Your example shows that the problems go beyond police officers – the people who call the police could very well be the problem in many cases. Even if the police do their job perfectly correctly and politely (no abuse and no arrest when one is completely law-abiding), it must be annoying for the person when people call the police on him all the time.
There has been some research on unconscious bias, where some police departments are receptive to training to combat its impact, but what about people in general who may call the police on perceived threats?
First time I’ve seen the video. What the hell was that cop thinking running up and tackling someone like that? Even if they’d had the right guy that seems ridiculous especially for a nonviolent crime.
@Zekesima: I have always told my son that his inclination to want to reason with someone, so that they can understand the flaw in an argument. will not protect him. It will, in fact, place him in greater harm if he has such an encounter with a police officer.
There is nothing, I have told him, that will speak “gentle kid/MIT” to an officer when he looks at you.
The video is very telling. I was also shocked how many people walked by within inches of the people on the ground and didn’t flinch at what was going on.
At one point in the video a woman goes up to the officer/James and says a few words to them - wonder if she said anything about who James actually was???
@ucbalumnus You are right. Thank you for pointing that out. Responsibility also rests with the 911 calling citizens to communicate the facts without embellishments and exaggeration. In the Tamir Rice case, however, apparently the caller tried to say a couple of times that the gun might be fake, but that didn’t stop the killer cop from jumping to conclusions (or did he ever get the caution about the gun being fake?).
@Waiting2exhale I have had “the talk” with my kids several times (I hate the fact that I have to do this, and that they might become jaded or angry so soon because of this). Yes, there are some people that seem to be incapable of seeing “respectable, worthy, honorable, law-abiding human being” when they look at a black man.
@Zekesima, I can only imagine the feelings of parents of young black men. It is truly horrifying. All of us worry about our kids: the drunken drivers, random muggers, who knows what. But when you have to feel that your sons are as much or more at risk from police officers than from street criminals, it is unspeakable.
As @frugaldoctor suggests, the advent of the security camera and the cell phone camera is changing things. The decision of the Rodney King jury was bizarre and inexplicable. As time passes, and more of these videos are seen, people of good will are realizing more and more that the bad apples in the law enforcement profession are all too common and must be weeded out ASAP.
There’s an interesting article about Bratton and his goals in the latest New Yorker. I could not help wondering what that loud-mouth Patrick Lynch will have to say about this latest outrage.
@ucbalumnus Thank you for linking that Stanford Mag article. Wow. Soooo disheartening. I hope several of you are right that real change might actually be on the horizon because of all the cameras and people like Eberhardt raising awareness of the depths of the problem of racial bias at the subconscious level.
@Consolation don’t forget the parents of young black women. In my state, a state trooper sexually assaulted multiple black women. Despite complaints, he did this on the job for years because no one believed the women!!! I put dashcams in my cars as my only way to potentially help my girls because there is no protection from this.
@abasket I’ve watched too many videos of law abiding citizens victimized after trying to verbally intervene with bad cops. The only thing other citizens can do is film the incident from FAR away.
This is the kind of event played out over and over in the minds of a lot of young African Americans (especially boys/men) that saps their motivation to better themselves in this society. What is the point if this sort of thing happens even to an accomplished, good -looking, well-dressed, educated black man? No matter how much you better yourself, you will always be seen by some as a thug/ lowlife/ criminal/ loser. As Malcolm X famously joked: What do they call a black man with a PhD? A Ni**er.
I’d be willing to give the cop the benefit of doubt – Blake and the suspect look SHOCKINGLY alike – if it weren’t for his history. Which is troubling.
This white, middle age woman agrees: it’s not safe being a black male in 21st century America. I don’t know how African American moms do it. I honestly don’t.
Apparently the whole thing revolved around a picture of someone they suspect of being part of a stolen credit card ring, the undercover cops were running a sting, apparently they had a description from someone, they showed him a picture of a suspect, and that guy (the one who gave them the description) said yeah, that’s him…meanwhile, they posted the picture in question, and like Blake, he had nothing to do with any wrongdoing, so Blake was treated like this because he looked like someone who was innocent…
Personally, I think the police commissioner should be fired, at the press conference his final snarky comment was “there is likely another side to this story, there usually is” …WTH? A cop throws an innocent man to the street, whose only crime was texting on a cell phone, and that smarmy moron has the gall to say 'there could be another side to story". Among other things,Blake also said the cop never identified himself as one, and when he tried to ask what was going on, the cop told him to shut up or he would shut it for him. A commenter on the NY Times website made the best point of all, there are good cops, who know who the bad players are, who know how to handle things, but then there are cops like this who got on the force to be able to bully people and throw their weight around, literally, and this guy looked like he watched too many cop shows. I hope to hell Blake sues the City and the police force, gets himself a top lawyer, the city doesn’t have a leg to stand on and maybe this will force them to reign in the bad apples. I generally have a lot of respect for cops, but what I don’t respect is their attitude that no matter how bad a cop is, he deserves to be protected. I wonder if they know that the bad apples make their job even harder…or that when they cover for a buddy who was drunk and ran over and killed a young woman, they only make themselves look like criminals, not people there to protect others.
The crime in question was described in the article as a “credit card theft” case (as opposed to a high level violent crime), and the person whom Blake resembled was later found not to be involved.
It also does not seem like good judgement on the part of an officer in plain clothes to aggressively arrest someone he suspects to be a thief or other minor criminal, since there is the possibility that the person or others nearby may not realize that he is a police officer and assume that he is a robber or other criminal, leading to something worse (although this did not actually happen). Blake said that Frascatore (the officer) did not identify himself as a police officer, nor did he ask Blake for his name, during the incident.
“I can only imagine the feelings of parents of young black men. It is truly horrifying. All of us worry about our kids: the drunken drivers, random muggers, who knows what. But when you have to feel that your sons are as much or more at risk from police officers than from street criminals, it is unspeakable” @Consolation:
While I fear physical harm coming to them, I think I fear the psychological harm even more. I’m afraid that my boys will come to accept this mistreatment as inevitable, resign themselves to it, and lose heart in their efforts to make their mark in this world for good. I don’t want this to put a damper on their lives, so I do my venting online or with friends (generally not in front of them). I keep hoping that they won’t have to deal with much of this, or that they can find a little corner of this world where this sort of thing doesn’t happen.
I doubt many people would have a problem with Blake being arrested (he did look like the suspect) it was the way he was arrested. It shows a complete disregard for him as a person. If the claim becomes that is force necessary for police to use in cases of arrest than we have a real problem.
I also read the officer did not have ID or identify himself. In that case people around could have considered it an attack against Blake. Too bad someone did not smash a tennis racket over the cops skull in an act of self defense for Blake.
Let’s hope that James Blake gets ample opportunity to comment at this weekend’s women’s and men’s championships at the U.S. Open. He is a celebrity and has started the conversation ALL Americans need to hear about excessive police force against minorities in particular. NYC leaders at every level should be ashamed that tragedies perpetuated by its BLUE BLOOD members have gone largely ignored.
What struck me the most was how “generic” Blake looks… a bald, light skinned black man of average build. I bet you could pick out a dozen guys in 30 minutes that look “shockingly like him” The other thing that struck me was the alleged crime of identity theft/ credit card fraud is a non-violent crime and I don’t understand why a suspect needs to be thrown down in that fashion. I have to think if it was a white misidentified suspect he would have been approached and taken into custody without the violent attack. Show me videos of a white man white-collar takedown and I will change my mind.
And my cynical response to all this is: Blake shouldn’t complain, at least he wasn’t shot.
