Police Shootings

Tonight, I sent a response to an op-ed that appeared this week in UC Irvine's campus newspaper, New University. It concerned the topic of police shootings, something I know a little about from my career in DEA. The writer, who is a student, maintains that police in America are basically going out and finding excuses to gun down black and brown people. I am attaching both the original article and my response. I am deleting the writer's name from this post since he is a student.


Police Brutality: Shoot First, Ask Later
Volume 42, Issue 17 | Feb 09 2009

"A man is approached by four plain-clothed officers on the streets of New York City and is told to stop what he is doing and to put his hands up. The officers briefly question this young man, who is 23-years-old and a recent immigrant to America. The young man is confused and reaches for his wallet to show his identification. As soon as the young man makes this move, one of the officers shouts “Gun!” and the officers quickly fire 41 fatal shots into his body.

This man, Amadou Diallo, was viciously murdered by police officers on Feb. 4, 1999. Diallo was approached because he was mistaken for a rapist, as he supposedly fit the description. Diallo came to America from West Africa with the hope of furthering his education and living a more successful life. Sadly, his ambitions did not come true because he was brutally murdered by the police.

A few months back, in late October of 2008, a young man of just 20 years stepped outside his house because he heard suspicious noises. He was recently married, and his wife was expecting. He wanted to make sure that his household was safe, so he grabbed a broom and stepped out to his front lawn to see what was causing the commotion. Soon after, he was shot twice and fell to the floor dead. One bullet struck his heart. This young man was Julian Alexander. Today he is dead because police officers mistook him for a burglar they were chasing. This occurred in Anaheim, California, not too far from Irvine.

On New Year’s Eve, Oscar Grant was taken out of a subway train by police officers. He was unarmed and lying face down on the ground when an officer pulled out his gun and shot him in the back. Just before he died, Grant pleaded with the cops not to shoot him, telling them that he had a 4-year-old daughter at home. I could go on about how many innocent lives were taken by bullets fired by police officers; but the point is that police brutality happens all the time, and overwhelmingly, black and brown men are the victims.

The cops just get away with it.

Police officers are human like everyone else. But this also means that they may hold racist views that anyone may hold. The only difference is they have a badge and a gun. If they see a black man walking down the street, they can act on their racist thinking, can legally shoot and kill that man and label him as a threat to justify their actions. Police officers have the law on their side, while a man on the street does not. Judges rarely, if ever, sentence cops for their discriminatory acts toward innocent people. They are legally allowed to racially profile and murder black and brown people.

Diallo was shot because he “fit the description” of a rapist. What was the description? Diallo was black, and therefore a threat. Julian Alexander was black, 6-feet-5-inches and 240 pounds. Does his appearance mean that he should be dead? Time and time again, police officers use their guns and weapons before asking questions. Unfortunately, the murders of innocent people continue because the police can get away with it. The police have a job to “serve and protect,” but the question is, serve and protect who?

In the case of Grant, brave witnesses recorded the horrendous actions of the police and put it on YouTube, despite officer’s demands that they turn in their cell phones and cameras. This time, America witnessed inequality and racism in action. The video on YouTube that broadcasted Oscar Grant’s death led to protests in Oakland and around the country. People were not angry over this isolated incident that happened at the Bay Area Rapid Transit Station. People were angry because they have seen men like Oscar Grant murdered too many times before. Demonstrations against police brutality erupted because of the unjust killings of numerous innocent victims, who for many were sons, husbands, brothers, friends and neighbors. Grant was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

On Monday, Jan. 26, concerned students around the UC system gathered together to stand up against police brutality. UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UCLA and UC Irvine walked out of class and held a march and rally in honor of those who died from police brutality. Students expressed the need to be aware of this critical issue. They will not tolerate police brutality.

Clearly, the stories of Grant, Alexander, Diallo and countless others demonstrate that racist ideologies still permeate America, even though our president is black. People still die every day because of the color of their skin. We must be aware of what is going on, in order to make this society a better place. In a fair society, no one is above the law."



My response:

As a retired Drug Enforcement agent with almost 30 years of law enforcement experience behind me, I would like to respond to the op-ed from last week's edition of New University regarding police shootings.

Writer __________ has described three tragic police shootings over the years, in which three persons were killed that should not have died. The three shootings were cases of tragic mistakes. Yet, __________ paints these incidents as cases of vicious police murders with the implication that the police deliberately set out to take the life of someone because they were black or brown, as __________ puts it. No matter how bad the Diallo, Alexander and Grant shootings were, these were not cases of cops deliberately gunning down people for the sheer joy of it as ____________ implies. As for the racist implications that __________ makes, I would point out the LAPD, which has had more accusations leveled against it than any other police department in the country. Yet, most of the officers in the LAPD today are either minority or women.

During my DEA career, I was involved in three shooting incidents, one of which was a full-blown shootout. I can tell you that being in a shootout is not sport. It is a frightening experience. Our enforcement operations are carefully planned to avoid such incidents from happening. Yet, they occasionally do. Given the level of violent crime in our society and the violence associated with drug trafficking world-wide, it is a wonder we don't see more police-involved shootings than we do.

I can also tell you that I myself once came close to shooting a person who turned out to be an innocent bystander. It was during an undercover drug deal which resulted in several arrests in a hotel. At the moment the arrests happened, every one of us thought we had identified a suspect engaged in counter-surveillance in the lobby. When we approached him, he stood up and began to reach into a hand bag he was carrying. Since I was right in front of him, I drew my weapon and pushed him back down into his chair. I sincerely believed at that moment that he was reaching for a gun-which he never had. Thank God I didn't shoot because he turned out to be not involved in the drug deal. Had I shot that man, I would be living with it for the rest of my life-and surely would have been prosecuted. By the same token, had he been involved and reaching for a gun, perhaps I would not be here writing this letter since I held my fire. These things can happen in the blink of an eye.

__________ further states that the cops "just get away with it". That is false. The officers in the Diallo case in New York were prosecuted and acquitted on the jury's conclusion that it was a tragic chain of events that led officers (erroneously) to think that Diallo had a gun and had already fired it. As we speak the ex-officer who shot Mr Grant is now facing charges.

If __________ wants to argue that more training is needed or hiring practices need to be refined to keep out rogue or racist cops, that is fine. We all admit there are some bad apples. However, if __________ thinks that police deliberately set out to get involved in a shooting, he needs to actually experience what it is like to be a cop.