National Radio Project

MAKING CONTACT

Transcript: #21-98 The Force of Law: Police Brutality and Community
May 27, 1998

Program description at http://www.radioproject.org/archive/1998/9821.html

Phillip Babich: Welcome to Making Contact, an international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas and important information. This week on Making Contact:

Don Minick: During the confrontation, he got in an argument with Sean Joyce, an off-duty deputy sheriff, and the deputy sheriff shot him, shot him six times, twice in the back, according to police reports.

fem.: Let us make no mistake, police brutality is the manifestations of policies put in place by the forces of avariceness and greed.

Phillip Babich: Several high profile cases in recent years have exposed what some activists are terming "an epidemic of police brutality." On this program you'll hear from parents and others who are fighting back against a pattern of violence and misconduct of law enforcement agencies across the United States. I'm Phillip Babich, your host this week on Making Contact.

In the aftermath of the Rodney King verdict, and acquittal of the four Los Angeles police officers who brutalized King during a traffic stop, and subsequent civil unrest in 1992, police departments nationwide pledged to keep themselves in check and avoid instances of excessive force. Six years later, police reports of violence and death are almost routine. The torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima at the hands of four New York City police officers, who sodomized him with a toilet plunger in a precinct bathroom is but one example of recent abuses. To raise awareness about these issues, activists gathered in New York last year for a march and rally.

fem.: We say no, we will not forget. We will keep these horrors in front of us to remind us that it was Mr. Louima in August, it could be your son, your husband, your brother, your daughter, your father next time. It could be you next time, it could be me next time. There's no telling. And why not. Prisons are the largest growing industry in the country today. Who are they being built for? They say that crime has dropped, so who is to occupy these prisons? Not the rich, not the privileged, not the CEOs and the bankers who steal wealth of untold amounts and methods, and who destroy lives and countries for a better return on their dividends. No, it's for a brother or sister who are at their wits end drink a beer on the street or hops a turnstile for lack of a token. The death-houses or prisons are busy producing the highest body count in decades. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. The oppression and exploitation of workers cannot take place without an occupying armed force in the community. And it is not just in our community. Let us make no mistake, police brutality is the manifestations of policies put in place by the forces of avariceness and greed. We must pledge to continue to struggle against the chains which threaten to shackle us again into the servitude of unenlightened thinking. We must continue to say "No" to police brutality. No more beatings, no more chokings, no more shootings. And then we must look beyond our own shores, and note that the policies that are killing us are killing our sisters and brothers around the world. And we must say "No" to that too.

fem.: The same thing is happening up in Albany, the capitol of New York, and is being tolerated. I have two young sons, one is 19 and one is 16, brutally beaten by the Albany Police Department, the second division, on the night of the Black and Hispanic Caucus. They ambushed those boys, three of them, one of them was their friend. Ambushed them and beat them. My son first saw a police officer when he came in contact with a baton in his stomach. "Turn around, you nappy-headed funny-looking thing." My son had a hat on, covering all his hair. Obviously, that was an intentional racism. The other one had a dog who was taunting him. My son said, "Get the dog off me, or I'll sue you." And by the time he could say that, the police officer turned and pushed him, he airborn and pushed him and his body rocked back and forth. Five of them jumped on him, handcuffed him, and beat him, while the dog was eating away at his clothes. The dog ate all the chest of his clothes, all his collar. He had the skin tore off of his neck, the 16-year old, by a police officer from a choke hold. The other one had a big lump on the side of his head, one over his eye. He's a track star, he ran in the Empire State Games the same night that happened. His chin is busted, his knees is busted, he's not able to run. He was on a track scholarship to Morehouse College. He's not able to run any more. He's depressed, he's breaking out in hives, he's not happy, he's not able to study any more. He went there to study Robotics Engineering, a co-op program between Georgia Tech and Morehouse. He's unable to go an perform now, because of the situation that happened to them. He was thrown in jail for six days without any medical attention. His jaw was dislocated, he couldn't eat for six days, no medical attention. They were treated like animals in that precinct. We have a mayor in the city of Albany called Mayor Jennings. He lied to us over and over, that he is investigating and he is going to make a statement in two weeks. It's now October 22nd, that was August 3rd, the night of the Black and Hispanic Caucus, and nothing was ever done to my sons. They charged up 13 felonies, 10 misdemeanors on my sons, which I fought until they dropped every last one of them, equivalation to a parking violation. Understand... Certainly that does not warrant six days in jail and an ass whooping. My boys were brutally beaten, and I'm not going to let it go. I'm here to tell Mayor Jennings, and Giuliani, if you can't control your beasts and your boys, you cannot control any city at all.

