the Public Safety Committee of Community Board 10, which covers most of Central Harlem. I've been before the hostile takeover euphemistically called Merger when we had three distinct police departments

in the city of New York. One state, one the MTA, the transit police and the housing police. I was their chaplain and also chaplain to the Grand Council of Guardians and chaplain to the eastern region of the National Black Police Association. Hi, Ron. How you doing? And these kinds of things that give a particular vantage point both from the police side and the citizen side. One of the things you have to remember is that most of the police that allegedly serve the poor communities, the poor communities of color particularly, are not residents of those communities. For example, in New York, because the PBA, which we refer to not as the Police Benevolent Association, but as the Police Brutality Association, spends lots of money on the state legislature and you would think that we have home rule in the city. We do not. And they have consistently prevented a residency requirement so that the large number of the police,

particularly in our communities, come from not only outside the city, but from white neighborhoods where their only relationship with people of color is to watch on television where they're in handcuffs. And they come in with totally racist attitudes and very little respect for anybody in the community as long as you're of color, or you speak a different language, particularly Spanish. Now with that kind of thing, and then you have almost a clone of the original Adolf Hitler in the mayor of the city of New York. This is the mayor who practically led a police riot in City Hall during the administration that David Dinkins called him every name but a child of God. There were actual, the N -word. Nick was used by many of these officers on recorded videotape television during that That's correct. In fact, some of them were so drunk they were openly drinking beer and that kind of thing during that. That up a young kid in the subway. But with that kind of mentality, you see, as the original Hitler, if you remember,

that the police did no wrong under the Hitler regime because in order to create a police state, in order to dictate it, to survive, you need a police state. And that means that the police, as long as you deal with the designated victims, you're going to be protected. And that has been the ammo of this present administration. It wasn't by coincidence. For example, one of the animals beating up on Luima was heard to say that this is not Dinkins time, it's Juliani's time. That's right. Now in typical lying fashion, he denied it at first until one of the astute reporters took a videotape of Luima saying that's exactly what he said. Then he tried to put another spin on it so that you have a mentality in the police department that whatever you do, you're going to be protected by the entire system. that includes from the justice, from the so -called judges, to the district attorney, and to the media, which primarily is white control, and protects and supports the kind of mayor

that we now have simply because he's the mayor of the big corporations and the media is simply big corporations and big business. So he gets away with a whole lot and to pretend that this is an aberration, one of the things I had to contend with apparently black and Latino young men are somewhat acrobatic and masochistic, but you couldn't bring a prisoner into the precinct without his being bloodied up when the explanation was he either drew himself on the sidewalk or he fell down the stairs. The only way we could lessen that down was myself and other folks I could sitting in the precinct as they bring in these prisoners. And it calmed it down for a while, but of course if you're not able to be there consistently all the time, of course, the process. So the beating up the police becomes not only the arresting officer very often, black kids are being arrested for things you wouldn't think of, giving arresting

a white kid, and not only that, but the police become not only the arresting officer, but they judge jury and executioner. And some of them are sadistic racists enough to get a thrill really out of beating up on people and brutalizing people. We're going to go to the phones in a minute, but before we do, I just wanted to share a statistic with our guests and our listeners. to the Department of Justice, of the 11 ,721 civil rights complaints filed with the FBI in 1996, a substantial majority of which were physical abuse complaints against law enforcement officers, 2 ,619 were investigated, 79 resulted in a conviction. We're going to Walter in Washington D .C., operating out of our sister station, W -E -A -A -F -M. Welcome back, Walter. I am back with you. And I really appreciate this show. The nation needs to hear this type of information. And it would take your

gumption to do it, because we're not going to get it from the network to major networks, and we don't get it from them. We might get a 30 -minute -hour nightline excuses, but my point, and I thank that priest for coming on and speaking his peace just now, when you have racists at the top and racists in the mix, then we have the apathy in our community. Now, I'm sorry that I missed Earl O 'Farre Hutchinson, but maybe Ron Hampton can speak on this with regards to our community of Washington D .C. The apathy of our community, as you suggested to call us earlier, that everybody wants police in need. I would be the first to admit, needs police services and IE protection, if it was protection. we don't fully realize, Ron, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. I want you to comment on the fact that we have gone years and years in D .C. without

