Tamir Rice Still Not Buried Pending Investigation

While police in Baltimore are attacking Maryland State Attorney Marilyn Mosby, saying she brought charges against six Baltimore City police officers in the death of Freddie Gray, there lays the body of a 12-year-old boy, Tamir Rice, who was shot and killed by Cleveland Police Officers five months ago.

Cleveland police are still “investigating” the incident, and say the child cannot be buried until they complete the investigation because they may need to examine the body further for medical evidence. (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/04/tamir-rice-family-judge-not-delay-civil-rights-case-against-cleveland)

What in the world needs to be investigated …and why is it taking so long? Why is the Cleveland Police Department adding insult to injury to the family of this child by holding up his burial? And why isn’t the press covering this story?

There are reasons people get angry and take to the streets, and being dehumanized is one of them. I as a mother cannot imagine sitting by while police performed a prolonged “investigation” after they murdered my child. Can any mother be expected to be all right with that? Keeping that child from being buried is the height of disrespect to his person, his family …and his community.

Tamir Rice, you remember, was the 12-year-old boy who was playing with a toy gun. Someone called in to police, saying there was someone with a gun but allegedly said “it might be a toy.”

Police rolled up on the child moments later, got about 10 feet away from him, and opened fire, killing him. They said they shouted “police!” but in the video it looks like they drove up, got out, fired their guns …and maybe said “police” afterward.

Would any police officer be all right with a member of his or her family being kept from being buried while an “investigation” was going on? Wait. Would any HUMAN be all right with that?

Some people balk at the phrase “black lives matter,” but can anyone wonder why those words are being lifted up? Where in the world is the dignity this child deserves? He was a human being, somebody’s son, a child …playing with a toy gun. Officers rolled up on him and shot him like he was a dangerous wild animal…and now, they are keeping him from being buried?

Although officers are upset with Maryland State Attorney Mosby, at least her actions afforded the people who are grieving the murder (the state medical examiner ruled his death a homicide) the appearance of concern for them and for the quest of justice. Everyone knows that filing charges is only a first step; police officers are rarely convicted on charges they face, even when a case seems cut and dry. Remember, the evidence of police beating Rodney King was crystal clear, and the officers were brought up on charges, but they were all acquitted. That verdict caused the streets in Los Angeles to erupt in anger and frustration. So, justice for Freddie Gray is not a sure thing. But at least Mosby recognized that something wrong happened and brought charges against the officers involved swiftly.

The prolonged “investigation” in the Michael Brown case caused the same kind of anger and frustration. The lack of immediate action in Brown’s case, beginning with leaving him lying dead in the street for hours began the tortuous “investigation” which concluded that the officer who shot him was without fault. In fact, that investigation really seemed to concentrate on making the case that Brown was a criminal, and, therefore, deserved what he got. Police were able to say the proverbial “I was in fear for my life,” and those who are inclined to believe that if one is shot by an officer, he or she deserved it were satisfied.

But what in the world can Cleveland police possibly be looking for after five months? How in the world can they and do they justify this prolonged “investigation?”

I hardly know what to say. This is most definitely the most painful candid observation I have come across since I have been writing this blog. A long time ago, a friend of mine said that going to church on Sunday morning, and shouting, was “grief release.” Black people held a lot in, she said, in order to survive. Sunday morning, through the shout, they were able to release the pressure of being dehumanized, ignored and oppressed.

The Fraternal Order of Police in Baltimore are enraged at Mosby’s swift actions, calling it a “rush to judgement.” They say their officers have done nothing wrong. That does not seem likely. But their being charged while the investigation is going on feels a lot better than letting them continue to patrol the community in which Freddie Gray was killed, as if nothing happened at all.

The taking to the streets is yet another form of “grief release.” There are no words to describe how the parents and family of Tamir Rice are feeling. It is as though they do not exist, and do not have feelings.

This is shameful.

A candid observation …

Rodney King: American Legend?

Rodney King poster (Photo credit: MarkGregory007)

An American legend has died.

Some may disagree with me, but how can Rodney King be called anything less than a legend?

When King’s horrific beating by police officers was caught on tape and publicized, I remember feeling a glimmer of hope. All along there had been cries of police brutality in the African-American community, but nobody would listen. The prevailing thought seemed to be that black people were just …bad people…and the good officers were only doing their jobs with a people who had to be tamed.

No matter how loud the groundswell was from any particular community about what police were doing, nobody would listen. There seemed to be a “gentleman’s agreement” that what police did in black communities would remain in black communities, cries of injustice and excessive violence notwithstanding.

It made the black community feel invisible.

But with the video of King’s beating …I, and, I am sure, many others, felt like a just society would see. A justice system interested in justice would see; police departments all over the country would see; American citizens who were all too eager to write the black community off as troublemakers would see.

That belief spawned hope. Now it wouldn’t be “our” word against “theirs.” In a land where it was promised that there would be “liberty and justice for all,” justice would now come to the white officers who were caught on tape.

That was wishful thinking, however, and it really should be no surprise that after the officers were acquitted that there was a backlash. If it was that not even a video which showed what African-Americans had talked about for so long that would shake the foundations of excessive force so often used by police on African-Americans, then what would work?

