Legally Right -- Mortally Wrong and Morally Bankrupt. The Injustice Endures

After what seem like endless and quite deliberate delays regarding "investigating" the death of Tamir Rice, Tim McGinty has released two reports which justify the shooting and death of young Tamir on the basis of law and court decisions which essentially protect police officers from criminal liability when they kill ("use deadly force") in performance of their duties.

As long as officers declare themselves to have perceived a threat -- even if there isn't one -- and that perception can be considered "reasonable", they're essentially immune from criminal liability for almost any death or injury they cause in the course of performing their duties.

In the case of Tamir Rice, the reports claim that the officers involved reasonably perceived a mortal threat to themselves when young Rice approached Officer Loemann and reached for his waistband thus justifying the immediate use of lethal force.

The perception of a mortal threat -- even though objectively there wasn't one -- had to do with the dispatch reports of "a black male with a gun" in a park outside a community center.

Here's what's wrong with that analysis:

The perception is based on faulty metrics. The fear the officers felt was due not to any objective threat to themselves or anyone else but due -- entirely in my estimation -- to the fact they were told by dispatch that there was a black male with a gun. A black male with a gun. A BLACK MALE WITH A GUN.

That, all by itself, is considered an existential threat to police and civilians in open carry Ohio.

Not only was Tamir Rice shot and killed -- on sight -- by Ohio police because he was said by a 911 caller to be armed and "brandishing," so was John Crawford III, even though neither of them were actually armed (in the sense of having a weapon with which they could do lethal harm to another) and neither, at the time he was shot and killed, was "brandishing".

All it takes is for someone to say the right words for the executioners to act.

The problem here [8 pg pdf] is police training and Supreme Court rulings that protect the officers who use deadly force even though there may be no objective threat to be neutralized.

Because officers cannot be expected to read the minds of individuals and determine intent, they are instead trained to scrutinized individuals’ behavior for telltale signs. An individual’s actions are often the only signals of their intent. Obviously, if the individual being confronted is reasonably believed to be armed, the officer’s attention to those actions will be intensified. In such a situation, officers are taught to focus on the hands of the individual.3 If the hands move in the direction of a “high-risk area” – an area where a weapon may be concealed, such as inside a jacket, towards the waistband of pants, or under the seat of a car, well trained officers will immediately identify this as a serious threat.

When threat identification is combined with the concept of action versus reaction, an officer’s need to make split-second judgments with respect to the use of force becomes evident. Action versus reaction is simply the recognition that there is a certain amount of time required for every person to recognize a stimulus, formulate a response to that stimulus, and then carry out that response. When applied to deadly force situations, action versus reaction refers to the time it takes for an officer to observe the actions of an individual, such as the movement of an individual’s hands, perceive those actions as threatening, calculate possible responses to the treat, determine what level of force is necessary, and then complete the reaction. The reactions of a well-trained officer may be quick, but they are not instantaneous. The time differential between a threatening action occurring and the ability to respond to that threat always puts law enforcement officers in the position of having to catch-up. The practical effect of action versus reaction in deadly force situations is that officers cannot wait to react until they are absolutely certain of an individual’s malicious intent. If an officer waits to be certain that the individual reaching into a high-risk area is retrieving a weapon, action versus reaction dictates that the weapon could easily be used against the officer before he or she has an opportunity to respond.

This is the root of the problem right here. The passage was written by a former FBI trainer now retired, someone whose wisdom, if you want to call it that, has formed the basis for police training with regard to 'threats' and their 'neutralization' for decades. The principle is that perception rules all, and instant action in the face of a perceived 'threat' -- whether there is really a threat to the officer or someone else -- is drilled into the officer over and over, without regard to either the necessity of using lethal force in the first place or to the consequences of the use of lethal force on the victim.

Naturally, under the circumstances, many, many innocent people and people in one kind of crisis or another and many people who are only tangentially 'threats' will be injured and killed. And their injuries and killings will be justified by the likes of this person, for the simple reason that the law allows and protects it and the officer's perceptions of a threat -- perceptions which have been drilled in over and over again -- are all that is necessary to justify a killing or injury by police.

I've long held that 90% or more of police homicides are unnecessary. If there were a different standard of police conduct and a different way of seeing situations (ie: not all hands to waistbands are reaching for a gun; indeed very few are. And even if they were, why should that be a death sentence to be performed by summary execution on the spot? Whatever happened to "due process?") there would be little or no necessity to use lethal force in the first place. If police were trained to see each situation independently (ie: a hand to waistband doesn't necessarily mean a gun will be pulled from said waistband) and not react to each situation as if a deadly threat were present, the number of police homicides could be cut immediately and substantially. If police were trained to be skeptical of dispatch reports based on 911 calls, the number of police homicides could be cut substantially and very quickly. If police were trained to actually assess a situation before going into it guns blazing, the number of police homicides could be cut substantially. If police commanders and chiefs said to their officers that inappropriate use of firearms will result in discipline up to and including termination, the number of police homicides could be cut substantially.