a viable citizen review, and we do not. And this is for your guests, and particularly Ron, have a political base that would allow a strong citizen review. You mentioned that earlier, but Ron, I want you to explain to the audience that you have now what happened in D .C. and why we don't have a viable citizen review. And I'd ask the other guests to please comment for their areas nationwide. I see it as a problem, the vicious assaults, and particularly on people of color. Thanks, Walter. Go right ahead, Ron. Well, civilian review, some years ago, as a matter of fact, a local black police association was involved with one of the council persons who went around the city, held hearings, and then ultimately legislation was developed and the civilian complaint review board was established. And it took two years of it sitting on the chairman of the council's desk to even get the budget, the proper kind of budget set up to

get it running. But ultimately what happens not only here, but across the country. I've been working with some sisters and brothers in Pittsburgh. They got theirs through referendum. then what really happens after you go through all that is the negotiations. The negotiations were about the police, the politicians, the union people beginning to impact on ultimately what you're going to have at the end of the day. And so you think that having independent investigators or having subpoena power and cooperation and all of that, those kind of things don't work. And having worked to the extent that they need to work because the unions have a great deal of power. The politicians don't want to be seen as anti -police. then they turn around and gut them or don't give them all the resources that they need. so about two years ago, as a result of a backlog and the system that didn't work here, the politicians pulled the budget out of the CCRB. then so we've been without one for two years. And now we're in

a mode again today, negotiating with politicians around and other people around developing a new CCRB. then those who don't know, and probably most of you do know, we have a financial control authority here who also dictates and has more power than the mayor and the city council. they're involved in the process. And that at the end of the day, we will have something in place that will begin to, so that citizens can once again get involved in the process of being able to have some oversight. And some place to go because they don't have the confidence and trust in the police department, that they're going to police themselves and discipline themselves in a way that's going to have some impact on the problem. So I mean, I like to, I try to remain optimistic about it, but I'm also realist because I've seen how it's worked here as well as other places in the country. And I think it's something that we really need, but we need to really have them in a way that they're going to be able to do what it is that they need to do. And then that's not the

only thing that we need to be involved in doing either. So that's not the panacea. Before we get to those other things, Ron, I wanted to try to get Miss Estime involved in this a little on the issue of what the victims or potential victims are dealing or doing about the situation. Someone mentioned earlier that until it's videotaped and shown on TV, well, mean, you know, even we don't get too upset. And I'm trying, and I get a sense of it that in the Haitian American community as well as for other immigrants, there are other considerations like immigration and green card. What is the development of the level of police brutality against Haitian Americans? Well, NOAA is, as you know, is the organization, the national organization for the advancement of Haitians. And what we are trying to do is allow people to become more sensitive to the issues dealing with Haitians. We have very many friends, not only within the Haitian community, but also outside the

Haitian community who supported us. And certainly we like to thank everyone who came out in March along with us back in August in Brooklyn, New York. And I think it was a powerful march. We have to keep in mind that currently there's a backlash against immigrants in this country, the recent immigrant bill that was passed by Congress. I mean, immigrants are really being made to take the brunt of certain issues and problems that are endemic in this society that really has nothing to do with immigrants at all. And unfortunately, what people have been able to do is try to concentrate and make the Abner -Louima issue a Haitian issue. And we really want to stress to everyone, this is not merely a Haitian issue. It is a human rights issue. person's human rights were violated. No animal should have been treated that way. Certainly not a human being should be treated that way. Everyone should be appalled by what happened to Mr. Louima and other victims of police brutality. He's not the only one out there. There's a brother in New Jersey who was viciously attacked

by the police as well. And we are not standing for it anymore. What we'd like people to know is we have to organize. We have to make our voices heard. We have to stay in firm. And if anyone wants to contact NOAA, feel free. Please call us. We have to make sure that we do not sit silently by and permit this sort of brutality to continue. The Haitian community will not do it anymore. And I'm certainly our friends, the Latino community, the Jewish community. Everyone, we cannot tolerate this anymore. And I really wish everyone would become just offended and upset as we are. We're speaking with Yvonne Estime, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Haitians. Father Lawrence Lucas, chaplain at Rikers Island Prison, and a counselor to many police officers. And Ron Hampton, the executive director of the National Black Police Association. Our topic is police brutality. This is PowerPoint. We'll be right back. PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public

Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund. Internet services for PowerPoint are provided by World African Network, offering news, information, sports and entertainment for African and African American communities through Internet, broadband and new media technologies. The web address is www .world .africanet .com. Welcome back to PowerPoint. I'm Kenneth Walker. You're being joined by Ron Hampton, who's the executive director of the National Black Police Association. Yvonne Estime, the executive director of the National Organization for the Advancement of Haitians.

Father Lawrence Lucas, Roman Catholic Priest in New York, who's a chaplain at Rikers Island Prison, and a counselor to many police officers. Once again, our number here is 1 -800 -989 -8255. Before you go back to the phone, there are a couple of things that I think is important to say. And the first place, we have to be very leery of so -called Department of Injustice, or they call it the Justice Department and FBI figures. There's an old saying that while some folks think computers are the greatest things since sliced bread, all the computer does is compute what you put into it. You put crap in the computer, it's going to compute crap. If you put something decent in it, it will compute it. The FBI and the Justice Department figures are simply computing what they're told from the local institutions, the local municipalities, et cetera. For example, we have a whole lot of foolishness going around the country about Mayor Giuliani has cut

crime tremendously in the city, et cetera, et cetera. If you recall, they read the riots and followed the Third Reich for those of us who are old enough, Hitler made that same claim. In the corporate crime and police crime went through the ceiling while they concentrated on the poorest or the designated victims. In New York, for example, when you talk about crimes going down, murders dropping, the first place they tell us a trend was taking place nationally for over four years, five years before Giuliani became Mayor. Secondly, they have all kinds of different ways of computing murders, what it goes on to statistics, whether a body is claimed or whether a body is not claimed. Statistics have been cooked in practically every one of the precincts in the city by order of city halls. So that these figures, again, when you think about murder, over 60 % in the city of murders are in the homes by people who either are related or know each other. Obviously, the police are not sitting down in the home. So to call that a lessening of crime

and giving the mayor and the police credit for it is absolutely ridiculous. What they have called quality of life is simply building more jails at the expense of schools, at the expense of hospitals, and so forth, and again, for the designated victims, particularly young black and Latino males. In our city, for example, 80 % of drug users are upper middle class working white males, yet still 86 % of those arrested for drug use, and on Rikers Island are young, poor, or no income black and Latino males. So these are some of the things that you really have to be aware of. Again, the whole system, from the judiciary down to the district attorneys, down to the media, and including so -called religious folks, police chaplains, don't talk out against this at all. And so they're all protecting the police as long as the victims are the right victims. Moreover, again, when you begin to look at

the racial component of the police department, it hardly reflects the city, and I wouldn't be surprised, as it's true in most of the other large cities, that only about 10 or if not less of the police department are people of color. And when you get to the white shirts or the big brass, you could almost count them on your hand, two hands. So that when you talk about CCRBs, even that's a joke, because here in the city, CCRBs meaning civilian review board. while it was pushed through the city council, it's hardly a civilian review board. The mayor has a great hand in appointments. The appointees to the board is a joke, don't even know how to spell brutality, much less recognize it, because hardly any of them would be a victim of police brutality, much less have members of their family. The mayor cut the budget drastically and got rid of the best director that they had, because he couldn't put up with the mayor's interference of it. They have no subpoena powers. They have no power to discipline or anything. And

so when they talk about complaints going down, it's simply because people know that the CCRB is a waste of time. If it's not totally independent with the kind of subpoena powers, with the kind of punishment powers, you're only wasting your time. And in the light of that then, the communities are going to have to do more than just marches and demonstrations. I think the community is going to have to learn that individuals and communities have a God -given right of self -defense. And the community is going to have to itself try these murderers or these brutalizers and give them the punishment that once that begins to happen, I think it's going to lessen drastically. Provocative idea. And wait for the system to do it, because the system has no intention of doing it or the will of doing that. I think it's safe to say that Father Lawrence Lucas subscribed to Liberation Theology. But in the meanwhile, let's go to the phones. We have Justice from Montgomery, Alabama, who's out of Sister Station WVAS. Justice, are you with us?

