In city after city police are rampaging, rioting, and brutalizing the people they are sworn to serve and protect. They are unleashed and on attack and they don't care who gets in their way. You can thank the Buffalo, New York police for making that abundantly clear to the world with their attack on a 75-year-old white man, and to staff of public radio station WBFO who witnessed the brutal assault and made it viral. (Warning: The video is graphic.) The man is currently hospitalized in serious condition with a head injury.
The police department initially responded to the massive online fury the video sparked by saying that the man "tripped and fell," as if the world didn't have eyes to see what had happened. The department quickly reversed, and thanks to that video, the two officers have been suspended without pay pending an investigation. The victim hasn't been identified, nor have the cops. In the video, you can see man approach a group of officers in riot gear. He begins speaking with them and then they just mow him over. One yells three times: "Push him back." Two officers respond, one pushing on the man's chest, another raising his baton with both hands. The man falls out of range of the camera and comes back to show him on the ground with blood coming out of his ear, motionless. One officer leans down to check on him and in an even more damning moment, another pulls that cop away. A number of officers walk by and don't even bother to check on him.
Friday, Jun 5, 2020 · 7:12:32 PM +00:00
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Joan McCarter
As if this story wasn’t outrageous enough, most of the Buffalo police unit responsible for this attack has resigned, not in shame, but because two of their members have been suspended.
“Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of their members, who were simply executing orders,” said John Evans, Buffalo Police Benevolent Association president.
Official response, after the first "tripped and fell" bullshit, was fast. "The incident in Buffalo is wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. "I've spoken with City of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and we agree that the officers involved should be immediately suspended. Police officers must enforce—NOT ABUSE—the law." Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has demanded an investigation. "After days of peaceful protests and several meetings between myself, police leadership and members of the community, tonight's event is disheartening," he tweeted. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz tweeted that he'd seen the video: "It sickens me."
They're all sickened by a 75-year-old white man being brutalized, because it is beyond their understanding and experience of how police brutality works. It's not supposed to happen to the white people—particularly white men—and really not septuagenarians. Welcome to the world that our Black and brown brothers and sisters have been telling us exists for generations.