The 'Crime' Of Walking While Black.....the DEADLY consequences for a 16 year old.

[Peter Lemkin]

Relatives of a slain African-American man in Georgia are accusing police of shooting him dead without cause in his own home. Police were apparently summoned to the home of Jack Lamar Roberson by accident after his fiancée called 911 to seek emergency medical help. Roberson was diabetic and had apparently been acting erratically. When police showed up instead of an ambulance, officers say Roberson was armed with two knifes. But his fiancée, Alicia Herron, tearfully denied the police account.

Alicia Herron: "He didn't have nothing in his hands at any time or period at all before they came, any time while they was here, or anything. They just came in and shot him. He didn't say nothing. The police didn't say nothing, anything. It was like a silent movie. You couldn't hear anything. And all you heard was the gun shots go off, and I seen them going into his body, and he just fell down."

It's just too sick to properly contemplate.

That is the SECOND Black man mentioned in this thread killed inside his home, having no weapon, and having called for medical help - not the police; but the police came, broke in and killed both of them without reason nor provocation. They never should have entered! Who says we don't have Death Squads operating in the USA?! In the USA it is dangerous to call for medical help [as the killer police may come instead - it is the same number. It is even more dangerous to call for the Police - 1000x more so if you are Black or Poor!

[Peter Lemkin]

As the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation holds protests in several cities today, we bring you the shocking story of Mohamed Bah, a 28-year-old college student from the African nation of Guinea. He was shot dead by New York City police officers on September 25, 2012. Police arrived at Mohamed Bah's apartment after his mother, Hawa Bah, called 911 because she thought he was depressed, and wanted an ambulance to take him to the hospital. Police claimed he lunged at officers with a knife. But many questions remain unanswered. We are joined by Hawa and her attorneys, Mayo Bartlett and Randolph McLaughlin, both longtime civil rights attorneys. http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/22/d...ls_african [for transcript or video/audio]

[Peter Lemkin]

NYPD Officer Risks His Job to Speak Out Against "Stop-and-Frisk" Targeting of People of Color

The New York City Police Department's controversial "stop-and-frisk" program was a major issue for voters going to the polls in the city's mayoral election. The issue drew widespread attention in August when U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin found stop-and-frisk unconstitutional, saying police had relied on a "policy of indirect racial profiling" that led officers to routinely stop "blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white." While she did not halt use of the tactic, Scheindlin appointed a federal court monitor to oversee a series of reforms. In a dramatic development last week, those reforms were put on hold. On Thursday, an appeals court stayed the changes, effectively allowing police officers to continue using stop-and-frisk. We get reaction from a police officer who has spoken out about problems with the program he and thousands of others are asked to carry out. Adhyl Polanco became critical of the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy when his superiors told officers to meet a quota of stops, or face punishment. Polanco made audio recordings of the quotas being described during meetings in his precinct and brought his concerns to authorities, but he said he was ignored. He then took his audio tapes to the media, including The Village Voice, where reporter Graham Rayman wrote a series called "The NYPD Tapes," featuring several police officers like him. For several years, Polanco was suspended with pay. He has returned to work on the police force, where he has been put on modified assignment. "You cannot treat the whole black and Latino community as if they are all about to commit a crime," Polanco says. "I'll handcuff anybody who's committing a crime. But when you take a male black [and say]: 'Cuff him, he doesn't look like he belongs here.' Cuff him for what?"

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn right now to an issue that we actually have addressed in the last few minutes, and it's the issue of stop-and-frisk. Nermeen?
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The New York City Police Department's controversial stop-and-frisk program was a major issue for voters going to the polls in the city's mayoral election. The issue drew widespread attention in August when U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin found stop-and-frisk unconstitutional, saying police had relied on a, quote, "policy of indirect racial profiling" that led officers to routinely stop "blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white." While she did not halt use of the tactic, Judge Scheindlin appointed a federal court monitor to oversee a series of reforms. New York City's Republican mayoral candidate, Joe Lhota, vowed to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the victor in Tuesday's race, Democratic Bill de Blasio, vowed to begin the reforms right away, saying any delay would "result in irreparable harm." Then, in a dramatic development last week, those reforms were put on hold. On Thursday, an appeals court stayed the changes, effectively allowing police officers to continue using stop-and-frisk.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we've brought you response to the ruling from one of the lawyers who helped argue the case. Now we're going to reaction from a police officer who has spoken out about problems with the stop-and-frisk program he and thousands of other officers are asked to carry out. Adhyl Polanco joined the New York City Police Department in 2005. In 2009, he became critical of the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy when his superiors told officers to meet a quota of stops or face punishment. He made audio recordings of the quotas being described during meetings in his precinct, and brought his concerns to authorities, but he said he was ignored. He then took his audio tapes to the media, including The Village Voice, where reporter Graham Rayman wrote a series called "The NYPD Tapes," featuring several police officers like him. Officer Polanco also testified in the recent trial challenging the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk. For several years, he was suspended with pay. He has returned to work on the police force, where he has been put on modified assignment. Officer Polanco was recently featured in a video produced by the group Communities United for Police Reform.