Yes, sir. Welcome to PowerPoint. Thank you for allowing me to express my viewpoints on this subject of police crimes against our people. Go right ahead. Very fruitful comments tonight. And I want to give you the solution, but before I give the solution, I feel that I must give you the purpose of the police and the neighborhood and the harmful effects. Otherwise, our people won't be willing to sacrifice and do what we need to do to implement the solution. in the sixties, we fought for and we've gotten more Negro policemen on the force, promoted into higher position and review of wars and etc. But yet these police crimes against our people have escalated and increased. And the reason is, the sole purpose of the police in the Negro hoods is to continue violence, suppressing the manhood in our people. Number one is to continue violence and stealing fear in Negro males because fear is mind control. Number three is to protect all the Negro imposter, so -called leaders who are ignoring this problem and refusing to address and solve many of our other major problems. To protect the crime, breeding, crime, manufacturing system

that is systematically criminalizing Negro males within the Negro hoods. To continue allowing illegal drugs flowing into Negro ghetto hoods, which is entrapping our young people, to contain a Negro crime and keeping Negro crime within the Negro hoods. That is the purpose of the police and the function of the police. you see, the illegal drugs, the violence of crime, the gangs and etc. is filling up the jail's prisons and the graveyard with our people. So this means this is a serious epidemic that is destroying our race. So we talk about doing for self. Now this is the beginning of doing for self. We must call upon all of our Negro politicians, preachers, civil rights leaders, business people, educators and professional Negroes to demand that all the governors and all the states immediately call out the National Guards into all the Negro ghettos. Then dismiss all the present police because as long as the present police are among us, illegal drugs will continue flowing. Why do you think justice that the National Guard would operate any differently? Well, because they would be more or less compelled once we presented to them that this is an epidemic.

But you see, the Negro leaders have never seriously addressed our problem. Now the National Guard will search and stop the supply line of drugs from flowing into our hoods. And meanwhile, we will call upon the Nation of Islam to begin patrolling and protecting our hoods while at the same time the Nation of Islam begin teaching, training and motivating young Negro males who are presently living among us. That's the residential requirement there. Living among us, how to police and protect our own people. This means how to police our own people with brotherly love, with brotherly counseling, with daily examples of being mentors, friends, brothers and patriots and nationalists protecting our people. You see, these can be... You can't say that justice doesn't have a plan. He seems to have thought this very well out. he seems to have several things that he thinks that we all need to do. it's definitely food for thought on this subject, which is police brutality. And our number is 1 -800 -989

-8255. We're going to go to Cindy in Detroit with Sister Station WDET. We welcome both the station and you, Cindy. Welcome to PowerPoint. Cindy, are you with us still? Cindy, I don't think so. I think we've lost Cindy. Go right ahead and respond to that, Father Lucas. I think the brother outlined the purpose he left out, a very important one, that the police are in our communities to protect the property and the investment of white folks from outside the community, their financial investment. What's left? mean, most of many of the businesses, all of the manufacturing has gone out of our communities. What are they protecting exactly? The communities. So that's a very important aspect of what their purpose is, too. On the other hand, I think the militarization of the police is growing just like it did in Nazi Germany. And I'm very li Oh, God, because the National Guard are not composed of people from heaven. The National Guard are composed primarily in many instances of the same kind of people that

make up the police department. So I do not know if I would appreciate a greater militarization in our communities than already exists. Father Lucas, you really do need to explore for us this notion of genocide and comparisons with Hitler. You obviously have very strong feelings about the situations that exist, especially as far as police brutality is concerned. Explore for us just how much of a parallel you really do see. Well, first of all, if you remember under Hitler, there was a concentration of power. Now, I'm using the mayor of the city of New York as a good example of that. We've had three independent police departments merged into one with a stooge at the top. In fact, all of the commissioners in the city are simply robots on Charlie McCarthy's. The mayor runs all the agencies, particularly law enforcement agencies. Concentration of power. Information is controlled by city hall.

