Letter From New York: Policing the City
The NYC police don’t usually spend their workdays murdering innocent men. Police shootings—justified or not—have declined radically over the years (the absolute number of fatal police shootings down from 54 in 1973 to nine in 2005). However, the recent police killing of groom-to-be Sean Bell in Queens brought back memories of similar incidents that have roiled the city. There was the heedless killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant in 1999, and the equally ruthless 2003 killing of Ousmane Zongo, 43, another West African immigrant, who was shot during a police raid on a warehouse where he repaired art and musical instruments.
The fatal shooting of Bell aroused warranted rage in the black community. But it also predictably led self-appointed race spokesmen like Rev. Al Sharpton to orate for the media’s benefit about police racism, and for the demagogic NY City Council member Charles Barron to threaten riots if “we don’t get indictments.”
Of course, one doesn’t expect Sharpton, Barron et al. to eschew highly charged racial rhetoric, and avoid taking political advantage of a situation made to order for them. But one bit of data that bears repetition is that the large majority of victims and perpetrators of New York City murders in the last decade or so have been black; clearly, these perps are a much greater danger to people attempting to live a peaceful, secure life in neighborhoods like South Jamaica and East New York than the ‘brutality’ of the cops. A glance at the city’s tabloids (even in these years of a radically declining crime rate) would give one an idea of what kind of violence and chaos people living in these neighborhoods continue to face daily. And Sharpton and company, in turn, have expended little energy leading demonstrations against crime and the criminal class. Still, though all the facts in the Bell case remain unclear, there are some things that can be said about the event without merely indulging in a reflexive condemnation or absolution of the police.
What we know probably happened is that a group of racially mixed undercover officers investigating a gun- and drug-plagued strip joint in Queens had reason to believe that a party leaving the club was armed and about to shoot another person. Believing they were under attack after the party’s car hit an undercover policeman and seconds later, an unmarked police minivan, the police horribly overreacted and shot over fifty bullets, killing Bell and wounding the other two men in the car. All of the men turned out to be unarmed.
Obviously, the police were in an extremely difficult, anxiety-ridden situation, but in no way can their unprofessional and murderous behavior be excused. And yes, the police can be racists, and often respond to black men more contemptuously and with greater force than they do to whites. But still the primary reason for police wariness of young black men is based on experience, not racism. It’s because blacks, who are only 25 percent of the city’s population, commit more than half the violent crime in the city.
However, in a recent Daily News poll, though the majority of the city’s whites feel most cops treat members of all racial and ethnic groups fairly, 82% of blacks say most cops are biased towards some groups. The black community’s deeply held feeling that the police show them little respect is why an articulate haranguer like Barron can get re-elected and be able to continue to cynically stir the waters. I don’t have an easy answer for how the police can win the hearts and minds of the people of impoverished neighborhoods like the South Bronx, but it would obviously help preserve public order if people in the neighborhoods felt the police had become less hostile and more respectful towards them.
Nevertheless, the other side of policing is that despite the recent burst of violence against the police (e.g., the murder of two auxiliary cops in the Village), the decrease in violent crime in New York City continues to defy nationwide trends. And it’s the effectiveness and aggressiveness of the police (including even the often rightly resented “stop and frisk” procedure) that remain one of the prime reasons that crime is down in inner city neighborhoods.
There are cops that are authoritarian brutes, and others that are corrupt or bigoted. But there are also fourth generation cops like Edward Conlon, who in his memoir Blue Blood (Penguin) provides a sometime lyrical, richly detailed account of police work. Conlon, a Harvard graduate and New Yorker contributor, is clearly no average cop. And his book is a critical take on a job that he is profoundly committed to. Patrolling a South Bronx public housing project, he likes “its spontaneity and variety,” but is aware that many of the people he served were “unappreciative” and some wanted him dead. It’s a hard job, and Conlon writes with a sense of irony about “the loftiness of the ideals we embodied and the smallness of the bosses, the newspapers, the politicians, the people, and, often enough, us.” So next time an editorial writer or a protest leader presents us with a formulaic rendering of police behavior or misbehavior, just take a look at Conlon as an antidote.
