Why White Cops Kill Black Cops: Debate over Edwards’ Dead Body

[rosa-rl]

By Mike Ely

Originally posted on Kasama (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/)

A team of New York police were lurking through East Harlem and saw a young Black man with a gun running down 125th Street. They shot him dead. However this killing has been hard to cover up or justify because the dead man was Omar J. Edwards, a fellow New York cop assigned to patrol the housing projects in plainclothes. [Sequence of events (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/05/29/nyregion/20090529-shoot.html)]
This is hardly the first killing of Black police by their white colleagues. And it is certainly not the first time New York cops have simply executed a

Black man on the streets on suspicion of being “an armed criminal.”
Immediately a debate broke out about why that happens. The official story is that the police need more “confrontation training” — apparently to explain that when NYPD shoot down a Black man they should first make sure their target isn’t a cop. And this explanation and proposed solution was (uh….) unsatisfying to anyone with a brain and a heart – and to many Black cops. Then it became a debate within the New York political establishment.

Three days after the shooting, Harlem Congressman Charles B. Rangel was asked what President Obama should do on his brief visit to New York City that afternoon.

Rangel quipped “Make certain he doesn’t run around in East Harlem without identification.”

That made headlines on Sunday — the Daily News blared: “Even Bam May Not Be Safe, Sez Rangel.” The rightwing Post called it: “Rangel’s Sick Joke.”

Mayor Bloomberg, marching in a Salute to Israel parade, rejected Rangel’s remark, saying: “Sometimes things happen and they’re inexplicable. There’s no reason to suspect this had any racial overtones.”

The shooting of Black men (including Black cops) is “inexplicable.” They just “happen.” Sure.

Just take a moment and think about the cynicism, deceit, and raw appeal to white racism embedded in Bloomberg’s remarks. He is basically saying that the killing is understandable — and more, that it is not in the interests of his government to question the motives behind police killings. And one more Black body does not compell him to speak the truth.
Think about it: It was Rangel’s remark that stirred the most public controversy and criticism, NOT the racist street execution of a 25-year-old Black man.

And what does it mean when a Black congressman says Obama should be careful on the streets of Harlem?

It means the reality here is obvious and known to all: Cops think they have a license to kill in Harlem and other Black communities — and you may be President or a Black cop or an immigrant returning from work or a student leaving class, but on the streets of Harlem you are just a target.

[Communist Theory]

The Gov't turns the other check on murders by police I mean look at the BART execution.
Do you know what happened to the cops?

[Jimmie Higgins]

When Oscar Grant was shot at the BART station here in Oakland, one of the rhetorical questions I would use when talking to people about how this murder was racist was: "If you don't think this is racism, imagine how it would be if a young black man had "accidentally shot a white cop?"

Well, a week later in a "routine traffic stop" (i.e. racial profiling stop i.e. driving while black) a young black man was pulled over by cops. He had just been released from prison and had stopped going to his parole officer and I don't know what happened but he shot the cop. Several hours later the police with helicopters and military-style tactics surrounded the suspect's sisters apartment building and broke down the door and shot the suspect.

In the Oscar Grant case, for weeks the police were "looking into what happened" and the Mayor asked for calm from the residents of the city even though numerous video tapes got onto youtube showing the cops murder someone while he was laying on the ground with his hands behind his back. The police let the murderous cop cross state lines and didn't do anything until the cop resigned rather than come in for the internal police hearing to determine what happened. Then people protested and rioted and ... hmm ... the cops decided they had better arrest the one cop show shooting Oscar Grant in all the videos. Now the ex-cop has a high paid police lawyer but the other cops including the ranking on who was also seen on the video punching people and slamming them to the ground and against windows are going about their daily work as cops... beating and harrassing and so on.

There's "Justice" for ya.

[Psy]

Isn't the US federal state worried that this could lead to mutinies among black police officers? Racism in the US Army during Vietnam resulted in black militias within the US Army in Vietnam that fragged not only racist white troops but racist officers that led to whites fragging officers they didn't like that led to the break down of the US Army in Vietnam and a rash of armed mutines in the US Army in Vietnam in the 1970's.

With such racism in police deparments why isn't the US governement worried that the blacks police officers might join worker uprisings if they accure in the US? Do they honestly think black cops would be willing to die for their capitalists masters to defend the capitalists against a armed revolution if the bourgeoisie state doesn't criminalize the murder of black cops by white cops?

[Omi]

I'm not too familliar with the situation of racism in US police departments, but here in Holland the only reason why "minoritys" join the forces is because of poor job expectations. An easy way to overcome this problem is joining a police force or militairy, easy carreer oppertunities. Not because they want to give their life to defend the capital monopolies of the bourgois state. I think these people will join a revolt if they identify with it, and a true workers revolt in the US would contain a lot of ethnic diversity, as in every other modern western country.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Isn't the US federal state worried that this could lead to mutinies among black police officers? Racism in the US Army during Vietnam resulted in black militias within the US Army in Vietnam that fragged not only racist white troops but racist officers that led to whites fragging officers they didn't like that led to the break down of the US Army in Vietnam and a rash of armed mutines in the US Army in Vietnam in the 1970's.

With such racism in police deparments why isn't the US governement worried that the blacks police officers might join worker uprisings if they accure in the US? Do they honestly think black cops would be willing to die for their capitalists masters to defend the capitalists against a armed revolution if the bourgeoisie state doesn't criminalize the murder of black cops by white cops?

There are probably some very angry black (and non-black) cops who are angry about this and recognize it as a result of racism inside police departments.

However, police in the US rarely revolt while military grunts often revolt (usually individually). First, people who join the police often do so with an understanding that their job is to keep fellow workers in line and that it's going to take crackin' some heads. Even gung-ho military people often come to a point where they realize that they are not killing the bad-ass enemy, but (in the US military) they are shooting at scared kids and angry old people trying to protect their towns. Cops also get a real benefit of having special privileges in capitalist society. Oscar Grant's killer is the first cop in over 15 years to be charged for killing someone when he was on duty... the military puts grunts on trial all the time as scapegoats for regular military policy. I could go on, but most of the time cops who realize that the job of a cop is messed up and wrong, they simply quit.

[Psy]

There are probably some very angry black (and non-black) cops who are angry about this and recognize it as a result of racism inside police departments.

However, police in the US rarely revolt while military grunts often revolt (usually individually). First, people who join the police often do so with an understanding that their job is to keep fellow workers in line and that it's going to take crackin' some heads. Even gung-ho military people often come to a point where they realize that they are not killing the bad-ass enemy, but (in the US military) they are shooting at scared kids and angry old people trying to protect their towns. Cops also get a real benefit of having special privileges in capitalist society. Oscar Grant's killer is the first cop in over 15 years to be charged for killing someone when he was on duty... the military puts grunts on trial all the time as scapegoats for regular military policy. I could go on, but most of the time cops who realize that the job of a cop is messed up and wrong, they simply quit.

Yet the police of Winnipeg (Canada) revolted with workers during the general strike of 1919 and even offered to form themselves into a revolutionary army to crush the RCMP (Canadian federal police) forces advancing on Winnipeg (yet was refused by the leadership of the general strike). Police have in the past been sucked into revolutionary movements, and racism within police forces just makes it easier for minority police officers to go from being a police officer to being a revolutionary solider in revolutionary situations.