There is no longer an independent, for example, police information bureau. Nobody gets in the city hall press room if you've written or spoken anything that is displeasing. So it's all very controlled. What passes for crime statistics are primarily police reports. You don't have two sides or reporters investigating, hearing all sides of it. You get as crime reports what the police say it is, just like the so -called statistics on crime. It's what the police under the direction of the mayor says it is. So even the communication is. Now, when you look at, for example, we quoted the statistics of drug use and who's arrested and who's not. They don't make sweeps in Wall Street. They don't make sweeps at African American Express or Sears and Lehman or Salomon Brothers. But they make sweeps in the poor community and everybody is grabbed up into it innocent or guilty. Father, excuse me for interrupting you for a second. But what is the solution? I understand that you mentioned earlier that community groups by protesting and marching that that really is not

effective. I'd like to know, please tell me what your solution is. What are you advocating? What should we do as far as your concern? Okay. First of all, I didn't say it's not effective. I say it cannot be the only egg in a basket. Well, certainly. And what other suggestions are you offering? People that the demonstration, as long as it's disrupting the status quo, that's part of it. But I think another part of it I don't want to use because folks have their own wild illusions of what. But the initial purpose and meaning of the Black Panther Party where people got together to organize the self -defense in their own community. And I think it ought to be taken one step further. When you have police blatantly murdering us and still is able to function in that present or in that area, I think it's a legitimate exercise of our God given right for the community to investigate the facts to the best of their ability to come to a conclusion. And that officer in whatever punishment that may be required.

And I think when this kind of thing starts to go old, perhaps you're going to find just like what happened at the initial stage of the Panthers in Los Angeles, police murders dropped drastically, percentage wise. Father Luke, let me suggest something to the sister and to the listening audience. Up until about 10 years ago or maybe within 10, 15 years ago, there wasn't an Asian person in this country. There wasn't an Asian person in the criminal justice system in our jail. And the reason for that was that the Asian community handled their own problems. Now, I talk... What do you mean by that, Ryan? They handled their own problems. What you mean by that? When they had situations, by virtue of it being a closed -knit community, they took care of it. But they've had like members of Chinese gangs, like the Tongs. Yeah, I That's something that has existed for a long time. But I'm just talking about in terms of when it came to taking care of their community. And let me just quote, tell you this. About 65 % of

the time, the people in our community call the police. It's really not a police issue. It's generally an issue by virtue of the fact that the police get called because we don't seem to have the power, the resources to deal with the issues in our community. And I'm here to tell you that there are communities in this country that have been developing systems whereby they get the police out of their community. Now, that happens in the white community every day because we know what power and resources exist in the white community, so they don't have to call the police every time they have a problem because they have the wherewithal to take care of the problem. What we need to do, and what we teach and talk about at the National Black Police Association, is that process, that we need to go in and train and educate the individuals who live in our community. We need to empower them. We need to be a part of a process that provides the resources and get the police out of our community and we can handle our own problems. Our subject is police brutality. Our number is 1 -800 -989 -8255.

And we're going to Marshall in Baltimore, Maryland, out of Sister Station, W -E -A -A -F -M. Welcome, Marshall. Poets, unite for justice. I don't know what that was all about, but... While we're waiting for the next, good example of what Ron was talking about is look at the Hasidic community in Crown Heights. Right. run their own community. They run the police. I mean, these folks who get by with thrashing an entire police precinct, destroying it without one person being arrested, beating up black cops, housing police, and nobody goes to jail for it. Father Lucas, if you got the ass for power, then you will never... You will never get it. to take it. You will have to take it. That's right. But we were afraid. That's exactly right. Well... But we can teach and we can educate and then we need to move and get the job done. We can get them out of our business. We can do that. How does the Haitian -American leadership get the police out of their business? I'd really like to know. How do we get the police out of our business? Look, in this country, we have a judicial system. We have a police system

