TRUE DEMOCRACY SPRING 2001 TABLE OF CONTENTS
POLICE BRUTALITY
Racist Profiling
By Amadi Ajamu
Historically, the intersection of race and law enforcement in the United
States has been entrenched in the ideology of white supremacy. Laws are
written and carried out by whites and in the interest of whites. Laws are
in fact, an instrument used to determine the conditions of Black people.
For instance, Black folks have been enslaved by law, "emancipated" by law,
disenfranchised by law and segregated by law. Moreover, 19th century US
slave codes created an entirely separate set of crimes and punishments
that were not applicable to whites and punished enslaved Blacks more harshly
for crimes committed against whites than against another black person.
Contemporary slave codes have manifested themselves in many different
arenas, but none as prolific as in the nefarious domain of illicit
narcotics. Despite the fact that this multi-billion dollar industry
dictates international manufacturing and distribution mechanisms; law
enforcement "profiles of drug dealers" sanctioned by the highest levels of
the courts, undoubtedly contain the characteristic of dark skin or Black
males residing in impoverished urban areas. Therefore the police practice
of detaining, harassing, illegally searching, arresting, and murdering
Black men is common place on the airports, highways, streets, and
households of America. According to an April 1999 report prepared for the
US Commission on Civil Rights by The Sentencing Project, Black people
constitute 13% of the country's drug users; 37% of those arrested on drug
charges; 55% of those convicted; and 74% of all drug offenders sentenced
to prison.
The high profile cases involving New Jersey State Troopers shooting of
Leroy Germaine Grant, Rayshawn Brown, Keshon Moore, and Daniel Reyes in a
van on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1998 and the New York City Police
Departments' murder of Amadou Diallo in 1999 and Patrick Dorismond in
2000, all of whom were unarmed and did not possess any drugs, dramatically
exposed the insidious nature this particular human rights violation and the
levels of judicial collusion involved.
Notoriously racist police formations have been periodically exposed. For
example, in 1988 an internal investigation revealed the existence of
fraternity within the ranks of the Reynoldsburg, Ohio Police Department
call "SNAT" or "Special Nigger Arrest Team". In California, a March 2000
report by the Los Angeles Police Department on corruption in its Rampart
District station house exposed an elite secretive anti-gang squad called
the "CRASH" or Community Resource Against Street Hoodlums unit that
operated as a criminal enterprise which terrorized the Black community.
They committed widespread perjury and sent hundreds to jail on trumped up
charges. They stole and dealt in illegal drugs. They even shot a
handcuffed and unarmed Black man in the head and when he survived they
testified against him and sent him to prison. In order to get into this
elite unit, a white officer had to pledge like a fraternity. In New York
City the elite Street Crimes Unit operating under the slogan "We own the
night" was responsible for the murders of Amadou Diallo and Patrick
Dorismond, shooting Mr. Diallo forty-one times. In court, the murderers of
Mr. Diallo were acquitted and the murderers of Mr. Dorismond were not even
indicted.
From 1997 through 1998 the Street Crimes Unit documented that they stopped
and frisked 45,000 primarily Black and Latino men, many thousands more are
believed to have gone undocumented.
The Civil Rights Act of 1965, section 1(E) and 2(E), allegedly grants
protection to minority motorist from interference by intimidation, injury,
or interference of individuals. The Privileges and Immunities Clause of
Section 2 Article 4 of the US Constitution affords protection for the
rights to interstate travel or personal mobility. And the Fourth
Amendment to the US Constitution is supposed to protect citizens from
unreasonable governmental intrusion when it infringes on a person's
expectation of privacy without probable cause. Therefore the racist
practice of profiling drug dealers should be illegal. But when these
"illegal" acts are committed by racist law enforcement officials against
Black people, the laws suddenly do not apply.
A macro-view of the practice of racist profiling incorporates many
different spheres of Black life, education, policies, and the widespread
practice of tracking Black students to "special education" and remedial
classes, the steady decline of low and moderate income housing and the
re-gentrification of cities across the US, banking and financing
"red-line" policy in small business and home mortgage loans, employment
and hiring practices, inferior health care facilities in Black
communities, the systematic violation of Black voter rights, and the
entire criminal justice system including the massive prison industrial
complex whose population has surpassed 2 million, with another four
million who are being supervised on parole or probation.
US laws are written and carried out by whites and for whites, and are an
instrument used to determine the conditions of Black people - their ex
slaves. Those conditions are subjugation, terror, and oppression.
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