King’s beating represented a raisin in the sun, a raisin of hope which exploded in a thousand fragments as that hope was dashed.

King didn’t set out to become a legend, but what happened to him thrust the issue of police violence, police brutality, into the spotlight. He became a legend by default. What happened to him, and how the justice system really ignored what was on that tape, became fodder for those whose social justice focus is police brutality. I am not quite sure how much progress has been made, but for certain, the awareness of what happens on the streets with too many citizens and police officers was heightened by King’s unfortunate experience.

Lots has been said about King’s demons. He never did really get his life under control if media accounts are to be believed. Drugs and alcohol were constant companions, and he was able to squander millions of dollars awarded to him after his beating. Everyone knows about that.

But what we may not know, or may not want to admit, is that King is a part of the American fabric, a thread in the cloth that nobody wanted in the cloth, most especially powers that be that have a vested interest in protecting the status quo.

King’s beating, and the subsequent acquittal of those officers, made a dent in a long-sanctioned system of police brutality, and that really does make him a legend.

A candid observation …

Dreams Deferred

I had been thinking about Rodney King, the African-American man who had been brutally beaten by police officers 20 years ago in Los Angeles, when suddenly, his face and name appeared on CNN. I had been thinking about him because, as I have observed the Trayvon Martin situation, it feels like justice might just elude this case, just as it did when three of the four the white police officers accused of beating King were acquitted.

Their acquittal sparked rage in the African-American community. Then-mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, said that that the officers did not “deserve to wear the uniform of the L.A.P.D. and even President George H.W. Bush said that it was hard to understand the acquittals, given what the videotape showed.

Incredulous as it seemed, though, the acquittals were a reality and fed a rage across the nation generally but in Los Angeles specifically that is not too far below the surface of the spirits of African-Americans, because years of injustice and feeling like second-class citizens breeds despair which leads to rage. That the “justice” system could let the white officers go back then, in light of and in spite of videotape which showed the brutal beating of King, meant that once again, an African-American life was not valued. The not-so-deep rage erupted into violence.

I have been thinking about the King case as I have watched the Martin case. What Trayvon’s parents want is justice, but from the start, that goal has been met with resistance. It seems that a great effort has been to defend and protect George Zimmerman , and to blame the victim, Trayvon, for his own death.

It is a strategy and scenario almost too painful to talk about.

The ever-present despair of African-Americans is something the majority culture does not want to talk about, but it is there, and it is dangerously flammable. It is remarkable that there have not been more outbursts of violence in response to that despair. Dr. Martin Luther King wrote, in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that “for more than two centuries, our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation and yet, out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop.”

That “bottomless vitality” is something I like to call “crazy faith,” a stubborn belief that, surely, things will get better; surely this insane injustice primarily attributable to racism cannot be interminable.

White culture does not want African-Americans to be angry, but white culture does not want to address the institutional and structural racism that causes the anger. White culture strives to hold onto its power, which is not a bad thing in and of itself, but in its quest to maintain its power, it has stripped people from other ethnic groups, not just African-Americans – not only of any power they might have, but of their very dignity.

That in and of itself is a recipe for explosive rage, but it becomes an even more potent problem and reality given that we live in a country which prides itself on being “just.” America is the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” America’s founding fathers wrote that “all men are created equal,” and it is on the basis of America’s own stated ethos that African-Americans and others demand justice – equally meted out.

It does not happen – equally meted out justice does not happen here. Statistics and studies show that African-Americans receive stiffer penalties than do whites arrested for the same crimes; African-American children are more likely to receive suspensions and expulsions, again while white children who have done the same things tend to get off easier.

At the end of the day, there is yet something that we don’t want to talk about that is killing us – and that is that the primary tumor – the reason for the rampant and unequal justice in this country – is racism, the belief that African-Americans are objects and not human beings, inferior to whites, capable of doing little right. African-Americans watching the Trayvon Martin case are right there – cringing with the feeling that yet again, a black life seems unimportant. No matter what Zimmerman’s attorneys and others say, the Trayvon Martin shooting is about justice possibly being elusive because the victim was black.

When the rage erupted after Rodney King’s attackers got off, many white people seemed not to understand. The Los Angeles riots were about dreams deferred. The riots were about years of being ignored and blamed for their own oppression. The riots were about the anger that could not be contained as the arrogance of a racist justice system shoved its power in the faces of those who so deeply yearn for justice.

The mood and spirit in this country because of the Trayvon Martin case. What seems like a cut-and-dry case of an armed man shooting and killing an unarmed young black man is not, it seems, so cut and dry. There is a good possibility that George Zimmerman, charged with second-degree murder – might be acquitted of all charges.

What then? How long can this nation keep ignoring racism, especially in light of how it is eating away at the very sinews of this country? It really seems like it’s time, past time, for “change we can believe in.” Without that change, this flesh-eating bacteria called racism will continue to eat away at the very soul of America. Rodney King remembers how and why the rage erupted. The country should remember, too.

A candid observation…