that is enforced to protect all citizens, not certain citizens, not merely a small percentage of this population. It's to protect all citizens. Our taxpayer dollars goes to pay for the salary of the police to make sure that they protect us. I expect that the police will protect black citizens, immigrant citizens, as well as white citizens in this country. On what basis do you expect this? I expect it. From experience? Pardon me? You didn't expect this from experience, do you? No, I'm not saying I expected it from experience, but certainly the expectation is there. We pay their tax, our tax dollars pay their salaries. we've been doing that for a long time. Certainly we have been doing it for a long time. To brutalize us is what we're talking about. What you're talking about, it seems to me, you are suggesting that we should keep the police department out of our communities altogether. No, no. Is that what you're suggesting? No, no, no, no. What are you suggesting? look at the statistics

in a given city, and let's take Washington, D .C., for example, that the African American community in Washington, D .C., that makes up 70 % of the community, call the police more than the white community. But yet, when it comes to policing and protection, the police give more protection to the white community than they do to the black community. But if you look at the crime, the crime is high in the black community than it is in the white community. So what is it that the white community has that the black community don't have that would cause them to call the police less or more than the other community? And the fact of the matter is that what it is, is that they have more resources, they have more command, more power, more control over a certain thing. And what I'm suggesting is that we need to do, there are communities in this country that exist right now, prototypes of programs where when young people get in trouble, we don't take them down to the police station and tournament. There's a mentality in our community that we ought to turn our kids over to the police because the police can handle them or the police can intimidate them. Take them down to the police station so they can put them in the jail to show what happened to them. They don't do that in white communities. have community justice

systems where when kids get in trouble, they go and cut grass all summer to learn what it means to quit pro -pro -process of what happens when you do things. We don't criminalize the young people. When the neighbors get in arguments, they have a community justice center so you go sit down and mediate that stuff. And that's what we need to do in our community. We need to take control over those very issues that if you don't take care of them at the grassroots level, then they turn into real problems. And then you really have to call the police. Our subject, our topic is police brutality. This is Power Point. We're talking with Yvonne Estime, Executive Director of the National Organization for the Advancement of Haitians. Father Lawrence Lucas, Roman Catholic Priest, Chaplain at Rikers Island Prison. Ron Hampton, Executive Director, National Black Police Association. Our number is 1 -900 -800 -989 -8255. Please join us when we come back.

Thank Welcome back to Power Point, where we're trying to get some solutions to the

epidemic, apparently, of police brutality that's going on in various places around the United States. Our number is 1 -800 -989 -8255. We're going to Sherry in Houston, Texas from my affiliate there. Sherry, are you there? Yes. Welcome to Power Point. Yes, welcome to you. How can we help? Well, I wanted to stress on the point about someone saying that we don't need police protection. America needs police protection because organized crime still lives in this country. And for that reason, we need protection. You see what I'm saying? And so many of us look alike in America today. My sense of it, Sherry, was that our guests weren't so much saying that we don't need police protection as that we need to devise new ways of acquiring it, if I understand our guests correctly. I think there was a grave misunderstanding going on. Nobody is saying we don't need police protection. But that's exactly what we're not getting.

That's right. What we're saying is we need to control criminality in our own communities. Thank you. Whether it's the criminality of teenagers, whether it's the criminality of organized crime. Again, Father, I ask you. And FBI are part of organized crime. I agree with you, but clarify for me how we do not have the resources currently. And that's not to suggest that a kid happened. What I'd like to know, what are the solutions that we are putting forth? These are wonderful suggestions and ideas. But how are we going to implement them when we do not have the resources? As Ron mentioned, we are not the acidic Jewish community. Sister, your mother alive? Pardon me. Yes, she is. If you were alive in the street and saw somebody beating the head off your mother, would you go up to see how much money you have in your pocketbook? Or what would you do? What would the amount of money my pocketbook do with it? Oh, okay. My board. I'm sorry. Of course. What would you do with the resources you have if you saw somebody beating your mother?

