Guns don’t kill people, cops do

MIAMI – The National Rifle Association never stops reminding us that guns don’t kill people. In its essence this is true. Someone must pull the trigger for a gun to work.

So I would like to offer a new slogan to the NRA, free of charge, that might help them in their unending campaign to get more guns into the hands of every American: ‘Guns don’t kill people… too often these days, police officers do.’

Anyone who watches TV, reads newspapers and periodicals, browses the Internet or has friends on Facebook knows of the Ferguson grand jury decision to exonerate from any wrongdoing police officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man. Among the facts of this case are:

• That Brown was NOT carrying a weapon;
• that the police officer fired numerous shots, of which at least seven hit Brown;
• that officer Wilson claims that in an altercation Brown punched him numerous times but not a mark was found on his body or face; and,
• that there are witness reports, whose veracity is questioned by some, stating that Brown had his hands raised when the final shots were fired.

Since the grand jury’s decision we’ve seen the photos and videos of persons protesting, some rioting, on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, and other cities across the U.S. Business locales, police vehicles and other property have been destroyed in the process. Mainstream news organizations have interviewed “experts” and have pleaded for peace on the streets. Even President Obama spoke immediately after the decision asking for civility from the American public.

Of course there’s always the fallback argument when protestors appear on the streets of this country. I’ve heard several commentators on CNN and Fox say that many of the rioters are outside agitators. They have been described as anarchists and also members of the Communist Party, the New Black Panthers, Occupy Wall Street and others.

But I have yet to hear that the persons most to blame are the police themselves. Cops have been pictured as heroes showing restraint. Of course, restraint while TV cameras follow their every move. Because for lack of cameras, I’d venture to guess that a few more “troublemakers” would be “taken out.”

The Ferguson decision did not surprise me. Why should it? Have we forgotten about Rodney King getting beaten near death by cops? And for those of us in Miami, the 1980 Miami riots when Arthur McDuffie, a black man, was killed by police officers who cracked his skull “like an egg” for riding a motorcycle too fast. Grand juries set police officers free in both of these cases.

It would not surprise you either if you knew that since Michael Brown’s death, as of September 1 of this year, 83 other people have been killed by police officers in the U.S., according to the Washington Post.

The fact, as explained in Talking Points Memo (TPM) by Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and now law professor at Loyola University in Los Angeles, is that “It is really hard to convict a police officer. They get a super presumption of innocence.” I would add: And if the person killed by the cops is a black man…

Mulling over the facts

There is no reliable national data on how many people are shot by police officers each year. NO data. I found this interesting in a country obsessed by data. The no data becomes even more interesting when you consider that the government DOES keep a database of how many officers are killed in the line of duty. In other words, police officers killed in the line of duty equal heroes and martyrs. Persons killed by police officers equal collateral damage. And it strikes black citizens at an alarming rate!

The magazine Mother Jones cites an NAACP report where in Oakland, California, for example, there were 45 officer-involved shootings in the city between 2004 and 2008. Thirty-seven of those shot were black. Not one was white. And one-third of the shootings resulted in fatalities, although weapons were NOT found in 40 percent of the cases.

In the Washington Post report previously cited we learn that the most detailed analysis of police shootings to date was conducted by Jim Fisher, a former FBI agent and criminal justice professor who now authors true crime books.

“I was rather surprised to find there are no statistics,” Fisher said. “The answer to me is pretty obvious: the government just doesn’t want us to know how many people are shot by the police every year.”

In 2011, he scoured the Internet several times a day, every day, compiling a database of every officer-involved shooting he could find. Ultimately, he tracked 1,146 shootings by police officers, 607 of them fatal shootings.

“I was surprised at how many shootings, a reasonable person would conclude, were unnecessary,” Fisher said.

There is also a Facebook page, Killed By Police, cited by the website FiveThirtyEight that listed more than 1,450 deaths caused by law-enforcement officers since its launch, on May 1, 2013, through last week. That works out to about three per day, or 1,100 a year.

Getting away with murder?

Philip Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, interviewed by TPM, said that his research showed there were 31 arrests of non-federal sworn law enforcement officers (cops) for a murder or non-negligent homicide committed with a firearm while on duty from 2005 to 2011. That’s about four a year.

It’s therefore not surprising that police unions everywhere are fighting the move to place cameras on officers’ uniforms. Every action taken by that officer on the street would be recorded for observation after the fact.

I’ve seen it right here where I live. Three years ago during a yearly weekend festival frequented by young, black men and women, Miami Beach police shot a young black reveler to death. One hundred shots had been fired into the man’s car. They claimed he was trying to run them over, which turned out to be untrue when video from cell phones showed a car standing still. Later they claimed he had a gun – which turned up mysteriously after two days searching inside the dead man’s car. It took them two days! To find a gun in the car?!! Not one policeman was ever charged. NOT ONE! The dead man’s crime, I believe: driving while black.

Finally, estimates I’ve read say there are 300 million guns owned by regular Americans in this country. A place where shooting sprees are happening more regularly; where one can walk into a Walmart and purchase a firearm – some meant for war; where toy guns sometimes look like the real thing.

In their defense, a police officer fearing for his or her life also has the right to defend him or herself.

Still, I believe that police in this country are on a rampage. The reasons are many. And I don’t know if there is a solution. But if we continue on this path, sooner or later, Ferguson will seem like a walk in the park.

The problems with cops today remind me of Pulitzer Prize winning Miami Herald reporter Edna Buchanan, who probably understood the mind of a cop better than anybody. She later went on to write police novels that were turned into movies.

She once wrote that there’s no better person than a good cop, and no one worse than a bad one. I believe they’ve allowed a bad one free in Ferguson.