I could go on. The issue is that police are not expected to value any lives but their own, and even then, their self-valuation may be very low. They need to learn to value human life in general, and specifically to value the lives of those who have previously been determined to be disposable.

That day seems always to be far off, but somehow I know it is coming.

These reports that are being cited to justify the police murder of Tamir Rice are shameful, but they represent the state of police belief and practice as it is.

We must change it.

The Kunduz Hospital Atrocity

The number of killed and wounded at the Kunduz, Afghanistan hospital run by MSF is somewhat uncertain. Dozens are dead or injured, at any rate.

They were killed and wounded during a nighttime attack from above. At least one US AC-130 and possibly one or more helicopter gunships fired on the hospital's main building around 2am, largely destroying the hospital and causing significant death and injury to patients (some of whom are reported to have "burned in their beds") and to staff.

MSF has called the attack a war crime.

The Defense Department has characterized it as an "accident," or perhaps a "tragic" incident justified by reports of Taliban fighters using the site to fire on American and/or Afghan forces operating in the area to retake Kunduz from Taliban insurgents, yadda yadda.

MSF insists that there were no Taliban fighters on the grounds or in the hospital, and there was no firing from the compound before or during the attack.

Of course under the shadowy Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan and other theaters of our many overseas wars, it doesn't matter whether the reports of Taliban fighters using the grounds and hospital as positions from which to fire on American and Afghan forces are true or false. It only matters that there are reports of suspected enemy presence or action from such and such a location to unleash Death From Above. Confirmation is never required as actual confirmation might jeopardize a troop on the ground. Can't have that. Good heavens no.

Force protection is All Important. The deaths of untold numbers of civilians, and the destruction of protected infrastructure such as hospitals, power plants, water treatment and pumping plants, etc, matters far less (actually not at all) compared to the necessity to protect the force.

Such death and destruction is patently a war crime under various treaties, but it's routine in the US pursuit of Empire, and there is no plausible prosecutorial means to hold the Imperial forces liable. Much the same is true of Israel's actions in its attacks on Gaza. Israel routinely attacks and destroys protected sites and infrastructure, killing untold numbers of civilians and other protected individuals, and Israel justifies it through reference to reports of enemy action at or near these sites -- or doesn't bother justifying it at all, it just does it.

"Investigations" by the United States or Israel into these frequently repeated actions are typically farces which exist solely to exonerate those who conducted the operations. In any rational world they would be considered war crimes.

But we are not in a rational world.

We are in a world of illusion and deception, in which literally any presence or action -- or lack of action -- can be interpreted as a "threat" to Imperial forces, and such "threats" can be/will be suppressed with lethal force. There's nothing rational about it. It's all "gut" and "perception," illusion and deception. And above all, it's force protection. From phantoms.

I've compared these incidents with domestic police actions which result in death and destruction. It literally does not matter whether there is an actual threat involved in police use of lethal force. All that matters at law is that there is a perception of a threat -- or simply reports that there is a threat -- for domestic police forces to justify use of lethal force.

False or inaccurate reports are sufficient.

Thus, for example, John Crawford III and Tamir Rice were killed by police on the basis of false/inaccurate reports of 911 callers and dispatchers. It didn't matter what Crawford and Rice were really doing, nor did it matter that they weren't threats of any kind. All that mattered was that they were suspected and reported as potentially threatening.

That is sufficient justification for police use of lethal force in this country, and it is sufficient justification for military action overseas -- such as the constant drone attacks on "suspected militants," the frequent attacks on wedding parties by US forces and their allies, and the recent deadly attack on the Kunduz hospital.

In a rational world, they would be crimes against humanity.

But we are not in a rational world.

[Maybe some links later; busy day today.]

Routines, Protocols, and Justifications

There is a magical incantation: "The officer followed proper department procedure."

There is another magical incantation: "The officer stated he was in fear for his life."

And yet another magical incantation: "The subject was seen to reach for his waistband."

And still another: "The subject refused commands to drop his weapon and was seen to point it at the officer."

One more: "The subject advanced toward the officer with hostile intent."

