"When he’s not arresting you, Sergeant Crowley is a really likeable guy."
So, Sgt. Crowley and Professor Gates had a beer at the White House, and the story of the arrest of a Harvard professor while in his own home is over. The white-hot focus of the media as well as of our community will move on, to the next controversy and foolish statement that the most covered individual in the world says.
But all along, there is a part of the story I’ve felt we’ve been missing.
Just two days before the beer summit, the Rodriguez family of Manassas, Virginia were celebrating the baptism of two young boys in the backyard of their godfather’s home. Edgar Rodriguez Sr. is a family counselor and bible study teacher. In response to a noise complaint, police arrived and asked Rodriguez for identification. Accounts of what happened next differ, but within moments, police officers tasered Rodriguez three times. The pregnant mother of the two baptized boys rushed to the aid of Rodriguez as he fell to the ground. Officers tasered the pregnant twenty-five year old woman in the back. Rodriguez has been charged with public intoxication for drinking in his own backyard; the pregnant mother has been charged with assaulting a police officer.
Not too long before that, in Boise, Idaho, police officers entered a home where an argument was taking place between a man and a woman. What happened next is captured on police audio recordings:
If you move again, I'm going to stick this Taser up your ass and pull the trigger. Now, do you feel this in your ass? - I'm going to tase your ass if you move again.
Later in the recording, the handcuffed, tased and violated man can be heard begging the officers to let him up so he can breathe. The officer quickly replied, "If you're talking - you're breathing." Two Boise police officers were suspended after the recording came to light.
In Howard County, Maryland, an elderly African American couple, Lisa and Kevin Henderson, filed a lawsuit three days before the beer summit against the County police department due to the events of a SWAT raid in January 2008. According to the court documents, the Howard County police SWAT team entered the home unannounced through the front door, which was unlocked. When "Grunt" the family dog started barking, court documents indicated one of the officers enticed the dog to come running and shot him point blank.
The couple said when Kevin Henderson tried to explain to police he was disabled and unable to move quickly, they responded by stepping on his feet and legs. He told the officers he couldn't put his arms behind his back because of surgery he had on his left shoulder, but they cuffed him anyway.
"I'm a taxpayer in this county. I don't have a criminal record. I've never even had a parking ticket, so why are you treating me like I am a criminal?" Lisa Henderson questioned.
After the Hendersons filed a formal complaint, Howard County police charged them with drug possession.
"When my clients complained, they charged them and they were exonerated by a judge," Bell said.
The reason why these sorts of lawsuits are so necessary became apparent a day after the Henderson’s filed. Last Tuesday, just two days before the beer summit, the Mobile, Alabama police department cleared its officers of wrongdoing in the case of Antonio Love. Officers pried open the door of the bathroom of a dollar store in Mobile with a tire iron, sprayed Love with pepper spray, and shot Mr. Love with a taser. Mr. Love had not responded to the knocks of the police officers on the bathroom door. This may be in part because Mr. Love is deaf. Mobile police explained that the use of pepper spray and a taser on a deaf man attempting to prevent other people from entering a bathroom he was using was justified because officers saw a weapon in the bathroom with Mr. Love: an umbrella.
Meanwhile, a month and a half ago, the Governor of Massachusetts, the state where Sgt. Crowley is a sworn officer, suspended a program which was sending military weapons to local police departments without any legislative or community input.
The suspension, ordered by Governor Deval Patrick, follows a Globe review that shows 82 local police departments in Massachusetts have obtained more than 1,000 military grade weapons over the last 15 years, far more than previously revealed. Under the program, administered by the State Police, departments can apply for equipment declared surplus by the US military.
But a Globe review has found that even the most quiet of hamlets have received high-powered weaponry, including M-16 fully automatic machine guns and M-14 semiautomatic rifles. In West Springfield, police received two military issue, M-79 grenade launchers.
But even if we are sending massive amounts of high-grade weaponry to local police departments, we can assume that trained professionals are using them responsibly, right? Sadly, no. In June, Eugene, Oregon police officer Brian Hagen, a member of the city’s K-9 unit, filed a lawsuit claiming that he suffered from harassment and retaliation after complaining to superiors about the tactics and discipline of the city’s SWAT team.
According to the suit, while responding to police calls as part of a K-9 unit, Hagen reported several "negligent and unintended firearms discharges by SWAT team members" that put the SWAT team, other police officers and the public in "extreme danger."
Hagen says he made numerous requests for more training and equipment. Instead, Hagen alleges he was then subjected to an "ongoing campaign of retaliation and harrasment."
In May 2008, he says he was told he would lose his spot on the K-9 team in august 2008. During those months, Hagen claims his supervisor publicized his departure and ridiculed him.
The Gates’ arrest was unwarranted and unhelpful, but the focus on it to the detriment of the bigger picture has the potential to do us all harm. The horror stories above are not the worst tales of police abuse that there are to tell, but merely a smattering of the most recent headlines. This problem cannot be explained by a few bad apples, by bad or dumb people who are allowed to become cops for bad reasons. From the Federal government handing out grenade launchers to local police departments without oversight, to the tolerance by departments like that of Mobile for blatantly unnecessary force, to the culture which allows for the ridicule and harassment of officers like Mr. Hagen who are simply trying to keep themselves, their fellow officers, and the citizens they are sworn to protect safe, we are facing an institutional failure of our law enforcement system.
Most cops, like Sgt. Crowley, are really likeable guys, good people who want to do good. We have allowed a system to perpetuate where even the most well-intentioned of officers have a nearly impossible time actually doing good within our system of law enforcement.
It is long past time we changed that.