This article (a work in progress-- July 4, 1998) will discuss whether the police system in the New York City area is corrupt and/or racist.

POLICE CORRUPTION

I grew up in the Midwest, respecting the police as the "good guys"-- heroic fighters of badness, upholders of justice-- who ought to be obeyed. Now, living in the New York City area, I read and hear about a different type of cop.

Here, cops, singly or in conspiracy, are repeatedly caught helping drug dealers in exchange for money or drugs. In Philadelphia recently 5 police officers were found to have kept a stash of drugs from which they withdrew drugs to plant evidence on people. A detective in one New Jersey police department claims that after a certain store was robbed, several police officers looted the store, justifying their actions with the thought that the storeowner's insurance would pay for the stolen goods; and cops who didn't participate in the looting were ostracized. In another New Jersey community it is claimed that the police are currently taking bribes from drug dealers. In Newark, NJ, an officer who came forward with allegations of an operating police extortion ring is being penalized for his honesty.

Police in some big cities have been likened to street gangs, and a friend of mine goes so far as to say that they are criminals and should not be trusted; my friend will not call the police when she has a problem, for fear that the police will use the opportunity to "case" her house, and then inform criminals of her valuables.

POLICE BRUTALITY

Recently in New York City, there have been about 500 police brutality reports per month, though killings of cops in the line of duty have been halved over the last 30 years.

Item: in East Orange, New Jersey, a man drives a car into a driveway. The owner of the house requests that he leave, but there is oncoming traffic, so the driver waits. A police officer comes out of the house and fatally shoots the man.

Item: in New Jersey, a former prostitute bites a cop's finger and won't let go. He therefore fatally shoots her and is acquitted.

Item: in New Jersey, an honor student meets drunk white friends at a bar. The friends are "tearing up" the bar. The honor student tries to help clean the bar up, and in doing so, carries a concrete parking berm out of the bar. A cop waiting outside fears that the man will hit him with the berm, so he shoots him. The honor student dies; the cop is acquitted.

Item: In 1996 in Florida, a man is stopped by the police. He turns off his car. Then he takes his foot off the brake, and the car lurches forward several inches, as cars are wont to do. He is fatally shot. Rioting ensues.

These incidents are probably not the result of overt racism. These police were probably poorly trained. But is it a coincidence that all of the victims were Afriucan-American?

RACISM

People of all races are victims of unfair police treatment, but ethnic minorities are more likely to be victims. In addition to the cases mentioned above and Rodney King and racial slurs made by members of the Los Angeles police, examples abound. Ninety-one percent of the victims of police brutality are African American or Latino/a (according to an article in the magazine _in these times_), and 3/4ths of the victims of police killings are black (according to the American Civil Liberties Union web site). According to a Gallup poll of a few years back, about 9% of minorities and 4% of whites said that they had been "physically abused" or maltreated by the police. An Amnesty International report says that 76% of the approximately 1000 complaints made to the Civilian Complaint Review Board in NYC (the board that handles citizen complaints against police officers) between January and June, 1995, were made by blacks or Latino/as.

Item: An African-American honor student in New Jersey is stopped 7 times by police as he is innocently driving his car.

Item: in Montclair, New Jersey, a former police officer claims that when white teenagers get drunk and disorderly, they are taken home to their parents, while African-American teens are arrested for the same behavior.

This shows that, intentionally or not, the current police system treats blacks unfairly.

SYSTEMIC RACISM

Some argue that minorities are victims of systemic discrimination by the American justice system. Minorities are disproportionately arrested for violent crimes-- but how much of this is due to them actually committing more crimes, and how much is due to them being caught and/or framed more often than Caucasians? For example, a smaller percentage of African-Americans use drugs than Caucasians; yet aren't a higher percentage of blacks arrested for drug crimes? The penalties for crack cocaine use are at least ten times greater than for powdered cocaine. At least 25% of African-American men are in prison or on parole or probation. Is there an effort by some members of American society to perpetuate the inequities? A study in Toronto, commissioned by the government of Ontario, elicited comments from judges and defense attorneys suggesting that police, but not judges, are racist there (http://www.yorku.ca:80/faculty/osgoode/owp/racism/contents.htm).

Paradoxically, my friend who knows of police corruption does not report it, for 2 reasons. 1) She feels powerless to stop it and 2) she is afraid that if she reports it, the police will take "revenge" on her somehow. People should elect officials who will stop police corruption through better police training, and more accountability by the police to the communities they serve, not by hiring more police (we already have 600,000 officers in the US, 35,000 of whom are African-American).

In the US, blacks are treated as if there were a police conspiracy against them.

Does anyone know the exact number of police killings annually? Is it true that the police system was instituted in order to protect the upper class? See my bookmark.htm file, on this web site, for more information about police brutality and racism.