Murder without Consequences – Wear a Badge.

At a presentation I did this week, I said that police target the poor and vulnerable. A white woman in the audience took offense at that. She said it wasn’t fair and that police target crime.  But 150 years of stories and studies and research and statistics proves beyond doubt that police target the poor and vulnerable especially people of color. Their job is to protect the property of those who have it, not the welfare of those who don’t.  And they do their job well.  

The recent beating of Tyron McAlpin, a deaf Black man with cerebral palsy, by Phoenix police is just another example in a long line of examples of abuse and violence by the Phoenix police against Black men and the disabled. Based on a false allegation of a white man, who the Circle K clerk complained about, the police listened to his lie that McAlpin had assaulted him, and they drove right across the street to assault McAlpin who had done nothing. The white man knew if he pointed a finger at a Black man, the police would run there – and they did.

Even after three years of investigation by the Department of Justice and a damning indictment of exactly this behavior, what did the Phoenix police do?  They did it again.  There is no possibility they will reform by themselves. If they were going to do it voluntarily, they would have done it. There is no need for any more community meetings. The community has talked till our throats are hoarse with chief after chief after chief yet no improvement. When someone shows you who they are – believe them. As the Memphis case illustrated, it’s the culture.  It changes the best of officers into beasts. The police union said half the officers would quit if there was a judicial decree. Good. Then we can start over with a better culture. It is a crime that our city council and mayor and even congressional candidates and City Council candidates won’t stand up to protect the citizens from the abuse of the police. Please contact the Department of Justice at phoenix.community@usdoj.gov or phone at 866 432 0335 and let them know they need to file an action in the federal court now.

But unfortunately Phoenix is not alone. The judge in a western Kentucky court, Charles Simpson, dismissed charges of aiding and abetting a violation of (Breanna) Taylor’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unreasonable search on August 22, 2024. If you recall, seven plainclothes police busted into Breanna’s apartment at 12:45 a.m. with a “no knock” warrant based on falsified evidence. One officer has admitted that they lied and had no evidence of any drug deals in that apartment and no drugs were found. 

When someone busts in your door after midnight, I assume you would be frightened and defend yourself. Kenneth Walker, a registered gun owner, and Breanna’s boyfriend, after asking the invaders to identify themselves which they did not, fired one shot. The police then let loose including one who was outside firing blindly through a window.  Walker called 911.

But the judge said the cops didn’t kill Breanna, Walker did.  Because he was an intervening cause between the fraudulent warrant, busting in the door, and shots fired. Allegedly, if he hadn’t fired at the officers, they would not have let lose a barrage of bullets. Not sure about that. But any sensible person would have fired in his position. The Justice Department is expected to appeal. 

When the smoke cleared, a cop asked Walker if he was hit and when he said he wasn’t, the officer said, “Well, that’s unfortunate.” That tells you all you need to know about their motives.  Breanna, a medical technician and aspiring nurse, was killed. The two officers who shot her have never been charged with anything. Walker was charged but the charges dropped.

Walker has already been awarded a $2 million verdict in a civil case against the police. One former detective Goodlett, plead guilty in 2022 to deprivation of rights under color of law resulting in death and conspiracy.  Another former detective Hankison had a hung jury, then a mistrial, but has a third go-round in October 2024.

Tyre Nicholas, a Fed Ex employee, is another example of a Black man brutally beaten to death two blocks from home by the Scorpion unit (since disbanded) of the Memphis Police. The area of town was a low-crime middle-income Black neighborhood, but the officers were looking for something to drive up their arrest numbers.  Four officers pulled Nichols over at 8:24 p.m. allegedly for reckless driving for which there is no proof.   

All five officers were fired. They have all been charged and Martin and Mills pled guilty. The others faced second-degree murder charges. Haley, Bean, and Smith went to trial and were all found guilty of one count of obstructing justice by witness tampering, but all three were cleared of the most serious counts of civil rights violations that could have resulted in life in prison. 

Since the officers were themselves Black, it wasn’t race but the institutional culture of systemic racism that infected the Black officers. This is just what the MAGA’s don’t want you to talk about. The culture, just like in Phoenix, changes you. Cerelyn Davis, the first Black woman appointed as police chief in Memphis, who supported Scorpion, is still leading the department. Many of the Phoenix abuses were under a Hispanic chief or one of two Black chiefs, one a woman. The family’s federal civil rights trial is scheduled to begin in March 2025. 

Note that though the officers misbehaved, the taxpayers pay the price.  I have long advocated for police officers to be required to get malpractice insurance like doctors and lawyers and when they mess up, they can pay, not the taxpayers. Colorado has such a law.

In Florida, Roger Fortson, retired military pilot and a registered gun owner, was shot to death in his own home when answering the door of his own apartment.  Due to a false domestic disturbance claim, he was immediately shot to death by an Okaloosa County officer. The deputy Eddie Duran was charged with manslaughter.  He was released on a $100,000 bond in August.

False accusations by white people get Black people killed as the police are happy to oblige. Amy Cooper who accused Christian Cooper in Central Park knew well that she would be believed, and he would not.  He was just fortunate he had a camera to record it all and someone looked at it before killing him.  

Today’s murders echo back to the brutal murder of Emmit Till in 1955 in Money, Mississippi that changed the trajectory of the civil rights movement. The Scottsboro Boys are another example. They spent years in prison for a crime that never occurred. But they weren’t the first and certainly won’t be the last. The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, AL has documented more than 4,000 lynchings. It’s still going on today – Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, George Floyd, Sonya Massey and locally Amarion Hope, Rumain Brisbon, Michelle Cusseaux, and the list just goes on and on and on until you can’t stand to hear it anymore because it triggers PTSD, fear, and depression.

No white woman who ever you are, police do not target crime. They target the poor, the vulnerable, and people of color. We are on our own to stop them.