ORVILLE W. TAYLORI WITNESSED a savage beating last week. No! It was not the five to nil mauling that the Australians gave our national football team even though it is clear that our standard has gone 'down under'. It wasn't the 52 to three massacre of the New Orleans Saints by the Green Bay Packers in the NFL either. Rather, it was the literal pounding of 60-odd-year-old New Orleans resident, Robert Davis, by two local policemen and two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents. He was repeatedly punched in the back of the head and thrown to the ground. According to the official police reports, Davis was drunk, resisting arrest and boisterous.
But Davis denies being drunk although the police account, without the benefit of any toxicology or breathalyser report, says that he was. Hence, he was charged with public drunkenness and resisting arrest. Furthermore, he was also accused of public intimidation and battery.
I saw no battery but that the officers taking turns to hit him looked like a 'gang bang'. In their defence, the policemen denied using excessive force although 'gramps' suffered lacerations and a fracture of his eye socket. If we are to believe the police instead of the video and Davis, this senior citizen must have found something that goes beyond the mysteries of the 'blue pill'. The ludicrous description of the incident is of a man who "stumbled down the street and fell into a police horse." Well, maybe he fell into the horse after he was punched or "Whatever!" I suppose that he was also accused of butting the officers all over their fists and feet with his head.
BLACK VICTIMS
There have been many incidents of American police abuse in recent times where the victims have been of African descent. In 1991, truck driver Rodney King was apprehended and pulverised. King was apparently targeted because of his race. Nonetheless, he was reportedly under the influence of drugs and he was a big and strong black man. In fact, he fits the stereotype of the rugged American truck driver. Davis on the other, hand, is not a trim athletic 60-year-old like Chuck Norris or Schwarzenegger, whose name might just get him into trouble, since it reminds us of black people. He is an ordinary looking Joe.
The incident calls to mind the mid-1990s shooting of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo, and the repulsive case of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima who was sodomised in custody by New York Police Department (NYPD) cops close to that period. I don't want to single out the cases of black people being victimised but the offences have occurred often enough. One of my childhood friends who used to be chased off the corners by the Jamaican police in the 1970s met worse treatment at the hands of the NYPD and got a hefty settlement. As rich as he is now, I have no intention of 'beating' those odds.
Between 1999 and 2002, more than 80 persons were killed by police using supposedly non-lethal Tasers, a stun gun that uses electricity. In 17 years, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has shot more than 50 drivers in cases described as "misjudgements." Even today, the unsolved murder of my favourite rapper, the Notorious BIG, has strong allegations and leads that connect the LAPD to this homicide. Yet, after eight years, there has not been an arrest much less a conviction.
A human rights report and Amnesty International suggest that large numbers of American citizens and residents are subject to police brutality daily in the United States. I don't have time for full details but the point is, that when it comes to police excesses, Jamaica is not unique.
Two weeks ago, during the 'siege' of Tivoli Gardens, allegations arose about reckless shootings by the police and soldiers trampling on suspects while they lay face down in coarse marl. If these reports are true, then the perpetrators need to be dealt with to the full extent of the law and internal procedures. It is unacceptable that we can have an Abu Ghraib situation here or anywhere for that matter.
SCEPTICAL
Then again, we have the common reports of persons who seem to always get shot in shoot-outs or who attack the police with penknives. Don't get me wrong, penknives and box cutters are 'deadly weapons' as they were used to hijack planes during 9/11. Of course, no sane hijacker would try to commandeer a full Air Jamaica plane with anything less than an M-16. So, when no guns are recovered in Jamaican police shootings, we are sceptical, especially when the suspects are "pronounced dead on arrival."
Nonetheless, having made the point about frequent cases of police brutality in the United States, there is something here that sets us apart. I cannot imagine anywhere in the United States where the police can consider themselves fair game in a 'declared war' against the entire constabulary. In no major American city, with a population near to that of Jamaica, do we find an average of more than one police officer being killed by criminals each month. Up to the time of writing this column, we had 15 police personnel murdered. This is a hell of a place to police. As I said last week, most of our civilian homicides are concentrated in a few inner-city communities. The killing of the police is more evenly distributed.
I have grave misgivings about the common complaints by citizens about police violations of human rights and many of them are justified. However, most of our policewomen and men are decent, dedicated and hardworking. I salute them this Heroes' week.