Phillip Babich: This wave of police violence is not just limited to urban areas. In rural Nevada County, California, a man was gunned down by an off-duty police officer during an argument. Correspondent Mike Thornton spoke with the parents of the victim, Micheal Minick, who was an ex-convict. Don Minick begins by describing the circumstances of the shooting. He's followed by his wife Sue.

Don Minick: Our son had just gotten back from spending the afternoon and early evening with his wife and three other boys at the South Fork of the Yuba River down by Bridgeport. And when he got back, there was some target shooting. He heard some guns being fired toward the place he was living with his wife. And he had gone up there to confront the person about shooting. And apparently during the confrontation, he got into an argument with Sean Joyce an off-duty deputy sheriff, and the deputy sheriff shot him, shot him six times, twice in the back, according to the police report. We found out about it when we were at home that night. We couldn't sleep, we was watching the news on television early in the morning, and it was over the television that we discovered this. They didn't tell us at the scene. They wouldn't tell us anything. And we found out that it was an actual killing. In my view it was a killing and not an accident. We found out through television, and we flat accused them of trying to cover this up because of the way the questions were being asked, the things that were happening, the way they were treating us. And they were treating Mike as the perpetrator. First off, they wouldn’t let us see Mike, and then they released him to whoever does the autopsies. And after they was through, we talked to the person at the mortuary, he said we wouldn't want to see Mike then, because the autopsy...they cut him up so bad that we wanted to remember him the way he was, the last time we saw him. And I'd seen him just the night before, at the county fairgrounds.

Sue Minick: I just think it very odd that they wouldn't even arrest this man, whether he be a sheriff, a minister, or just a person off the street.

Don Minick: Yeah, one's a policeman, one's an ex-con. Problem solved.

Sue Minick: Sean Joyce said he feared for his life. He had a hidden gun, 380, semi-automatic. His wife went for her gun, the three boys, that I know of, they only had two 22s, but still, add up all these and figure it out.

Don Minick: And also, he kicked Mike. He was the one that started the confrontation.

Sue Minick: He kicked Mike first. As far as the investigation goes, they ought to fire those guys. Not in just our sons case, but lots of other cases, they don't do a thorough investigation.

Don Minick: Or they don't do anything.

Sue Minick: But I keep thinking to myself, and my grandchildren also, the littlest one had said, she was nine at the time, "Grandma, how come they never arrest the man that killed Uncle Mike." And I tell her, "Because one day he will have to face God."

Don Minick: It starts at the top, with the leader. My wife and I, we went in last February, over a year ago, it happened to be on our anniversary, that we finally got, about six months after Mike was killed, we finally got to take to Sheriff Arbaugh. We asked, the first thing we asked Sheriff Arbaugh was if he had read the report. And he said, "No, I haven't read it. I glanced at it." I said, "After all the furor that's been...you haven't read it?" He said, "No." I said, "You should read it, and read it from the perspective as a lay-person, not as a sheriff." He said he would do that. He answered a lot of my questions, but there was a half a dozen that he couldn't answer, because he didn't know the answers. He said he would find out. He says, "I'll get back to you within a week or so." It's been a year and a month; we haven't heard from that man. And he's had plenty of chances to talk to us. He has not gotten back to us and answered those questions.

Mike Thornton: Well, what would you like to see happen out of this?

Sue Minick: Well, first of all, I don't want this happening to anyone else. I want good, honest, and I mean very, very honest leadership in this county. It's just that it's getting to the point where thousand of people can't try the law enforcement here. A certain amount of them, not all of them. And I would like to see much better leadership.

Don Minick: We were like a lot of people, I assume, that had their heads buried in the sand. And just thought, things are going to go along real fine, there's no problem until it happens to you. And when you become involved in this system, if everybody is...there's a lot of them out there that's been treated just like we have. They've been ignored, they don't get their questions answered, they get pushed aside, they've been treated like second class citizens. That has to change.

Phillip Babich: Don and Sue Minick, parents of Michael Minick, who was shot to death by an off-duty police officer. Correspondent Mike Thornton also spoke with the district attorney who was in charge of investigating the case. Thornton asked D.A. Mike Ferguson why he chose not to press charges against officer Sean Joyce, who was not in his jurisdiction at the time of the shooting.

Mike Ferguson: There are times when there are officer-involved shootings in other counties, where that same call is made. They know where they're going to find the officer, he's not going to go anywhere. I know I think that in defending their action, at one point in time I believe it was assistant Sheriff Connor indicated they knew where Mr. Joyce would be found and that he's not going to go anywhere and is not likely to flee.