ADHYL POLANCO: Believe it or not, I've been stopped by police after I became a cop. I used to walk to Washington Heights with two other cops friend of mine, and we would get thrown against the wall, just for walking down. I'm not saying don't stop the criminal; I say don't stop the innocent people.

My name is Adhyl Polanco. I've been a police officer since 2005. I came to New York when I was 10. I came from a Third World country, the Dominican Republic. I grew up in Washington Heights. There was shootings almost every night; it was a daily thing. The 34th Precinct used to have a cop come into my sixth-grade class. She used to come every Wednesday, and I used to look up to her like, "Oh, my god! This is what I want to do." I mean, this is what I told my father: "I think I want to be a cop." For me it was a dream.

In 2009, the commanding officers required us to have a one-20-and-five quota system. One-20-and-five means one arrest per month, 20 summonses per month, and five stop-question-and-frisk. So, basically, they wanted to stop at least one person a day. But what happen the day you don't see the crime? What happened the day you don't see the violations? People start getting creative.

We would stop a person on the street and on a corner, because the sergeant says, "Stop him." Why? You don't ask. You just stop him, you frisk him. If it's possible, you search him. And these kids, sometimes they're just walking home from school. They're just walking to the store. They're justthey're not doing absolutely anything. They're not doing absolutely anything. And it's a really humiliating feeling. When they go through your pockets, when they stop you, you don't have no freedom. If you stop and then tell the officer, "I'm notI don't have to give you my ID. I don't have to give you my name," which is within the lawthe law allows you to do thatyou're going to get hurt. In the Bronx, you are going to get hurt.

My turning point was with a bunch of kids on a corner stopped by the commanding officer. There was a 13-year-old Mexican in the group. "Polanco, cuff him." I said, "For what?" "Cuff him. You don't ask me questions. Cuff him, bring him back." His brother come to ask, "Why? What's going on with my brother? He's walking home from school. Officer, did he do anything stupid?" The commanding officer looked at my partner, told her, "Cuff him, too. Bring him in." "For what?" "Oh, we will figure it out later. Just bring him in." And that was my turning point. That was the time I said, "You know what? Why should I do it to a kid that's just walking home from school, that we know is not doing anything? Why should I do that? This is not what I became a cop for. This is not what I wanted to do."

I live for my kids. And I think of them. I think of them one day being slapped by a cop, like it happens so many times on the street. I'm thinking of them being handcuffed and screaming to the cop, "I haven't done anything! I haven't done anything! What are youwhy are you arresting me? I haven't done anything!" I don't want them to go through that.

If you get violated by a cop, how are you going to trust that cop? How are you going to come up to him when you see something? If this is the same cop that threw me against a wall and this is the same cop that went through my private parts looking for crack that I didn't have, why should I help him? He should be working with the community. It's written like that. He should be getting community trust. There's a lot of things that can make the community safer. Stopping and harassing innocent people is not going to make the community safer.

AMY GOODMAN: That was NYPD Officer Adhyl Polanco in a video produced by the group Communities United for Police Reform. When we come back, he joins us in our studio. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to a New York police officer, Adhyl Polanco, who's been a vocal critic of the police department's stop-and-frisk program. I spoke to him yesterday and asked him to respond to last week's court ruling that puts on hold a sweeping set of changes to the New York City Police Department's controversial stop-and-frisk program. In August, U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin found the program unconstitutional, saying police had relied on a policy of indirect racial profiling. She appointed a federal court monitor to oversee a series of reforms, but the city appealed her ruling, and last Thursday an appeals court stayed the changes, effectively allowing police officers to continue using stop-and-frisk. That's where I began with Officer Polanco, asking him to respond to the appeals court ruling.

ADHYL POLANCO: Basically, I have to start with a legal statement saying I'm not here on behalf of the police department. That covers my legalI'm obviously not here on behalf of the police department. I'm here as a citizen, which allow me to express myself in the way.

