We are not all Michael Brown. Or John Crawford III, Rekia Boyd or Aiyana Stanley Jones. Nor are we all Cliven Bundy, Steve Loehner, or any of the dozens of Open Carry advocates whose images have been running in the press all year long. Police engagement in America varies widely based on race, class, and location. Things that may seem unfathomable in Idaho are sometimes commonplace in New York City, St. Louis, or Chicago.
To discuss what is happening in Ferguson is to discuss what has happened there and elsewhere in the past as well as what could be happening in any majority black urban or suburban setting with a police force that is not. Common narratives around race would have outsiders assuming that Ferguson’s majority Black population means that Ferguson police are dealing with a highly violent, high crime area. Yet, the only homicide in Ferguson this year was the death of Michael Brown at the hands of a still unnamed officer. In fact Ferguson’s crime rate is about average and is much lower than some other areas nearby.
It would be easy to blame the current violent imagery coming out of Ferguson, Missouri, solely on the equipment changes that followed the War on Drugs, War on Terror and a dozen other initiatives that have led to military equipment being placed in the hands of domestic law enforcement. However, the violent policing in Ferguson and elsewhere not only predates the relatively recent militarization of the police, it doesn’t require military grade equipment to be enacted on marginalized communities. Racial bias in policing has been a problem since the inception of organized police forces in America. For a country that prides itself on being the land of the free, America has structured itself so that freedom is only meant for some people. In fact, until very recently Black Americans could not expect much else from the police except brutality.
That’s why officers in Ferguson felt so free to ignore even the most basic aspects of human decency. That’s why there were reports from before the first protest of officers berating and intimidating witnesses. Much has been made of the fact that police vehicles were supposed to be equipped with dash cams, but the reality is that if those cameras were present then the police would have had to change their tactics, and like many American police departments Ferguson’s police don’t want to have to do that. Despite reports out of Rialto, California and other jurisdictions that using cameras reduces violence and complaints, officials in many American cities have been resistant to the possibility of being held accountable at all times. That resistance isn’t about community protection or better policing. The decision to use flash bangs, tear gas, sound cannons, and armored personnel carriers last night in Ferguson was not about protecting and serving the community.
American policing has not recently broken down, in fact, in many ways it has continued to function as intended. Never constructed to be fair to every community, it continues to pay lip service to the idea of being protective for some communities while acting oppressively towards others. The only difference is that now it is not socially sanctioned in the same way. But, as the 24 hour news cycle moves onto social media outlets like Twitter, people who may not have previously been exposed to the way police interact with marginalized communities are getting an on the spot education. The militarization of police equipment is the symptom, the framing of marginalized communities as Other and lesser than is the root of the problem. Are there problems in many marginalized communities related to poverty and the crimes that are common in impoverished areas? Absolutely. But crime happens everywhere, so we have to start talking about the perception that lends itself to an 18 year old being shot for jaywalking, while a 20 year old mass shooter is taken into custody alive.
The militarization of police equipment is a problem, inasmuch as it gives already biased officers better tools with which to terrorize and oppress a community. But if the only focus is on removing the equipment, and not on changing the foundation we’ll continue to see incidents like this one in Ferguson. At some point a conversation about police brutality in the Unites States has to go past the most recent example, and into the long standing history. We have to restructure our approach to communities, not just to community policing strategies so that officers never have the chance to sustain the kinds of biases that lent themselves to Mike Brown’s death or any of the others that have been in the news. There’s a common thread running through these stories of police brutality, and it’s not so much the militarization of the police as it is the racism that means the police feel free to treat the population they are supposed to be serving as an enemy to be destroyed. We are not all the victims of police brutality, but many of us could be, and we all need to work to fix the problem.
The Ferguson police need to have top to bottom scrutiny. Take their military “toys” away from them and replace them with GoPro cameras. I don’t suppose Ferguson’s white community as said boo through all of this.