Mike Thornton: Mike, I'm sorry, but this is a question that I have to ask you, and, you just referred to this as an officer-involved shooting. But sheriff Joyce was not in his capacity as a police officer.

Mike Ferguson: He was an off-duty police officer. I can't read the mind of the officer who was out there who made the call whether to arrest or not.

Mike Thornton: I'm not suggesting that you can, but what I am saying is, isn't that statement, in and of itself, somewhat telling, that the shooting, just in somewhat of an amorphous mindset, that this was an officer-involved shooting? Which somehow makes it different from what a civilian shooting is. And I think that's what the crux of the concern of the community is. That this was viewed as an officer involved shooting. Do you see what I'm saying to you?

Mike Ferguson: An off-duty officer from another jurisdiction, therefore they didn't treat him the way they should have treated him?

Mike Thornton: But isn't that almost what you just said? That it was an officer-involved shooting, and because it was an officer-involved shooting, that's why he wasn't arrested.

Mike Ferguson: But it wasn't an officer-involved shooting from the standpoint of being on duty. I've been trying to draw an analogy to an officer-involved shooting that would occur in, you know, a big county. like L.A. or Sacramento, by saying, they don't arrest the officer every time they have an office-involved shooting.

Mike Thornton: But that's when that police officer shoots someone in the capacity of his duty as a police officer, not a private citizen...

Mike Ferguson: That's correct.

Mike Thornton: ...in his father's back yard.

Mike Ferguson: That's correct. I understand what you're saying, but I'm trying, in some respect, to play devil's advocate here.

Phillip Babich: District Attorney Mike Ferguson speaking with correspondent, Mike Thornton.

You are listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project. If you want more information about the subject of this week’s program, please give us a call. It’s toll-free, 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcripts, or if you want to make a comment or a suggestion for future programs.

Young people, especially young people of color, are often at risk of police harassment. In some cases, violence. That risk is sometimes exacerbated when the youth is affiliated with a gang, or a group of individuals who could be mistaken for a gang. That's one of the reasons why two of the rival gangs in Southern California, the Crips and Bloods, signed an historic truce in 1992. Correspondent Christian Parenti spoke with Dewain Holmes, a former gang leader who was instrumental in forging the peace agreement. According to many witnesses, Holmes was framed for a ten dollar robbery because of his involvement with the truce. Despite the intervention of Congresswoman Maxine Waters, then presidential candidate Jerry Brown, then State Senator Tom Hayden, and author Mike Davis, Holmes was sentence to seven years in prison. He was released after three and a half years. Holmes told Parenti that the police framed him because a cease-fire between the notorious street gangs meant they were more organized to challenge police brutality, which was running rampant in the Watts Housing Projects.

Dewain Holmes: There were incidents which were taking place in at least three of the four housing projects, located in this small geographical area in the Watts community. In the Imperial Courts housing project, in which I lived, my cousin, Henry Pico, had been murdered by the Los Angeles Police Department. In the Jordan Downs housing projects there was an incident where the residents had got into a physical brawl law enforcement officers behind some unlawful treatment of the residents inside the housing projects. In the Nickerson Gardens, there were a confrontation that I think resulted in some kind of gun battle, between law enforcement and the residents over there, as a result of some other type of unlawful acts that were being perpetrated by the Los Angeles Police Department against the residents in the housing project. In an attempt to try to consolidate the different groups that had sprung up in these different housing projects... during that time to address those issues in my housing projects, we had the Henry Pico Justice Committee, that had been formed to bring some attention to police abuse and police misconduct. In the Nickerson Gardens you had something like a community... a group of concerned citizens. In the Jordan Downs there was an attempt by some individuals through American and some other groups to foster some sort of dialog around the issue of police misconduct and police abuse. In the wake of that, and understanding that these groups of concerned citizens to get together and to figure out strategy to address this whole issue, there needed to be clearance, there needed to be some type of agreement amongst the aggressive elements in these different communities which is identified as gangs, for a better word. There needed to be some type of agreement with them established, so that individuals like myself, who was a member of the Imperial courts gang, the P.J. Watts gang. and individuals like Daud Sherells who was a member of Grape street, Watts Baby Locs, and individuals like B.J. and Hank , who were from the Nickerson Garden Bounty Hunters...they needed to be in agreement with these gangs that these individuals represented, to come over into this neighborhood and to participate in the discussion about how to go about addressing this urgent need to deal with law enforcement and to actually address the issue of police abuse.

Christian Parenti: So now people are fairly familiar with what happened. There was a truce. It was signed and solidified right before the riots. But then, what happened to you. Tell us about the trouble with the police.