It's a slap in the face. It's ayou don't expect this from a federal court. You expect this from the Board of Regents, where Bloomberg sends his people to lobby them. You expect this from a lower court that they're politically influenced over this. You don't expect this from thethey're going against one of the most honorable judges they have. And that was not an appeal. People think that was not a formal appeal. That was more of a political favor, is what I call it. When the decision came over, years and years after we've been struggling trying to get this through there, Mayor Bloomberg asked one thing and one thing only: for the implementation not to go while he was in power. That's all that he asked for. They created the mess. They did not want to listen to me. They did not want to listen to the City Council. They did not want to listen to some of the city lawyers who told them this was not a good lawsuit to pursue. The only purpose of this decision is to grant Bloomberg's wish, which is that he doesn't want to be watched while he's in power. And it's a shame. It's really a shame.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly reacting to the appeals court ruling.

COMMISSIONER RAY KELLY: I have always beenand certainly haven't been aloneconcerned about the partiality of Judge Scheindlin. And we look forward to the examination of this case, a fair and impartial review of this case based on the merits.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response, Officer Polanco?

ADHYL POLANCO: He's out of touch. Ray Kelly, when was the last time he walked the beat? When was the last time he or his family went through a stop-and-frisk? Well, we know issues with his family. But when was the last time that they went down and they asked the cops how do we feel about doing stop-and-frisk? Because I'm not the only one. I'm just the only one that had the nerve to bring it out. There's a lot of cops under there. There's a lot of supervisors under there, great cops, who are under fear. And for that fear, they won't speak about what they all know is wrong. I'm not against stop-and-frisk. I'm not against stop-and-frisk the way it's supposed to be done.

AMY GOODMAN: How is it supposed to be done?

ADHYL POLANCO: When you areas a police officer, when you feel that somebody is about to commit a crime, had committed a crime or is in the process of committing a crime, you have the right to stop that person. You have the right to search that person, if necessary and if you [inaudible] the search. I'm not against that. And reality is that in New York, most of the people you are going to stop, regardless of what the crime is, they're going to be black and Hispanic. That'swe're not arguing that. But you cannot treat the whole black and Hispanic community as we're all about to commit a crime or as we all committed a crime or we are about to commit a crime. It's not right. It's not right.

AMY GOODMAN: You, yourself, have been stopped and frisk?

ADHYL POLANCO: Yes, I have.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what happened.

ADHYL POLANCO: As a police officer, and they couldn't give me the courtesy of telling me why I was stopped.

AMY GOODMAN: You weren't in uniform.

ADHYL POLANCO: No, I was not in uniform. I was walking in Washington Heights near my mom's house and with two more officers. We are walking down, and all of a sudden cops roll out in an unmarked car and hit the wall. They push us against the wall. They did not ID themselves. They did not tell us, "We are cops." Obviously we knew they were cops.

AMY GOODMAN: Were theythey were undercover.

ADHYL POLANCO: Yeah. And theywe asked them, "What's going on? We're on the job." That's howyou know, and they saythey looked at us and say

AMY GOODMAN: You weren't off duty at the time.

ADHYL POLANCO: I was off duty, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Oh, you were?

ADHYL POLANCO: And they look at us and say, "What kind of job are you on?" This is how a cop talking to another say: "Look in my pocket, and you'll see what kind of job I'm on." And they look in my pocket, and, sadly, they gave me the ID back and kept walking. They did not say, "I'm sorry." They did not say, "Officer, this is the reason why I stop you." Nothing. They just kept walking.

AMY GOODMAN: And do you know them? Did you know them?

ADHYL POLANCO: No, no, no. This is

AMY GOODMAN: And you never saw them again?

ADHYL POLANCO: Never saw them again.

AMY GOODMAN: And then talk about the moment you describe in the videotape that really made you reassess everything, thatwhere you were being told to stop and frisk and detain.

ADHYL POLANCO: It's the quota system. The quota is illegal. They deny it, even with all the audio out there, even with all the victims that are coming out, even with the billions of dollars that they're paying to cover police-related lawsuitsbillions. Do you know how many after-school programs can be opened with that money, how many kindergarten and pre-K can be opened? But instead they pay a policeman's conduct with it. It's a really bad feeling. When they have a top-down managementKelly and Bloomberg are synchronized: Whatever Bloomberg says, Kelly does. And they want numbers.

I would think that if crime is lower, like they say it is, which it's not, that if things are so well in New York, you should be arresting less people, not more. You should be stopping less people, because obviously crime is lower. They're shoving crime under the table. And I'm a big example of that. I know; I've done it. We were forced to do it.

AMY GOODMAN: How? Tell me what you were forced to do.

ADHYL POLANCO: You were called to a scene where the robbery happened, and they will look at the CompStat number for that week and tell you, "Oh, we're not taking that robbery. That will put us over the top," or, "Take the robbery, make it a lost property or make it aanything." Or sometimes even this

AMY GOODMAN: It will put you over the top of too many crimes to report

ADHYL POLANCO: Yeah, too

AMY GOODMAN: make the city look bad.

