How many times in recent years have we seen it? Police officers committing wanton acts of violence without any criminal punishment whatsoever. Often there's not even an indictment, as in the Michael Brown case. And even when there is an indictment you can't help but wonder if prosecutors are intentionally blowing the case. But it is not just police brutality cases where we see lazy prosecutions.
Remember the Trayvon Martin case? While it wasn't a police brutality case, the perpetrator proved popular with law enforcement. Police made no effort to properly investigate the case. They didn't ask the perpetrator one tough question, and sent him home without charges. It was only after national outrage that a special prosecutor was appointed, and when the trial came the prosecutors asked all the wrong questions and missed opportunity after opportunity to properly cross examine the witnesses. Any neutral observer could see that the fix was in. This was not a case Angela Cory and her merry band of Keystone prosecutors were ever supposed to win. The trial was only for show to appease an angry public. George Zimmerman was predictably acquitted, apparently by design.
The Michael Brown case is an even more obvious example of a prosecutor who was completely uninterested in going forward with a proper prosecution, in this situation, of a police officer who gunned down a victim in front of scores of witnesses in a daytime execution. The prosecutor in this case, Mike McColloch, used the grand jury proceedings not to seek an indictment of the perpetrator, Darren Wilson, but to smear the victim and to present a slanted case that clears Darren Wilson. When a prosecutor does the job of a defense attorney, you can be certain that the fix is in.
Police brutality is a growing problem in the US. Almost every week another citizen journalist captures video of police committing brutal acts. In response police have begun threatening retaliation against videographers who capture police crimes on camera. Often police violence ends in the death of innocents. Just last week a twelve-year-old boy, Tamir Rice, was killed by police while playing with a toy gun. Police officers pulled up next to him, and within two seconds fired multiple rounds and murdered him. So far no investigation has been announced into this gangland style drive-by killing.
The media play a role in the failure of the justice system to pursue legal action against abusive police officers. When police act in an abusive manner, reporters should act as honorable members of the fourth estate and scrutinize police actions. Instead, reporters attack the victim, trot out the he's-no-angel reports, and besmirch the victim to pardon police violence. In the case of Tamir Rice, Cleveland Plain-Dealer reporter Brandon Blackwell wrote a piece explaining (I guess) that police were motivated to shoot Tamir Rice because his father had a history of domestic violence. When confronted by police violence reporters like Blackwell aren't horrified. Rather, they seem appreciative as though the world is better off without a child whose parents have unsavory pasts.
This kind of reporting turns the public against victims of police violence and gives excuse to police and prosecutors who would prefer for it all to just go away rather than punishing guilty cops. But why? The current system of dealing with police misconduct consists of conflicts of interest for would-be prosecutors which inhibit authentic investigations and rigorous prosecutions. Prosecutors rely on police officers to testify in criminal cases. If they turn police against them they risk police "tanking" on the witness stand and destroying cases. They also risk investigators doing shoddy work from the outset to get back at a prosecutor or DA who put a cohort away for ten years.
Making matters worse is that the investigators of police violence are the police themselves. The police are investigating their own colleagues. Even if we presume that police are not corrupt, the fact is that there are, in all of us, unconcious biases that will cloud our judgments. This is why most professions have conflict of interest rules that prohibit, for example, a prosecutor from trying his son, or a physician from practicing medicine on his wife. When investigating police violence there are simply too many conflicts of interest for the public to ever fully trust the outcome.
We could, theoretically, set up an outside agency such as a police monitor to investigate police misconduct. This could work. The problem is, it will only work so long as the political leadership supports such an agency's mission. If a mayor wins election with the help of the police union endorsement, don't expect any appointees that head the agency to be agressive in going after police misconduct.
What about electing the head of the police monitor? This would be preferable. But in these post-Citizen's United days, where elections are bought and sold faster than smart phones, we know there's a good chance that whomever is elected will answer to elite donors who may be far less interested in police violence against the "unwashed masses."
So how do you solve the problem? We used to allow private prosecutions wherein victims of crime who think law enforcement or prosecutors failed to act appropriately in their cases could bring prosecutions on their own. While we have no way of knowing for certain whether or not the Trayvon Martin or the Michael Brown cases would have turned out differently had the families been allowed to bring private prosecutions themselves, we would at least know that a full-throated and heartfelt prosecution had been rendered.
"The media play a role"
ReplyDeleteOh the media plays a role alright...