Dewain Holmes: Well, my trouble with the police began before the inception of the truce and everything. I think that the signing of this declaration of peace, and me being an individual who had an extensive record, criminal record, and gang activity, etc., spearheading this whole movement in terms of trying to consolidate these different aggressive elements in the community, placed me at the forefront of the police's agenda in terms of whom was a threat, and whom we needed to isolate in order to dismantle this whole movement. Because that's eventually what the cease fire agreement was turning into. Law enforcement however viewed that as a threat, and understandably so. We were talking about declaring a cease fire amongst ourselves. You know, no one talked about getting at the police, but no one talked about making a pact or forming a truce with law enforcement. I think that law enforcement saw that as...we were coming together and we were talking about setting aside our differences, but the fact that we wasn't talking about setting aside our differences with law enforcement made them the primary target of our anger and our rage. And I think that scared them more than anything else.

Christian Parenti: You ended up being framed, and you had numerous celebrities and politicians at your sentencing hearing, and to no avail, because you ended up going to prison. So when you got out, what was the situation on the street?

Dewain Holmes: Truces were still in place somewhat, which was good. They were fragile, but they were there, which was good. But no one really had an idea of what the truces meant, what these cease fire agreements really meant. The individuals who were spearheading, calling themselves leaders of this who truce movement, were self-seeking individuals who were in this for their own personal gains and didn't give a damn about the neighborhoods or the communities that they were professing to represent.

Christian Parenti: What was the role of the authorities in fostering sort of a false truce leadership?

Dewain Holmes: The authorities, they systematically weeded out individuals, you know, by taking individuals like myself who they knew would never compromise with them, who they knew, you know, was on the other side of the fence from them...who were pushed out of the way. And then the authorities strategically place individuals like Tony Bogar, and gave them credibility in terms of being these truce leaders, and so forth. And that's what essentially destroyed the movement. Individuals were targeted and gave opportunities, whereas the communities and the overall masses of people were left out of that opportunity field over there. And they saw it and they felt it, you understand? And they began to resent laying down their weapons and forming these peace pacts or whatever. And they went back...and we witnessed this backlash from that, we witnessed this going back to the old familiar ways of doing things, you know, warring and robbing and stealing and killing, and so forth. And so now when I'm out on the street and I'm talking to the brothers about peace, and about unity, and about solving their differences, they say, "Hey man, been there, done that. You know what I'm saying? Been there, done that, huh? We didn't get nothing. You know what I'm saying?"

Phillip Babich: Dewain Holmes, speaking with Christian Parenti. Holmes is currently a staff person for State Senator Tom Hayden.

One way that community activists are combating police brutality is to put pressure on citizen oversight committees that review excessive or deadly force complaints. If such committees are not in place, some activists are pushing to establish them. Anthony Van Jones is an attorney who helped expose a brutal pattern of misconduct by Mark Andaya, a San Francisco police officer who repeatedly kicked an African American man in the head after he was subdued and pepper sprayed. The man died later that night in a police van, hog-tied and gagging from the chemical spray. In March, Van Jones was one of the four recipients of the Reebok Human Rights Award for his help to increase awareness about police brutality, and bring enough public pressure on the city's police leaders to force Andaya out of the department.

Anthony Van Jones: We were able to move it forward mainly by making it very, very clear that we were fearless. The family of Aaron Williams was indomitable. They knew that their loved one had been beaten and pepper sprayed and taken from them in violation of all police policy. And we worked with them night and day, literally for two years, to ensure that this case wasn't swept under the rug. And when it looked like it was going to be swept under the rug, we were willing to point fingers and names. For instance, we accused Willie Brown, the liberal Black mayor of San Francisco. We said that Willie Brown's police commission tried to protect the Bay Area's Mark Fuhrman. And when that happened, the police commissioners who had been working quite seriously to protect this police officer were forced to resign by public pressure and media criticism. And a whole new police commission was impaneled, and it was brave enough to fire this Mark Andaya.

Phillip Babich: Attorney Anthony Van Jones.

That's it for this edition of Making Contact: A Look at Police Brutality and Community Organizing. Thanks for listening. And special thanks this week to Sue Supriano and Mike Thornton, who provided recorded portions and editorial assistance. If you want more information about the subject of this week’s program, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcripts or if you’d like to make a comment or a suggestion for future programs. That’s 800-529-5736.

Making Contact is an independent production funded by individual contributors. We’re committed to providing a forum for voices and opinions not often heard in the mass media. Our national producer is David Barsamian, Phillip Babich is our managing producer. Our senior advisor is Norman Solomon. Peggy Law is our executive director. Our theme music is by the Charlie Hunter Trio. For every one at Making Contact, thanks for listening.