PRIMITIVE POLICING IN NEW YORK CITY

Another Unnecessary Killing by NY City's Police.




The front page of the New York Post today, August 13, 2012, was emblazoned with the smiling face of a black man with a bandanna, which made him look (perhaps intentionally on his part) like Geronimo, the Apache, native American, the insurgent fighter of Mexicans and Americans in the violent southwest of the late 19th century.

The black man was 51 year-old Darius Kennedy, a homeless man from Hempstead , L.I. New York. Kennedy was brutally killed in firing-squad style reminiscent of Dodge City, Kansas in the 19th century, in front of a crowd tourists not far from Times Square. Police Commissioner Kelly has predictably reacted mechanically with a blanket defence of the actions of his men (and women?). But their behavior does not make me proud of them.

This was another example of an unnecessary killing and further misuse of deadly force by the NY City police. Reports and videos taken by tourists and observers indicate that the apparently deranged man was stopped by police for smoking marijuana near Times Square. The two arresting officers ineffectively attempted to subdue and cuff him, but he escaped and walked away. As he retreated, he drew a knife and taunted the police to shoot him. These first two cops followed him with drawn guns, but others converged on the scene. Some say as many as twenty officers joined in the slow, walking pursuit which continued for seven blocks-from Times Square to 37th Street. On a video I saw, there were at least eight officers, in a wide line following one small, retreating black man down the street. As a native New Yorker, I can't believe that twenty of "New York's Finest" couldn't have effectively disarmed and stabilized this man without killing him in a dangerous hail of bullets on a crowded NY City street.

One must ask, where we're the senior officers? Why didn't one of these patrolmen use their Taser to subdue this man? The police action demonstrated on the streets of NY in this embarrassing, tragic and disgraceful incident was more typical of the 19th century southwest where the real Geronimo roamed, and was decidedly not what one expects from a modern police force in the world’s most affluent, cosmopolitan, advanced capital. In this case, the police by using deadly force on crowded streets could have been considered more of threat to our citizenry than was Darius Kennedy.

But perhaps we can not blame our police force which only reflects the norms of our society. When one of our major political parties, and it's two top representatives, espouse policies of disdain for the weak, poor and vulnerable in our society, perhaps this is all that we can expect. In modern day New York, instead of incarceration and professional help, a deranged, homeless man, obviously in need of medical and psychological assistance can only expect to be surrounded, hounded into a corner and then brutally shot dead on the street. Surely we can do much, much better than this.

Get the picture?

rjk