There are many more, of course, but these are among the magical incantations that will, in almost every case, enable the police department and district attorney, along with almost every use of force monitor and civilian review panel to rule yet another police homicide "justified." It typically doesn't matter whether these incantations are true or not, for the truth is rarely a matter for internal investigations. Veracity -- ie: the believability of the incantation -- is not necessarily truthfulness after all. What's needed -- often all that's needed -- is that the officer state certain things in certain ways, and once that's done, he (or rarely, she) is on his/her way.

The perp in almost every case deserved to die according to police procedure and protocol for the use of force.

Almost every time. So often, in fact, do police do so that getting away with murder has become a police department routine.

There is essentially no defense when an officer has decided (in that legendary "split-second" so frequently alluded to) to kill a subject. None. The subject may be surrendering, may not be armed, may be confused or unable to obey, may be mentally handicapped or or otherwise disabled, may be belligerent, may or may not be a real threat to the officer or others, it does not matter. Once the decision to kill has been made, there is no defense the officer is bound to respect. The bad aim and shooting skills of the officer may be the only thing that prevents the death of the suspect.

This became clear to me sometime this year when a particular New Mexico State Police sniper was assigned to a number of incidents involving civilians in crisis and he shot three of them, killing two, severely wounding another.

In the first case I'm aware of, he shot and killed a suspect at an apartment complex in Albuquerque. The suspect's family said, "He shot the wrong brother." There were two brothers wanted for firing at police and lightly wounding a police officer the night before. According to the family, the brother who had actually fired at officers the night before surrendered during a daylight standoff and claimed that the other brother was the one who fired. The other brother, according to the family, never fired a weapon at the police and was in the process of surrendering or negotiating his surrender, when the State Police sniper shot him dead.

A few months later, he was assigned to a "stand off" out in the country, not far from our own place, as part of a SWAT back up requested by the sheriff. The subject in this stand off was known to the sheriff as a troubled individual who was now "barricaded" in his parents' home, refusing to come out, and alleged to be firing at police and others from inside the home. It would later turn out he was not firing, but in these cases, what he was really doing is beside the point. He would not surrender in a timely fashion.

The sheriff and the man's parents were on the phone with him trying to get him to surrender when the State Police sniper opened fire, killing him. The sheriff was shocked. The man was not considered a serious threat -- though he was armed, and apparently had fired the gun inside the house. During the standoff and immediately after the killing, it was said he had fired at police, news helicopters and bystanders, but sometime later it was determined he had not actually fired "at" anyone, and statements to the contrary issued by police and media were false. Nevertheless, the man needed killing, yes?

The third incident happened a few months later when a man was having a crisis episode in Los Lunas. He was armed, threatening and fired his weapons several times, and apparently actually did fire at officers (though we should take any statement that he did so with a dash of skepticism.) Local police were backed up by Valencia County and State Police, once again including this particular sniper. Within a short time, the man was shot and wounded by this sniper and two of the local police. He was taken to the hospital and was said to be recovering from his injuries according to news reports which have, so far as I know, not been followed up on.

This State Police sniper has essentially been sent on assignment after assignment to kill people. We know of other individuals who have similar assignments.  And if there are such individuals in New Mexico, we can be sure there are other police assigned to kill in other places. In fact, they are probably all over the country. Killers. By protocol and procedure.

When it dawned on me that this was happening, not just around here but probably everywhere, and that killing by police was not by any means always a "split second" determination by an officer under threat -- or perceived threat -- but was an assignment carried out with extreme prejudice by designated killers, I got the picture that what we think is going on is not what's going on at all.

In many of these cases of police killing the fact is that there has been an active process of premeditation and predetermination leading to summary execution. In that context, the killings, which otherwise might seem spontaneous or random actually turn out to be planned and implemented according to protocols and justifications -- "rules of engagement" if you will -- that the public is largely unaware of.

They largely don't know that when they call 911 in cases of a loved one undergoing an emotional or psychological crisis or a drug or alcohol induced crisis, police will almost always be dispatched to "secure" the situation prior to EMTs having access. If the loved one cannot or does not obey commands from police, the loved one will be shot. Often the loved one will be killed. This is standard protocol for such situations, and so it's rarely advisable to call 911 for emergency services in such situations unless you are OK with your loved one being shot and killed. (Which apparently a lot of people are... )

For whatever reason, though, most people don't seem to understand this.

If police see someone with a gun or what they think is a gun when they are engaged in some kind of "crime suppression" operation, they will open fire sometimes without warning. "Rules of engagement." There doesn't have to be a gun for this to happen, just the perception of something somewhat gunlike is enough. Or if someone suspected of being involved in a criminal activity reaches for his waistband... bam.

