A new trend—or better yet, a fresh derivative of an old trend—is emerging in cases of police violence and corruption. It masquerades as progress, but may actually be crueler than the old alternative. Across the country, from Los Angeles to Chicago to Baltimore, police are arresting, assaulting, and killing women and men without cause. Families and friends and protest communities then emerge to demand justice in these cases. Months-long investigations are then launched and then this new trend emerges: a legal body involved in the investigation will then determine that either the victim of the brutality was blameless or that the police committed a serious offense, but that’s where the case ends.
In other words, because of a preponderance of evidence that simply cannot be ignored, investigative bodies, over and over and over again, are determining that police are committing grave offenses, but because of an unjust application of the law, they are completely let off. Families are let down, entire communities are outraged, and victims are given no recourse by a system that should be protecting them. Consequently, among those most affected by police brutality and violence, skepticism of the so-called justice system feels like it is reaching some type of breaking point.
Below are five recent cases (among so many more) in which police misconduct was obvious. Four of them ended with lost lives and the other ended with a young man forever changed by police brutality. Each one has been exhaustively investigated, misconduct was found, but not one of the officers who perpetrated the misconduct is in jail.
Ezell Ford
Ezell Ford
On August 11, 2014, the LAPD shot and killed Ezell Ford. The autopsy found a muzzle print from the barrel of the officer’s gun on Ford's back where he was clearly shot at close range.
The LAPD Police Commission conducted a thorough investigation and recently released its findings. In them, it was determined that one of the officers severely violated police protocol when he pulled his pistol in the first place and when he used it.
The case against the officer should be a slam dunk then, right?
No. Far from it.
The LAPD, in its own investigation, completely cleared the officers.
Now, according to local law in Los Angeles, it's up to the police chief to decide what he will do with the findings of the commission. Remember though, the police chief already cleared the officers.
We've reached a quagmire.
Rekia Boyd
Rekia Boyd
On March 21, 2012, Rekia Boyd, a young woman out walking with her friends on the streets of Chicago, was shot in the head by off-duty Chicago Police Officer Dante Servin. None of her friends did anything illegal, nobody threatened the officer, nobody was armed. Hell, Servin never even got out of his car. He claimed that he thought Boyd's boyfriend had a gun (the investigation found out that he didn't), so the officer fired into the crowd of friends. A bullet blew a part of Boyd's head off and she died just a few days later.
Open and shut case of police misconduct, right?
Nah. Servin was charged and tried in a case without a jury. The judge, before the case was even over, dismissed it, and said in his opinion that Servin was guilty, but was, in essence, charged with the wrong crime. Because of double jeopardy laws, Servin was free to go and will never pay any real price for the crime he committed.
UVA Honors Student Martese Johnson
Martese Johnson
On March 18, 2015, University of Virginia honors student Martese Johnson was brutally assaulted by law enforcement outside of a restaurant. The initial claims were that he presented a fake identification. Then it was stated that Johnson was publicly intoxicated. Later, it was stated that Johnson was belligerent. None of these allegations was true.
On Thursday, three months after the assault, every single charge against Johnson was dropped. While that's great news, that can't be the end of the story.
If he didn't present a fake ID, if he wasn't publicly intoxicated, if wasn't a threat to the officers, why he was he assaulted and why were the fake charges ever introduced in the first place? How can it be that he was bloodied for the whole world to see, but nothing will be done about it? It's not right.
Not one of us could do the same thing to anyone and expect to get away with it.
Tamir Rice
On November 22, 2014, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was playing in his neighborhood park when he was shot and killed by Cleveland Police Officer Timothy Loehmann. Loehmann, just two years before he became an officer in Cleveland, was found to be emotionally unstable by supervisors in another department in which they clearly stated he would was unlikely ever to be fit to be in law enforcement. Cleveland hired him anyway.
After he shot Rice, he ignored the wounded, living boy and refused not only first aid, but any care whatsoever. The Cleveland Police Department investigated the case for two months, then passed it over to the county sheriff's office, which then investigated the case for nearly six more months.
Frustrated by the outrageous delays, a group of eight local leaders in Cleveland filed a motion before a charge to recommend that Officers Garmback and Loehmann be charged with crimes in Rice's death. Using a little-known law in Ohio that allows evidence to be presented to a judge in cases like this, the judge, Ronald Adrine, found that ample evidence existed for both officers to be charged with multiple felonies in Rice's death.
The decision instantly energized family, friends, leaders, and the protest community, who felt that Rice's killing was one of the worst examples of police misconduct in recent years. A respected judge stated that "unquestionably sufficient evidence" existed to charge the officers.
That's enough, right? The officers have been charged, right?
Nah. The prosecutor in the case said it's not enough for him.
So, a judge, in an officer hearing, says in his opinion a crime was committed, but that officer still has not been charged. It's preposterous.
Matthew Ajibade
Matthew Ajibade
On this past New Year's Day, 911 was called. Matthew Ajibade, a young artist and college student who suffered with mental illness needed to go to the hospital. He was having some type of episode. Ajibade's family gave the police his medication and begged them to take him to the hospital.
Hours later, that same night, Ajibade was killed in police custody. The coroner's report confirmed that he died of blunt force trauma. Nine officers were fired in connection with the case, but no charges have been filed against them. The family still has no idea what happened. A video exists, but the prosecutors refuse to release it.
If the officers were fired, it was clearly because they violated policies. How could Ajibade have died because of blunt force trauma, but people only lose their jobs?
This is not enough. Again, killing someone is not an offense that you are fired for—it's a felony that you go to prison for.
Sadly, though, in all of these cases, and in countless more, nothing like justice has been gained. Quite the contrary. Officers know this. They are fully aware that few consequences exist when police kill or maim people—even when the evidence is overwhelming. The risk, then, for police misconduct, is nearly nothing.
Judges can say that the evidence is overwhelming, commissions can find that policies were broken, HR departments can recommend separation, but the real price for these crimes against humanity is left unpaid.