I would use every resource within my power to protect my mother. I think, as I understand Father Lucas' point, and he can speak for himself, basically, I think the point he made about the Black Panther Party is absolutely correct. In the immediate aftermath of the creation of the Black Panther Party in the Oakland area, especially police brutality, police shootings did come down. And if I understand them correctly, you're saying, Father, that where are the Black Panthers when we need them? Okay. And I'm saying that the entire community or a large part of it must become the Black Panthers. For example, in Harlem, there are about as many guns in Harlem as you could find anywhere. None of them are manufactured here or none of them are made here. They're imported and very often with the connivance of the police to protect their drugs. Now, the problem that we have is, of course, is that these guns are used against each other. Very often to protect the drugs of somebody else outside whom they don't know. Now, I'm not suggesting that everybody armed themselves and go about shooting their heads off. But like the lady if I ask, what would you do if somebody is beating up on your grandmother? You would use all the resources

within your power. I think we're afraid to do that. I think we're going to have to use all the resources within our power to control criminality across the board. And that includes police criminality. I don't want to hear anything about rogue cops. We're talking about criminals. I'm not talking about a few bad apples in a barrel. I'm talking about a barrel that's almost completely rotten with a few good apples. And when these good apples come forward, like what we had in the case of Levote, who strangled a young man to death because his football hit the police car. And when a Latino officer came forward and told the truth, she was threatened by police officers and had to be reassigned to different because the captain and he could no longer protect a police officer for telling the truth against her fellow cops. Now, instead of getting rid of that whole blankety blank precinct, what they did, they transferred her. We have another police officer who interfered with a sergeant and a couple of white cops beating up. He is now being on departmental charges for refusing

to follow a direct order. These are the kinds of things that we have to come. We can't leave it to the system. The system is totally corrupt. That's what we're talking about. We want to take another call, get another call in here quickly. We're going to go to Jason in Boston, Massachusetts with Sister Station WUMB. Jason, welcome to PowerPoint. Thank you. I was listening to everyone's comments tonight. I'm a middle -aged 27 -year -old black man. I live in the Boston area. predominantly white. I live in a black community here. I don't have too much interaction with the police here at all, but when I do get pulled over, it's a mindset in the police officer's mind that I'm going through the thorough check -in of everything and my time is held up. If I run a red light

or something like that, I can expect to be held up for at least an hour and a half. I don't know, but I just think it's a sufficient cycle. My question to the panel, those people there, where are the channels where I can go, where I can voice my opinion or file a complaint and make sure he's properly done the proper check -in. Thanks, Jason. Ron, take a quick stab at that because we're running out of time. I think in Boston they have something similar to like an office of professional standards. I don't know if that's independent or part of the institution, but I would encourage communities to come up with organizations, and there are a lot of police accountability organizations out there, so to assist with doing those kind of documentation and filing complaints. Okay, Ron, I want to thank you. I want to thank Yvonne Estime with the National Organization for the Advancement of Haitians and Father Lawrence Lucas from New York City. We'll see you next week when we go international with the inauguration of our Ambassadors Roundtable, and

we'll also have a look at black sports agents. We'll see you next week. God willing. Internet services for PowerPoint are provided by World African Network, offering news, information, sports, and entertainment for African and African -American communities through internet, broadband, and new media technologies. The web address is www .world .africanet, that's A -F -R -I -C -A -N -N -E -T dot com. The makers of PowerPoint include executive producer Reggie Hicks, senior producer Tony Regusters, producer Dotty Green, news presenter Verna Avery -Brown, show director Debbie Williams, associate producer Tom Woodward, technical director Steve Brown, phone producer Cece Fadoope, broadcast legal affairs Theodore Brown. Our announcer is Candy Shannon. PowerPoint's theme is from the CDF Stops

by Craig Harris. For PowerPoint, I'm Kenneth Walker. PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Radio Program Fund. This is PowerPoint, a production of Hicks & Associates. PowerPoint Thank

you.