Again, it doesn't matter whether the suspect is armed or not, nor does it matter whether there is an actual threat, all that matters is that the officer says he perceived  a threat. Or, as we've seen, the officer is assigned to kill the suspect, perceived threat or no.

It's routine, it's protocol, and it is sufficient to justify just about any police killing of anyone at any time.

Stuart Schrader at Jacobin gets into how these rules came about, how they were derived from military and policing practices used by American Imperial troopers in the Philippines and Vietnam, and how they became the standards for domestic policing as well. It's a fascinating story. Grim. But fascinating.

The thing of it is, the victims often have no idea what the rules are, or they believe they are quite different than they are. This misunderstanding actually leads to a lot of the killings by police, as the police operate by a set of rules and protocols completely different from those of the public, and often completely unknown to them.

This has been true of the military in Afghanistan and Iraq as well, where thousands of innocents were killed -- because they didn't know what the rules of engagement were, or because snipers were assigned to kill them, or because they were in the way.

Thus the Haditha massacre, the endless checkpoint killings, the "clearances" of civilians from areas of operations, the roadside killings, the kill response to any perceived threat, any perceived action that might be a threat, the random shooting at civilians to terrorize them and so on. Ultimately it's about force protection. The killers to be protected at all costs, civilians not so much.

All these practices that were intended to cow and control an occupied population abroad, dating back at least to the Philippine Insurrection of 1898-1904 have been applied to domestic policing as a means of enforcing control through what amounts to terror. It's not new. It's integral.

Changing it means that the ruling class must abandon an imperial mindset. The question is, how?

Compliance

Of course I've been following the counts of the Dead by Police that have been highlighted since the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, following them with some interest.

My interest is spurred in part by the simple call to justice. But there's more. My sister died as a result of injuries she sustained in the take down of a mentally ill prisoner she was working with at a California state prison (euphemistically called a "State Hospital.") She'd called for back up by the guards when the prisoner became agitated. All she  said she wanted was for the guards to stand by as the prisoner wasn't threatening her, but they decided on a take down then and there. She was caught in the middle, shattering both of her knees against a table, and she died from a blood clot the day after surgery to repair the damage.

Her son, my nephew, was held in solitary in a Marine brig for four years for a crime he didn't commit, or at least did not knowingly commit. He was asked to pick up a package off base by his commanding officer. When he returned to the base, the package was inspected and he was arrested for transport and possession of marijuana. He was court-martialed, convicted and sentenced. He believed he was set up due to base politics, a belief I tend to share. At any rate, he spent his sentence in solitary confinement except for the few times he was taken to the hospital to treat the broken bones he sustained from guards beating the shit out of him -- because they could. I believe he was hospitalized twice.

Brutality, violence, stupidity, and political jockeying seemed to be the hallmarks of policing -- even in, or perhaps especially in, the military -- in those days as they are today. My nephew was in the brig in the '70s and my sister died in 1994.

In 1996, I became involved with the Sacramento NAACP branches efforts to curb police brutality in that city, and I spent a good deal of time compiling information and writing the report which became the basis for reforms to the Sacramento Police Department, including an accountability monitor (not the civilian review board we were advocating, but it was something.) The report and other documentation is available online. (PDF from Google-search, may not open properly.)

When I look back on that effort especially, it seems that the police/public situation, bad as it seemed to be at the time, was far milder than it is today. Killings by police were rare, at least they were in Sacramento, and the issues we were dealing with were primarily ones of harrassment, disrespect, and physical coercion.

Yesterday, I opened one of the cases listed by "Killed by Police" at random and was shocked and horrified all over again. The case was that of Keith Koster, 54, of Indianapolis who was shot and killed by police in January in response to an emergency services (911) call for medical attention. Koster was having difficulty breathing, and family called for assistance.

When EMTs arrived, they saw a gun and withdrew. Police were summoned to "secure" the situation. Koster was incoherent by this time, clearly quite ill, and he was unable to follow police "commands". He apparently picked up the gun, and as he did, officers said he "waved it" at them. They opened fire and shot him dead in the hallway of his apartment house.

So it goes. His family, some of whom were witness, were appalled.

The story is actually somewhat confused, as the claim is made that the police "negotiated" with Koster "for an hour," though the report of the killing seems to indicate it happened within minutes of the arrival of police when Koster did not follow "commands." The police claim to have fired bean bag rounds at Koster before using lethal force, but they were not effective.

What was wrong with Koster is not specified, but it may have been that he was having a heart attack, had advanced pneumonia or was in a state of diabetic ketosis or something else. At any rate, his family was quite sure that he was not a threat to anyone, as he was very ill on the one hand, and he was not a violent person in any way. This is the confused story as it was relayed to the Indianapolis Star:

Tuesday’s incident began when paramedics responding to a call of a person having trouble breathing noticed a firearm in the apartment and left the building, police said.