ADHYL POLANCO: Too many high crimes to report, so that that way they can keep saying that crime is lower. I've been to shootings where I've been told, "In the report, don't put that a bullet went through the car. Put that a sharp object went through a car," so now that shooting is not going to show up in the annual report of shootings. And that's what they would do. And I do not understand how can Kelly go up on TV with a straight face and say this is not happening. I'm Officer Polanco. Officer Borelli, Officer Schoolcraft, Officer Palestro, all from different precincts, all from different around the city, we're all saying the same thing in different precincts. But yet nobody wants to believe. And they keep saying that this is a

AMY GOODMAN: Does this put people in danger?

ADHYL POLANCO: Of course. You hire less cops, because supposedly the crime is lower. Now you're going to justify not hiring enough cops, because supposedly you're doing the job.

AMY GOODMAN: So, the moment that you were being told to take kids into custody, explain that, in the Bronx.

ADHYL POLANCO: That was my breaking point. I was an assistant dean in a high school. I was a baseball coach. I have kids of my own. If you want me to arrest somebodyand I have never, ever stopped putting cuffs on anybody because they're white, because they're black, because they're blue. I will handcuff anybody who's committing a crime. But when you take that he's a male black, he's 14, 15, he's walking down the corner, he doesn't look like he belong here"Cuff him." "Cuff him for what?" "Cuff him. We'll figure out inside." What happened behind that is that the commanding officer goes to his office, and he sees the number of summonses that were written last year that he's going to be compared to next week. So if he doesn't have enough stop-and-frisks to match that number or double it, and if he doesn't have enough summonses to match that number, or arrests, he's going to go out there, he's going to create it himself. And the quota is illegal. No matter how you cut it, it's illegal.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to 2009 to a recording that you made. In this clip, we hear a delegate from the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association speaking during a roll-call meeting at the 41st Precinct where you, Officer Polanco, work.

ADHYL POLANCO: Forty-first.

AMY GOODMAN: Forty-first in the Bronx. The captain refers to 20-and-one, a reference to the demand that officers make 20 summons, five street stops and one arrest per month. So listen closely.

PATROLMEN'S BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION DELEGATE: I spoke to the CO for about an hour and a half on the activity, 20-and-one. Twenty-and-one is what the union is backing up. They spoke to the trustees, and that's what they want. They want 20-and-one.

AMY GOODMAN: You can hear on that tape the captain of the 41st Precinct saying, "20-and-one is what the union is backing up. They spoke to the [union] trustees. That's what they want. They want 20-and-one." Twenty-and-one is a reference to the demand that officers make 20 summons, five street stops and one arrest per month So the union is backing this?

ADHYL POLANCO: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Officer Polanco?

ADHYL POLANCO: Yes, the union is. And it's sad. It's really sad, because when you are there as an officer, you have nobody to go to. You have absolutely nobody to go to. Am I going to go to my union, who's telling me what I have to do? Am I going to go to internal affairs, who's not going to do anything? I thought they were. They have no integrity. When it comes to investigating themselves, they have absolutely no integrity, because they have shown. So who are we supposed to go to? Our union is not there for us. Our union is there for the police department, sadly, sadly to say.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Officer Polanco, you testified in this stop-and-frisk trial. Talk about what happened after you signed a deposition.

ADHYL POLANCO: I got approached by the Civil Liberty Union in 2009. They saw the piece on ABC-7, where II had nobody else to go to. I couldn't. I was deposed in March of 2010. The next day that I show up to workI was off for the two days that I gave the deposition, with many city lawyersthey didn't like what I provided. They didn't like the recordings. They didn't like my testimony. So I was placed on a suspension, with no reason given, for about three years. I was suspended with pay for about three years, where my job was to go to internal affairs every day for five minutes in the morning, sign a piece of paper, get my full salary as a cop and go home. For three years.

AMY GOODMAN: Because they wanted you out, to stop witnessing.

ADHYL POLANCO: Because they wanted me out.

AMY GOODMAN: Perhaps to stop recording.

ADHYL POLANCO: They wanted me to isolatethey wanted to isolate me away from. But then theyabout a year ago, they sent me toI live in Rockland County. They sent me to Utica Avenue in Brooklyn, where I drive an average of five hours a day to get to work. It's called "highway therapy." And I pay five tolls every day to go to work.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to play the response of the NYPD's deputy commissioner of training, James O'Keefe, when he asked about police officers who have audio recordings of officials calling for stop-and-frisk quotas. O'Keefe was questioned by reporter Kim Lengle.

KIM LENGLE: Commissioner, we've heard from former law enforcement officials, including current police officers, who say the training is not the problem, that the training is actually great. They're saying it's the pressure from the higher-ups, being forced to make more and more stops.

