But ... No One's Been Arrested
A vicious 24-hour news cycle of 911 abuse and murder, all recorded for everyone to see, and still no arrests made or plans for prosecution announced
Publisher’s Riff
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Racism, forever omnipresent, decided to punch through a news and national discourse cycle that’s obsessed for months over pandemic. In one day’s worth of media cycle, not only did we find Amy Cooper staging a dangerous live-action audition for To Kill a Mockingbird, brazenly calling police on “African American man” Christian Cooper an faking an emergency as he recorded the entire incident, but we were also sickened to nausea of the long, grisly, and horrific choking-by-police knee death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Several thoughts on what’s transpired …
Make no mistake about it: clear crimes are being committed. The evidence is abundant, visible and irrefutable.
Yet, even as both incidents occurred on Monday, Memorial Day, in two different cities and time zones, no arrests have been made to date in the past 48 hours. That should stand out as one of the more outrageous aspects of these crimes: the follow-up crime and injustice of no arrests or announced plans to prosecute.
Amy Cooper was eventually fired from the investment firm where she worked after Christian Cooper’s video went viral and broke the Internet. The four cops responsible for the death of George Floyd were also rather swiftly fired (one wonders, however, if that would’ve been the same result had there not been a tape). But, again, to date: no one’s been arrested.
The fact that no one’s been arrested makes this issue unresolved. Social media, for example, should not be celebrating the termination of Amy Cooper from employment or the brutal shaming she’s received in public. This case isn’t resolved until New York penal code is immediately activated; and, if it isn’t, it will happen again, and again, and again … another White person “crying wolf” and using police to inflict harm on unarmed, innocent Black individuals for simply existing and being in a public space. As bad as Ms. Cooper calling police and choking her dog while at it (perhaps in an attempt to create a scene in which Mr. Cooper killed the dog) is the fact that New York city police did not immediately arrest Ms. Cooper or that New York city prosecutors did not immediately charge her after a clear crime had been committed - not only against Mr. Cooper, but the city and state of New York.
New York penal code is very explicit about this at Article 240.50 …
In most, if not all, cities and states, there are laws against the misuse or abuse of 911. With these incidents occurring with increasing frequency - or, at least, being captured on video with increasing frequency - there should be a national movement to make the public and, particularly, Black people aware that 1) White people who do this are violating the law and 2) when they find themselves in these situations, demand an immediate arrest by police called to the scene. If an arrest is not made, complaints should be filed against both the offending individual and the police department. That national movement has yet to occur and we’ve been largely reliant on the whims of social media to make a video viral. That’s not a good plan.
Firing White people from their jobs for criminal racist acts doesn’t really work. Amy Cooper, like most White people, will lay low for a number of months, perhaps even change her name, move to another place and remake herself and find employment elsewhere. Until she sees the inside of jail or is charged, it will be like this incident never happened a year from now. White people in general won’t learn the lesson that this behavior is a crime.
The FBI is, reportedly, beginning to look into the case of George Floyd. The officers have been fired. We should not celebrate the firing. Until the officers are charged with murder and seeing the inside of the jail, the lesson is not learned. The Mayor of Minneapolis can talk all he want about how “being Black in America should not be a death sentence” - but he has yet to say “being a cop in America should not be a stay-out-of-jail card” and call for the immediate arrest or charging of those officers. So, it will happen again.
Should this case proceed without prosecution, there’s a very high likelihood the officers will find employment in another jurisdiction because that’s what police unions do.
There should be now be an exploration of Mayor Jacob Frey’s relationship with the police union. He did return a small campaign contribution to the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis in 2015 before his 2017 run for Mayor, but that was after he came under criticism.
When clear, visible crimes like this happen, why isn’t prosecution automatic?
Let’s keep a clear eye on this case and compare it to the outcome of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamad Noor, a Black Somali-American, who is now in prison for 12.5 years after fatally shooting an unarmed White Australian woman in 2017. He was arrested 7 months after that incident and convicted in 2019. Let’s compare treatment.
Clearly, police departments need more than diversity training to prevent crimes like the murder of George Floyd.
It’s also time to re-examine qualification criteria for joining police departments and why it only takes a high school degree to get employed in one of the most dangerous, highly emotional and highly impactful jobs-with-a-gun in America. Law enforcement agencies should explore only hiring individuals with at least an associate’s degree and require complex coursework that delves into the history and conditions of Black populations in the U.S. before they are given a badge and a gun.
Lastly, Black elected officials and the Black advocacy, political and media class must be unified, uniformed and policy-driven in their response. All Black politicians - city, state and federal - should loudly demand the prosecution of these crimes, including the immediate arrest of people involved. There should be a movement to strengthen 911 abuse laws and to make Black communities aware that 911 misuse is a violation of the law.
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