An officer who had accompanied the medics approached the apartment and talked to Koster through the door. The officer called for backup when the man exhibited “strange” behavior, police said. Koster picked up the handgun paramedics had seen in his apartment and waved it toward officers, police said.

Police at least once tried to bring him down by firing bean bag rounds at him, but Koster continued to ignore officers’ commands to drop his weapon, said Officer Christopher Wilburn, spokesman for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

The shooting occurred in a narrow hallway in the apartment building where SWAT officers had been negotiating with Koster for an hour. Koster was not holding a hostage, and there was no indication that Koster fired his gun, police said.

Police reports on Tuesday indicated that Koster stepped into the hallway outside his apartment several times before the shooting. Today, however, an Bailey said that was not the case. Koster stayed inside his apartment.

Note all the times that "police said" this or that?  Well, later in the story we read:

Initial reports came amid the frenzy following Tuesday’s police-action shooting, Bailey said, and investigators more carefully pieced together details in the following hours.

“There were officers on each side of his door, and negotiators were across the hall in another apartment speaking to him,” Bailey said. “It was close quarters.”

The SWAT team member who shot Koster is on administrative leave while simultaneous investigations are being conducted into the shooting, police said. They did not identify the SWAT officer.

Yes, well. Clearly this was a case of compliance overriding common sense.  The need for compliance was the ultimate cause of my sister's death. Demands for compliance were the ostensible cause of my nephew's injuries in custody.

The Cult of Compliance, above every other concern, has led to innumerable deaths and injuries by police, and the Cult of Compliance is the chief cause of much of the police slaughter now being compiled by various sites on the internet if not by officials and authorities themselves. The record is clear and appalling.

There's also the issue of "force protection." In this case, the EMTs who arrived to treat Koster saw a gun and withdrew, as they are instructed to do whenever they perceive a threat or see a gun. Police are then dispatched (unless they are dispatched first, which has been the source of many deaths after calling 911) to "secure" the situation before EMTs return. Force protection -- as in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan -- is the primary objective, not protection or service to the public. In the case of Keith Koster, not only were police dispatched, but so was a SWAT team, and the SWAT team is said to have "negotiated" with the man.

If those "negotiations" were anything like reports of the SWAT "negotiations" with Armand Martin in Albuquerque the term is meaningless. There were no "negotiations." There were repeated commands, demands, and use of munitions including flash-bang grenades until such time as Martin came out of his house, at which point he was shot dead by a sniper. Claims were made that Martin fired at police, but witnesses dispute that. As is so often the case, whether the dead man did what the police say he did is a matter of dispute. So often the police claims are false.

Keith Koster didn't have to die, nor did Armand Martin (one day the full story of what was going on during that "standoff" will be known...)  But the twin evils of the Cult of Compliance and Force Protection protocols ensured they would die, no matter.

This is the problem Americans face in attempting to deal with the apparent epidemic of police violence and killings. I say "apparent" because it's not entirely clear that the death and injury rate from police violence is worse now than in the past. What is clear is that since Ferguson, especially, many Americans are no longer willing to remain passive in the face of this violence.

What will have to be done to change the policing culture in this country still needs to be worked out, but many more are committed to seeing that change take place than there once were. And that's a good thing.
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Keith Koster's Obituary, for reference.

WSWS account of the Armand Martin and other police shootings in Albuquerque.

Money graf:

The US ruling class is well aware of the seething anger among the working class population over its policies of austerity, inequality and imperialist war and is prepared for inevitable resistance. It has given the green light—as well as increased funding and equipment—to police departments nationwide to escalate their attacks on the working class to preemptively instill fear of retaliation for that resistance.

Precisely.

Another Officer Involved Killing in Albuquerque

In this case, it was a Bernalillo County Sheriff's deputy who shot the man. There is video of the incident from a surveillance camera. It's a frightening and violent encounter.



The man's ex-girlfriend seems to agree that he "needed killing."

The way these things tend to go, this event will be used by some to justify most or all police shootings.

Because someone has been a threat or might pose a threat or because the officer 'feared for his life,' any use of force by police has long been considered justified on its face.

The problem in this case is that after the man had rammed his girlfriend's car, had tried to run her down,  and had rammed the deputy's car twice, he got out of the truck he was driving and was backing away from the deputy with his hands up when he was shot and killed.

Whether or not he "needed killing," he was not posing a threat at that moment, nor does it appear from the video that he intended to be a threat at that moment.

Does this make it a justified killing or was it a summary execution?