JAMES O'KEEFE: I don'tI don't know that to be true. My responsibility is to be sure that they are prepared and well trained to do what they're required to do.

KIM LENGLE: Can you comment on the recordings that have been circulating for the past couple years?

UNIDENTIFIED: Recordings, did you say?

KIM LENGLE: Yes.

JAMES O'KEEFE: Recordings?

UNIDENTIFIED: What [inaudible] What recordings?

JAMES O'KEEFE: I'm sorry, what recordings?

KIM LENGLE: I mean, there's recordings from, you know, officers that they've collected during roll calls. They've testified in court that they've collected these recordings showing that top commanders are pressuring them to make more and more stops, get more and more 250s, more and more C7s.

JAMES O'KEEFE: I wouldn't know how to respond to a blanket statement like that.

KIM LENGLE: It's not a blanket statement. I mean

JAMES O'KEEFE: Yeah, I don't know what all those recordings are. I don't know exactly which ones you're referring to. Our responsibility here

KIM LENGLE: They're in the class action lawsuit.

JAMES O'KEEFE: Our responsibility here is to be sure that everybody is properly educated and trained and prepared to do what the job assignment is. That'sthat's the realm of what we do here.

AMY GOODMAN: So that's New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner of Training James O'Keefe, when asked about police officers who have audio recordings of officials calling for these stop-and-frisk quotas. Your response to Officer O'Keefe, Officer Polanco?

ADHYL POLANCO: Denial, denial. He's denying it. They're denying it at all cost. Imagine if I didn't make the recordings. How would I prove what I'm proving? And they're listening to the recording, and they're still denying it?

AMY GOODMAN: Are they targeting certain neighborhoods?

ADHYL POLANCO: Yeah. And you can make the argument that the neighbors that they askare targeting are the neighborhoods that have the most crime committed by black and Hispanic. But what percentage of black and Hispanic are committing this crime? And what percentage of black and Hispanic live in the neighborhood? Because one out of a hundred, when you stopwhen you have one criminal, and you have 200, 300 people who are not, why will you treat everybody as a criminal?

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think the Department of Justice should investigate?

ADHYL POLANCO: They should. There's no question that they should. What is going to be left of the black and Hispanic community after stop-and-frisk? What is going to be left? Because if you educate yourselfand I've seen examples of kids who are arrested for trespassing where they live, kids who are given summonses for trespassing where they live. The automatic disorderly conduct obstructing governmental activity charge, that's when the cops stop you and you say, "I don't haveI don't have to talk to you. Officer, why are you going through my pocket? Why are you throwing me against the wall?" Once you ask that, then you're going to get arrested for this kind, disorderly conduct. You're going to spend a night in jail; the city is going to pay for it. But now you're going to go educate yourself, like a lot of black and Hispanic do. Now you're going to get a degree, and now you're going to go look for a job, that's going to deny you the job because you wereyou have an arrest record. How is that helping the community?

AMY GOODMAN: Can you relate these large, you know, massive stop-and-friskswe're talking about what? More than 700,000 in a previous year, of largely young Latino and African-American kidsto shootings, police shootings?

ADHYL POLANCO: Ramarley Graham. Ramarley Graham is a perfect example.

AMY GOODMAN: Ramarley Graham was a teenager

ADHYL POLANCO: Ramarley Graham, who was

AMY GOODMAN: who ran into his home, is flushing marijuana down the toilet of his grandmother's apartment, and he is shot dead.

ADHYL POLANCO: That's what they said, that he was flushing marijuana. There's no reason tothere's no reason to pursue somebody for marijuana. There's no reason to go to their houses for marijuana. There's no reason to go in the bathroom for marijuana. And there's not a reason to put a bullet in some kid's chest because of marijuanaif marijuana was there, because we're getting the statement from the police department. It'sinstead of saving lives, that's an example of taking lives, in reality.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you tell your children?

ADHYL POLANCO: Ithey're not old enough to have that conversation. I did have it with my 10-year-old. And like I said, it's a conversation that unfortunately only some of us have to have with our kids. It's not everybody who has to have this same conversation. Stop-and-frisk works great, it works beautifullywith white people. You know why it works so well? There's a study out there that said that white people, when stopped, are way far more likely to have drugs or contraband on them. You know why? Because the caution is taken before stopping them. You're not stopping them because they walk on the corner. You're not stopping them because they're coming from school. You are taking your time, and you have a reason to stop them. Stop-and-frisk will work beautifully if instead of 700,000 stops, you get 100,000 stops. But what is going to be your outcome rate is going to be a lot greater, because you are taking the time to police. You are taking the time to do observation.

