Actually in history, every time in history there has been a Black urban rebellion, the community has had immediate improvement (less police brutality is a major indicator). So Urban rebellions and self-help do work.
Pick your poison
From the Cincy Riots
Police Slow Down After Cincinnati Riots
Crime: In the wake of racial unrest, the city is becoming less safe. Police are more often looking the other way.
July 15, 2001|STEPHANIE SIMON | TIMES STAFF WRITER
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- CINCINNATI — A
- after riots convulsed this city three months ago, there was much earnest talk about healing. But instead, violent crime has surged and arrests have plummeted as some police officers openly admit to slacking off on their jobs for fear that aggressive patrol work will set this tense city aflame once more.
Police, who were widely blamed for triggering the riots, say they still answer every radio call, still help every citizen in need. Yet they are refusing to do the little things that help keep a city safe, from ticketing bad drivers to initiating drug busts to stopping shady-looking characters on the street.
The result: Arrests in Cincinnati and its suburbs plunged by more than 55% in April and May, compared with the same period a year ago. Violent crime in the city, meanwhile, surged by 29% in May compared with statistics from a year ago.
In the six-week period following the riots, there were 25 felonious assaults with a firearm. During the same stretch last year, there were two. In a single night last week, officers responded to six separate shootings--unprecedented for Cincinnati. And four officers have been shot at in the last two weeks. One took a bullet through the crease of his pants.
An Open Door for Bad Behavior
June and July statistics have not yet been compiled, but police commanders expect more of the same.
"A free-for-all," Officer Jennifer Ernst said. "There's no respect toward the police. It's definitely a more hostile vibe. It seems like there's been an open door for bad behavior since the riots. It's going to be a long, hot summer."
The riots--three days of lootings, beatings and arson attacks downtown--started April 9, two days after a white officer shot an unarmed black man fleeing arrest on foot.
Timothy Thomas, 19, was the 15th black suspect killed by white officers since 1995. The police repeatedly pointed out that most of those killed had been brandishing weapons. But the public, especially the African American community, was not willing to let the cops off the hook. This is a highly segregated city; blacks have long complained of fierce discrimination in housing, employment, political power and, above all, from police. When Thomas was killed, he was wanted on 12 misdemeanor traffic violations, for offenses such as driving with tinted windows or without a seat belt. Many African American men say police stop them on any pretext to search for drugs or just to harass them. Blacks make up 46% of the city's population of 331,000, but they make up only 26% of the police force.
"They come out with a line like, 'Whatcha doing there?' and then they get you and search you, and there ain't too much you can do about it," said Andrew Tomkins, 18.
Thomas' death stoked that simmering frustration into outright fury. On the streets, in the media, in churches and City Hall, the cops were tarred as bigots and murderers, as an occupying army oppressing black neighborhoods. Federal probes were launched. Lawsuits were filed. The young patrol officer who killed Thomas was indicted and is on desk duty pending a September trial.
The work slowdown is the cops' way of fighting back.
Take Officer Matt Latzy. Just the other day, he was called to break up a fight. One of the combatants was swinging a baseball bat. He calmed her down and told her to leave. In the old days, he probably would have arrested her. This time, though, he didn't. He is white. She is black.
"I didn't want to fool with it," Latzy said. "Being proactive no longer has its advantages. It only puts you in harm's way."
Under a new policy mandated by the City Council, every officer must note the race of every citizen he pulls over. The media get those records and report them: Cops who stop blacks at particularly high rates have heard their names uttered with venom on talk radio. Latzy doesn't want to go there. Last fall, he was writing 10 traffic tickets a month. He has written none this year.
With racial tension in the city so high--and anti-cop anger so intense--even a simple stop of a driver who runs a red light could spiral into trouble, some officers contend. Say they run a license plate check and find out the car is stolen. They might have a chase on their hands. They might have to use force. They could spark another riot, even face indictment.
"Do I go out of my way to pursue violations? No. I have no desire to," Latzy said. "Why would I want to risk my life, my family, my house, my cars? It becomes a matter of putting blinders on. The only things you see are the runs [the dispatcher puts] in front of you. You answer your radio, and that's it."
Baltimore
After rioters burned Baltimore, killings pile up largely under the radar
BALTIMORE — Andre Hunt counseled troubled kids through the Boys and Girls Club. He volunteered at the local NAACP chapter. A barber, he befriended the son of an assistant high school principal, swapping tales of football and life while the boy grew into adulthood under the clips of his shears.
“He was like a big brother to my son,” the mother, Karima Carrington, said of her trips to Cut Masters on Liberty Heights Avenue.
The 28-year-old Hunt was lured out of the barbershop, according to his attorney, and shot in the back of the head on the afternoon of April 29. He was among more than 30 people slain in Baltimore in 30 days, an alarming number of killings and part of an undercurrent of violence here.
Although riots and protests after the death of Freddie Gray, who was injured in police custody, brought national attention to the city, the slayings have attracted little notice. They come as Baltimore works to recover from the unrest, with a police force demoralized by the
arrests of six of its members — three of whom face
murder or manslaughter charges in Gray’s death — and under the scrutiny of the Justice Department.
The Rev. Jamal H. Bryant, pastor of the Empowerment Temple and a local activist, said city residents have “almost been anesthetized” to the killings. “In any other community, these numbers would be jaw-dropping.”
vacant rowhouses that dominate the landscape. Hunt bought heroin wholesale and sold to street-level pushers working West Baltimore’s Gilmor Homes and its isolated courtyards between strips of drab public housing. This is the part of the
Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood where Gray grew up and where he was arrested before he died April 19, after having been shackled and put without a buckled seat belt in the back of a police van.
Upsurge in homicides
The protests and riots that roiled this city in the aftermath of Gray’s death quieted after the police officers were charged. But even as shops were looted and burned and 3,200 Maryland National Guard troops came to restore order, another type of violence was consuming Baltimore.
From mid-April to mid-May, 31 people were killed, and 39 others were wounded by gunfire. Twice, 10 people were shot on a single day. As of Friday, the deadly burst has pushed the city’s homicide count to 91, 21 above last year at the same time. In the District, 40 people had been slain as of Friday, not including four people found dead Thursday in cases police said are being investigated as homicides but are awaiting a ruling by the medical examiner.
Baltimore has historically been a violent city, earning a moniker of “Mob Town” during gang riots of the 1850s. Homicides topped 300 for 10 consecutive years in the 1990s. Although the annual figure has fallen to the low 200s, the city remains among the top tier in per capita murders, ranking fifth in 2013, behind Detroit, New Orleans, Newark and St. Louis.
As of May 14, there have been more than 90 homicides in Baltimore. About a quarter of them occurred since April 27, the day of Freddie Gray’s funeral and when rioting started.VIEW GRAPHIC
The past few weeks have been rough on rank-and-file cops who, according to their union representatives, feel distrusted by the citizenry, vilified by the media and alienated by prosecutors. “Officers are coming up to me and saying, ‘I’m afraid to do my job,’ ” said Lt. Kenneth Butler, a 29-year veteran and president of a group for black officers. He said officers, black and white, are “equally upset, their morale is low.”
Lt. Victor Gearhart, with 33 years of experience, said officers are second-guessing themselves, tamping down aggressive policing. “Now they have to think, ‘What happens if this turns bad? What is going to happen to me?’ ”
Although I've been in a few protests myself where I live...
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