Dear Editor,
Thirty one years ago, on February 4th, 1999, Ahmadou Diallo was shot and killed by four NYPD officers. They fired a total of 41 bullets, 19 of which ripped through the body of Diallo. The four officers Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon, and Kenneth Boss were later acquitted of second degree murder.
Almost seven years earlier, on March 3rd, 1992, Rodney King, an unarmed 25 year old black man was pulled over on the I-210 in Los Angeles. What ensued was a horrific case of police brutality.
King was battered to near death and it was only by the mercy of God that he survived. He was subjected to an extremely brutal and violent beating at the hands of the LAPD. He was literally reduced to a pulp. Struck on his face and about his body with billy clubs, he was pulverized. His chest was severely burnt from a high voltage stun gun. His leg was broken and he suffered lacerations all over his body.
This barbaric act was caught on camera.
Race riots erupted across the US with LA seeing the worse of it over a six day period. Fourteen subject officers were disciplined. Three would face criminal charges.
On July 17, 2014, Eric Gardner of Staten Island, was killed by a chokehold applied by NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo while attempting to arrest him. Garner was held down by at least three other officers and was lying on the pavement while Pantaleo continued applying the chokehold. He was heard saying “I can’t breathe” eleven times before he lost consciousness and died. Daniel Pantaleo was never indicted.
In July of 2016, two black men were killed by Police officers in two different parts of the country. The killings of Philando Castile in St Paul, Minnesota and of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana rocked the nation. No charges were laid in the killing of Philando Castile. Charges of second degree murder and dangerous discharge of a weapon were laid against the officer in the Alton Sterling case. He was acquitted a year later.
On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, was shot and killed while out jogging in Glynn County, Brunswick, Georgia. He was pursued by a father and son duo, George and Travis McMichael. Travis McMichael fired the fatal shot. His father was a former GCPD officer and also did investigative worked for the judiciary. Another man, William Bryan, was witness to and an active videographer of the killing.
This killing was mired in a deliberate cover-up at the prosecutorial level. It was only after a public outcry and the surfacing of the video clip that charges were laid. That was 74 long days after the targeted killing of an innocent young black man.
Fast forward to May 25, 2020. The world watched and witnessed on social media the heinous murder of another black man, George Floyd of Minneapolis Minnesota. For what seemed like an eternity, over a long eight minutes and 46 seconds, Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck, applying deadly pressure as three other officers held him face down on the pavement.
Reminiscent of the Eric Gardner killing, Floyd pleaded multiple times, “I can’t breathe”. In his last moments, Floyd could be heard calling for his deceased Mama as he begged “Don’t kill me”. He was visibly unresponsive at just under the six minute mark. Horrified witnesses and bystanders also vociferously pleaded with the officers as they watched the body of Floyd go lifeless. Chauvin continued kneeling on the dead man’s neck for an additional 2 minutes 53 seconds.
These killings highlight the excessive power that police officers have been vested with and the incestuous relationship that exists between the Police departments and the judiciary.
It also speaks to the continued failure of the US to address its race relations and heal the wounds that are reopened each time a young black man or a person of colour is subjected to racial profiling, beatings, torture and death at the hands of primarily white police officers.
The police fraternity in the US has a problem. This brotherhood of men are sworn to an unspoken code. They never tell on their fellow officers in blue. They band around their comrades and without fail will do whatever it takes to protect their own.
Most of these men and women proudly enter and graduate the Police Academy with an inherent sense of duty; to serve and to protect. However, in due course of the execution of their duty, they gradually lose their moral compass.
It happens innocuously at the onset with their indoctrination into a pervasive and pervading culture of institutionalized racism and the power of the badge. As they progress in their careers they get to understand and flaunt to the fullest the protection of the fraternity. They realize that their failings, transgressions and abuse of power will be backed up, covered up by the untouchable police unions and exonerated by sympathetic members of the judiciary if it gets that far.
Eventually, well intentioned individuals, having succumbed to this culture and their experiences on the front lines become numb to the humanity that they initially prided themselves in. The end result is a pool of bad psychotic apples, power drunk and trigger happy.
Four years ago on the killings of Castile and Sterling, I penned the following,
“America has a problem. Nay, America has a lot of issues. Domestically, it has lost its innocence and has become more arrogant and belligerent on the world stage. Once revered, it is now one of the most reviled nations on the face of the earth.
“America is no longer wholesome and healthy. A minority of parts of what constitutes the body of what was once America are ravaged and diseased and these parts threaten the rest of this once great but now fatigued body.
“America has lost its moral compass and it needs to have an honest conversation with itself.
“For 240 years since its founding in 1776, the US has been at war for 223 years. Beset by a violent gun culture (rooted in its second amendment), drugs, gangs, systemic, institutionalized racism, white privilege, corporate greed, inner city poverty and an endless list of social ills, this nation is now at war with itself.
Sadly it is also in denial of it.”
The United States of America was created upon the decimation of its indigenous peoples and built upon the blood, sweat, tears of Slavery. For 400 years, White America has refused to own up to its history. The US has an epidemic of unbridled racism and until it first acknowledges the sins of the past, it will never break out of this continuous cycle of violent venting of rage that raises its ugly head every time a young black man or a person of colour dies at the hands of the police.
In the United States of America, contrary to what you’d hear, a majority of cops are tainted; Some covertly, others through their silent complicity.
Cops are tainted because they are trained and indoctrinated into a culture that promotes the same evil that they are sworn to fight against. The old “Good versus Evil” just does not exist anymore. The system has not only failed good men and women with the noble intention and motivation to serve and protect, it has created monsters of them.
Despite how diligently they are perceived to carry out their duty, despite how professionally they may appear to uphold their code of conduct, despite how they are portrayed on television as putting their lives at risk each and every day to serve and protect, they are still tainted.
Cops are sworn to an unwritten code. They will not rat or tell on their fellow men in blue and that is what makes them rotten.
One bad apple spoils the barrel.
Cops need to break this code of silence and speak up against their comrades in arms whenever they cross that line of servitude. Until and unless they go against the grain the abuse of power will continue. More innocent lives will be lost and the cycle continues.
Yours faithfully,
Jay Mobeen