And a lot of cops say Bloomberg is a sucker, because they go out there and they grab the first guy at the corner two hours before tour. They want to make overtime, which is not honest at all. A lot of cops want toit's easy. It's the easiest way to be a cop, is to go out there and pick whoever's at the corner, bring him back, instead of being a real cop, where you go, you interact with your community, they tell you who the drug dealers are. It takes time for you to know who's who. But the police department don't want time; they want numbers, and they want them right away.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you just briefly summarize the case of Officer Adrian Schoolcraft, what happened to him?

ADHYL POLANCO: Adrian Schoolcraft, almost at the same time that I spoke up, he did the same thing. He did some recordings. I was not aware. I don't know him. And one dayI don't know the whole full storythey went to his house, and they put him in a psych ward and did not even notify his family that he was in a psych ward for three days.

AMY GOODMAN: So he couldn't reach his father.

ADHYL POLANCO: He couldn't reach his father. He couldn't do anything. And they're still justifying everything. And those people that did that against him, there's no accountability. Nothing happens to them.

AMY GOODMAN: And is Schoolcraft an officer today?

ADHYL POLANCO: No, he left. He left.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you concerned about continuing to speak out? Even after your years suspended with pay, you're back on the force.

ADHYL POLANCO: I'm not giving up. I'm not giving up. Nobody's speaking for us. I started talking against stop-and-frisk when nobody was involved, absolutely nobody.

[Magda Hassan]

Got to love whistle-blowers and people to stand up for what's right and don't take the path of least resistance.

[Peter Lemkin]

"Criminalizing Black Corpses": No Charges Filed After White Man Kills Detroit Teen Renisha McBride

Anger is growing in the Detroit area over the killing of Renisha McBride, a 19-year-old African-American woman who was shot dead by a white homeowner on his front porch. Her family says she died as she was seeking help after a car accident. The homeowner told police he believed McBride was trying to break into his home, but he claimed his gun accidentally fired at her. No charges have been filed. An autopsy revealed McBride was shot in the face by a shotgun, but not at close range. We are joined from Detroit by Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations; and by dream hampton, a writer, activist and filmmaker.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Outrage is growing in the Detroit area over the killing of Renisha McBride, a 19-year-old African-American woman. In the early hours of November 2nd, McBride was shot dead on the front porch of a man's home, where she had reportedly gone to seek help after a car crash. On Tuesday, local media aired audio of a Dearborn Heights police dispatcher who sent police to investigate the shooting after the homeowner called 911 to say he had shot an African-American woman he did not know on his porch.

911 DISPATCHER: [Just received a 911 call] from a male saying he just shot someone on his porch. Then he hung up. We're trying to call back. [inaudible] Units responding. We have the male on the line, states he doesn't know this person. Trying to get further.

RESPONDING OFFICER: There's somebody down on the porch. It appears it's going to be a black female.

911 DISPATCHER: Copy. Black female.

AMY GOODMAN: The homeowner, whom police have not publicly identified, told police he believed Renisha McBride was trying to break into his home, but he claimed his gun accidentally fired at her. The homeowner, who is white, has not been arrested. An autopsy revealed McBride was shot in the face by a shotgun, but not at close range. McBride's family says McBride suffered a concussion in the car accident, was seeking help at the time of the shooting. The car accident occurred just before 1:00 a.m. The homeowner reported the shooting at 4:45 a.m. Gerald Thurswell, an attorney for McBride's family, told the Detroit Free Press he doesn't believe the homeowner killed McBride by accident.

GERALD THURSWELL: It's very, very, very hard to believe that it was an accident when the gun is in her face and it goes off accidentally. Somebody had to have their finger on the trigger. He was in a safe place. He was in his house. And he didn't have to open the door. He could have called 911 to protect himself. And if she was seeking help, he could have called 911 to get her help. So, I don't think this is justifiable, and I don't think this is accidental.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Many observers have compared Renisha McBride's death to the shooting of Trayvon Martin. On Friday, supporters of McBride rallied in Detroit.

PROTESTERS: Renisha McBride. Renisha McBride. Renisha McBride. Renisha McBride.

PROTESTER 1: It doesn't make sense why he isn't here, right now, locked up in a cell on some sort of charge of murder, manslaughter, whatever. It is not just. Why is he still at home?

PROTESTER 2: Renisha could have easily been me. She had a life that was worth us gathering here today.

PROTESTER 3: Every life in our community is valuable, whether you're in Detroit, whether you're in Dearborn, whether you're in Inksterin particular for us, black life. The fact of the matter is, here's a person who was in an accident, and she's trying to seek help, gets a bullet in her head.

PROTESTER 4: I'm sick and tired of seeing black women murdered, raped, beaten, shot, and nobody's talking about it. I'm sick of the apathy. I'm sick of the apathy in the community. I'm sick of the apathy in the media. And it'senough is enough! Where is this man? Who is he connected to? And why don't we know who he is?