Lenny, that's fine, but why don't you say anything about the loathsome behavior of the self-appointed police spokesmen after the indictments came down; they're every bit as bad as Sharpton and Barron, and it's because of people like them I frankly have very little respect for the police establishment and its apologists (like that op-ed piece in the Times, let alone the Post). They're like the worst kind of trade-union demagogues (ie, the PBA, which is truly hateful) and are totally without moral standards. If civilian control of the military is the major issue for a democracy, I don't think most American cities (or towns in many parts of the country) have it. Armed men with no sense of internal constraint make me feel terrified, no matter how much crime is down, and no matter how dangerous their job is. Also, we've had enough experience of police and prosecutor behavior in the US recently that I never believe any police statement about a crime until I have absolute reason to, since their sincere belief is that it's okay to lie and cheat as long as they know they're "getting the job done." This is a philosophical disagreement between me and law-and-order spokespersons, to be sure: they think justice is about finding the truth--who's guilty, they don't think in terms of who's innocent--and enforcing it, whereas I think justice is about due process, and nothing more. Human beings can never (rarely) know the truth for sure, but we can behave fairly. I guess if I were a lawyer I could never be a prosecutor, and I never get angry at the defense bar, no matter how ratty their behavior, since as a defense attorney once said to me, "yeah he probably did it, but they were lying and I was totally glad to get him off."
Phil
Phil, obviously, I disagree. Your portrait of the police seems extreme, and
less bound by experience than by ideological preconceptions. One knows
the police lie and plant evidence, but they are clearly less of a
threat to a civil urban existence than the criminals. The PBA engages
in special pleading, and as a union is no different (though in a
different sphere) than the Hospital Workers—militantly defending the
practices of its membership.
The quality of our middle class lives in this city is preserved by an
effective police force. Clearly, for blacks it's all more
complicated—given that distinctions between street criminals and decent
citizens are often blurred by the police.
You'd have to have lived here (NY) 15 years ago to feel the difference.
Lenny
Lenny, it's the old story. The police in every large city have been
found to frame people right and left, some of whom are innocent; some
even on death row and lucky that DNA testing came along. So the
question is, how many innocent (or guilty but not according to the
prevailing rules of evidence) people are worth a more effective order,
and how much racial profiling is worth a more effective order? In any
event, I'd agree with you more if the race war on drugs were abolished;
what are blacks to think when they get harassed and jailed constantly
over drug use which is widespread without penalty on every elite
college campus, at every upper class party, etc. Plus, you and I get to
decide on those tradeoffs at least vicariously, but poor and
lower-middle class blacks don't, since they're less than equal citizens
of the polity, and are well aware that if offending they're much more
likely to be arrested, if tried much more likely to be convicted, and
if convicted certain to serve considerably longer jail terms, than
whites. And they have no voice in the "justice" system--except for
demagogues like Sharpton and Barron who do what they do, since no white
person pays attention to the views of any black who isn't either
physically threatening or totally and harmlessly assimilated. Sharpton
actually gets whitey to listen to him!
And we do disagree about the PBA too, but that's a longer story, the gist of which is that I think they have every right to represent their membership over wages and
hours, but no right at all to represent them over powers. That's for
civilians to decide. Anyhow, I'd certainly reject any comparison of
them with the unarmed hospital workers, who the worse they will do will
be slow changing a bedpan, and who have been for years truly underpaid
and treated with contempt compared even to the cops.
I'm sure you're right about the 15 years ago, though. Where I agree with
you is that my sociological analysis is contradictory of my personal
feelings, which are that I detest violent men as individuals, wish they
would vanish off the face of the earth, and think that their violence
should be punished, even understanding why they as a mass are the way
they are. I think probably striking a just balance is impossible in any
city/country that is ridden by race (or class, though not as much so),
and the US is the most devastated of these.
Phil
Your E mail needs a fuller statement than I'm able to give at the
moment. You've raised a number of interesting points. I was too facile
comparing the hospital workers who have been underpaid and powerless
with the PBA. Though their left-leaning head (Rivera) has played a
number of political games that made him an ally of Pataki. And his
attack on Spitzer's reforms seem to pit the membership's interests
against the medical needs of the general population.
Personally, I think Sharpton is counter-productive, but in a vacuum he
becomes the voice of the people. The noting of being "harmlessly assimilated" is something
we can discuss for days. I am against convictions of pot and hash
dealers, but the legalization of heroin is a question that has elicited
very different positions in the black community. There is much more, and
writing about it moves me to clarify my positions futher.
Best, Lenny