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go now to Detroit, Michigan, where we're joined by Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Michigan chapter of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
We're also joined by dream hampton, a writer and activist, a filmmaker from Detroit, currently directing a documentary about the brutal murder of a 19-year-old trans woman named Shelley Hilliard. She's also a campaign consultant with MomsRising, a million-member-plus organization that advocates for family economic security.
Democracy Now! reached out to Cheryl Carpenter, the lawyer for the homeowner, and to the Dearborn Heights police, but neither returned our request for an interview.
We want to welcome you both to Democracy Now! Dream hampton, what do we understand at this point where the story is?
DREAM HAMPTON: Well, that's part of the problem, Amy. The Dearborn Heights Police Department has been the opposite of transparent. We're calling for transparency on this case. We've been calling for transparency on this case. I find it problematic that the media continues to refer to Ted Wafer as a 54-year-old homeowner.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, you'reyou're naming him now. When you say Ted Wafer, that is the name of the man who shot her?
DREAM HAMPTON: The Voice of Detroit, a local paper, named him four or five days ago. You're reporting that the homeowner, the 54-year-old homeowner, shot Renisha McBride. Records show that that homeowner is 54-year-old Ted Wafer. I think that he does not deserve anonymity. He's neither a minor or a rape victim. This kind of is a collusion, in my mind. And I'm not accusing you of colluding with the Dearborn police, but I've not seen media protect a shooter in this way, even if it were an accidental shooting. When accidents are reported, often names are divulged. So I find that incredibly problematic from the outset, and it just indicates the opaque way that the Dearborn Heights Police Department has dealt with the public from the outset of this tragic killing.
AMY GOODMAN: And what is the explanation for this man not being arrested?
DREAM HAMPTON: His whiteness is the only explanation I can come up with; you know, her black body, justification, de facto. We know that the Dearborn policeDearborn Heights Police Department is an all-white police force. I have no idea what the conversation was when they arrived at his porch at 4:45 orit was hours after, it appears to be. And, you know, this is the latest, that we got this call yesterday, the 911 dispatch was released. And we had had earlier reports thatfrom her autopsy, that she died at 2:45, around 2:45. We have a call coming in from 911 dispatch at 4:45. What happened in those two hours? We have reports initially that her family was told her body was dumped. I mean, this could be a far darker story than any of us could imagine. And I believe that a 19-year-old unarmed teenager being gunned down, being shot in the face in the middle of the night on someone's porch, seeking help, is tragic enough.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I'd like to turn to comments made by Cheryl Carpenter, an attorney for the homeowner, who spoke to Michigan Radio.

CHERYL CARPENTER: There was a lot of banging. There was a lot of noise. And it didn't sound like just knocking. This is a tragedy for everybody involved. And the homeowner is completely torn up. He realizes another person's life was taken. It was a young woman. And he is devastated by that fact.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dream hampton, that was Cheryl Carpenter, the attorney for the homeowner. Could you clarify: Has the homeowner even been charged?
DREAM HAMPTON: No, the homeowner has not been charged. The homeowner wasn't even inconvenienced with a trip to the precinct to explain what happened the night of Renisha McBride's killing in the precinct. It's kind of unfathomable that we have to show up at the Dearborn Police Department ourselves, a hundred of us, and demand transparency, demand an arrest. We're responsible for the discharge of our weapons, just as we're responsible for our vehicles. This would be manslaughter, if it truly is an accident. This man should come forward. There is no history of revenge killings when it comes to racial killings in this country. So thisthat's another presumedlike, it's another presumption of black guilt, that somehow if you release his name and he comes forward and apologizes to the family himself in front of the cameras, that we will hunt him down. I mean, the lack of transparency in this case is deeply, deeply troubling.
AMY GOODMAN: So, there was a toxicology test given to the victim, to Renisha McBride's body, but Ted Wafer was not tested? Is that the case?
DREAM HAMPTON: I mean, unless theyunless the Dearborn Heights Police Department produces a toxicology report from that night, which would, to me, seem standard procedureif someone claims that there was an accidental shooting at their home, then it seems thatit would seem that they would be tested for alcohol or drugs. A toxicology report on Renisha McBride's body is more criminalization of black corpses. I don't make the analogy to Trayvon in this case. I think Jonathan Ferrell, killed in North Carolina by the police while he was seeking help after an accident, is a far
AMY GOODMAN: Now, he was the Florida A&M football player who gets in a car accident, is running toward police, and they shoot him dead.
DREAM HAMPTON: Yes, he's a better analogy, if we need make one; I don't think that we need to. I think that we can deal with Renisha McBride and the life that was lost on its own merit. But this criminalization of black corpses is deeply troubling, as well. We saw this happen with Trayvon. We saw his public record, his school record, his attendance record, whether or not he had ever smoked potyou know, this teenager, like, kind of criminalized even as he was a corpse. I'm not interested in seeing that happen again with Renisha McBride. Like the family, I'm hopeful that Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who, as you know, Amy, has a very serious reputation, will do the right thing and bring justice for the McBride family.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Renisha McBride's aunt, Bernita Spinks, spoke to the local Fox News station about the shooting last week.

BERNITA SPINKS: This man just came to the door, by somebody just knocking. She didn't break in his house. She didn't break a window. What, you're seeing somebody on your porch, and you just start shooting? And then you say it was accidental? That wasn't accidental. That wasn't accidental. No. Half of her face is gone. You know, we have to go and bury her, and they're not even knowing if she's going to be able to have an open casket. This is a senseless death. My niece is gone. I feel it was not right. Now, the way I'm feeling, I'm feeling it was racist. You're seeing this black African young lady knockingnot breaking in your house, not breaking a windowknocking for help. He didn't even try to see what kind of help she needed. He killed her. And he's out of jail? Wow! Could I possibly do that? Somebody knocked on my door, and I pull my shotgun out, and I shoot them while they're leaving off my porch, instead of finding out what was the problemwould I be standing here? No, I'd be in jail without a bond.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Renisha McBride's aunt, Bernita Spinks. Dawud Walid, could you talk a little bit about the significance of the shooting having occurred in Dearborn Heights? Explain what this area is like.
DAWUD WALID: Well, the first thing is that people should understand that Metro Detroit suffers from something which is called hypersegregation, in which there are various communities of people who have little to no interaction. It's actually been designed that way. The city of Dearborn Heights, which borders InksterInkster is one of the blackest areas in the city, in the state of Michigan. Dearborn Heights is about 80 percent white. There's really no, like, intersection between these communities. There are basically like invisible fences between communities in southeastern Michigan. And to add onto that, there is a history within Dearborn, as well as Dearborn Heights, of being basically a de facto apartheid or the northern Jim Crow, in the sense there's a history of racism and racial profiling that has gone on for decades and decades in terms of law enforcement with people of color.
AMY GOODMAN: What about Kym Worthy, Kym Worthy, the Wayne County prosecutor, Dawud?
DAWUD WALID: Well, we've had, you know, a history with Kym Worthy, both positive and negative. I will say that in the case ofwe had a Michigan imam who was killed about three years ago by the FBI. He was shot 20 times, African American by the name of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah. Kym Worthy, she refused to go forward and investigate that case, because the FBI refused to turn over certain information that Prosecutor Worthy wanted, which then it got kicked upthe case got kicked up to the Michigan attorney general at the time, former one, Mike Cox, who's a Republican, who acquitted and found no wrongdoing by the FBI. And actually, at CAIR Michigan, we have a wrongful death lawsuit relating to the FBI right now.
We're hopeful that Prosecutor Worthy is going to do the right thing in this case. But it's also noteworthy that the Dearborn Heights Police Department has also not given Prosecutor Kym Worthy all the information that she needs in order to level the right charges. And this is the important part of civil rights organizations and advocates that we continue to talk about this case and to agitate, that we want Kym Worthy to not kick this case up to Bill Schuette, who is the Michigan attorney general, because we're afraid that if it gets in the hands of Bill Schuette, who's also a Republican like Mike Cox, that he might not file charges at all. And at the least, as dream said, if it wasif this was indeed an accident, which I think it was not an accident, at the least, this man, Mr. Wafer, should be charged with involuntary manslaughter, if it's accidental, as he claims. There has to be some sort of criminal liability regarding this case.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, dream hampton, very quickly, before we conclude, Michigan has a law that's comparable to the "Stand Your Ground" law.
DREAM HAMPTON: Yes.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Could you talk about the significance of this potentially in this case?
DREAM HAMPTON: Well, the Self-Defense Act of 2006I mean, Michigan is quietly one of the testing grounds where the Koch brothers and other conservative think tanks are backdooring this kind of conservative policy. You know, we saw what happened with Governor Snyder when he basically stripped unions of all rights to negotiate, very quietly, during what was supposed to be almost a holiday season in session. We willas the Dream Defenders, we are willing to look atthe Dream Defenders, of course, in Tallahassee, agitated and sat in and just organized to have a hearing to repeal Stand Your Ground in Florida. We find ourselves in reactionary positions when it comes to these laws, again, because they are backdoored in into legislative sessions that are often near lame duck. So, if we need to look at the Self-Defense Act of 2006 and consider repealing it, that's something that we absolutely will do. But first, we want justice for Renisha McBride.