Police and Communities
Rochester, Chicago Mayors’ (and others’) “Cover-ups,” Claims, Counterclaims
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ochester Mayor
“She (Rochester mayor) learned of the death after it happened in March – nearly five months before the community did.”
Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary quoted by WHAM September 2, 2020: “This is not a cover-up. Let me be clear when I say that: This is not a cover-up whatsoever.”
“… [W]e won’t want to do anything to taint any kind of investigation –
whether a criminal investigation or an internal investigation.”
ABC news September 6, 2020: Following release of video footage of the encounter between police and a citizen who died, hundreds of people began demonstrating on the streets of Rochester, some reportedly setting off fireworks (some injuring police officers), and resulting in nine arrests by police.
In an attempt to “allow
protesters to assemble (and) at the same time protect people from injuries and
damage to buildings, the mayor “called on the city’s elders to meet at a church
… to work to keep the demonstrations as peaceful as possible.”
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newspaper December 16, 2020 after Rochester
Police Chief La’Ron Singletary files a lawsuit against the city of Rochester (“alleging
defamation of character, hostile work environment and wrongful and retaliatory
termination) quoted: “I repeatedly refused to lie for Mayor Warren.” “Pressure
to support Mayor Warren’s narrative also came from other city officials.”
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hicago Mayor
Chicago Tribune December 15, 2020: the mayor and the city law department
“attempted in court … to block local news station WBBM-Ch. 2 from airing body
camera footage of Chicago police officers raiding” the wrong residence and
handcuffing a woman who hadn’t time to dress.
The woman had released to the press a copy of the video of the police encounter, after a lawsuit she had filed against the city gained her viewing of the police encounter with the stipulation that, according a judge’s confidentiality order protecting the material, the material not be made public. The woman violated the order and released the video to the press.
Chicago’s former mayor, Rahm Emanuel, had reportedly “fought to keep secret a video showing” a police arrest situation.
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n the 2020 Rochester and Chicago cases, two elements give me pause: Since both subjects of arrest (mistaken or not) were exposed (unclothed), barring public viewing of the video footage
(1) could be justified on the basis of preserving a person’s dignity or proper modesty; but
(2) could not be justified on prurient interests or salacious voyeurism of mass media (or any other persons) as these do not rise to the substantive principles of “right to know” or “freedom of press.” Strangers have no “right” to view another’s nakedness.
It is indisputable that U.S. mayors, governors, presidents and other U.S. public officials, at all levels, have a great deal to answer for.
However, an instance of police encounter with an individual (or an
individual encounter with police) that has gone wrong is not the moment for
rational decision, protest, or lawyerly exploitation. There are always contributing
priors. The issue of what some call “police violence” or “police brutality” is deeply,
vastly complex. It must be taken (unpeeled) layer by layer, examined in each
layer, and solved in each layer ahead of crises, lawsuits, and mass uprising, violent or not.
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mong areas of examination and problem solving are at least these:
- Community environment
- Quality of community relations with law enforcement and with other government offices
- Quality of leadership in public office
- Quality of mental and physical health systems and their personnel
- Quality of law enforcement systems and their personnel
A person or group can attack and counter attack yelling “racist racist racist …!” “No I’m not No I’m Not No I’m not …!” or lawyer up to the hilt bringing in billions for the lawyerly class (someone once said “if not for lawyers, we’d have no need of lawyers”) — how did all those priests, scout leaders and athletic coaches get away with preying on the lives of the young? In contemporary society, even the masses lawyer up — one party seeking revenge, the other seeking to cash in. Lawyering is a narrow end, not a community means of solving problems.
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he moment of calling police or lawyering up has moved past the moment of sober problem solving.
Lawyering up and shouting loudly leaves problems and their harmful complexities still intact. Until communities join in community; delve into prior and underling conditions; face multilayered problems, courageously; and set about solving them—until then, they might as well be “Whistling Dixie” (acting in deliberate carelessness); and bequeathing old, deeply rooted, complex problems to succeeding generations.
Sources (news pegs)
Online at WHAM by Jayne Chacko & WHAM Staff September 2, 2020 'This is not a cover-up': Mayor, police chief respond to allegations against RPD officers https://13wham.com/news/local/this-is-not-a-cover-up-mayor-police-chief-respond-to-allegations-against-rpd-officers
D&C “Former RPD chief claims Mayor Warren directed him to lie in Daniel Prude case” Brian Sharp and Will Cleveland https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2020/12/16/former-rpd-chief-singletary-claims-mayor-warren-directed-him-to-lie-daniel-prude-case-rochester-ny/3933888001/
“Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration tried to block TV station from airing body camera footage of police raid on wrong home” by Gregory Pratt Chicago Tribune December 15, 2020 https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-chicago-raid-lightfoot-sanctions-20201215-sc6kd7pukbgppgdtqfpsee7cha-story.html
CasesBreonna Taylor case Wikipedia “Shooting of Breonna Taylor” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Breonna_Taylor
- Twenty-six year old Breonna Taylor “was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky, apartment on March 13, 2020, when plainclothes officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove of the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) forced entry into the apartment as part of an investigation into drug dealing operations.”
- Kenneth Walker, the boyfriend of Taylor, said to have thought the officers were intruders, discharged a firearm striking Mattingly in the leg. The officers returned fire with 32 shots.
- The family of the deceased on May 15, 2020 “filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the estate of Breonna Taylor against the officers and the city of Louisville, Kentucky. In mid September 2020, “the Louisville Metro Government (LMG) agreed to pay Taylor’s estate $12 million.”
- Occupants of a neighboring apartment to the deceased woman on May 20, 2020, filed a lawsuit against officers Hankison, Cosgrove, and Mattingly.
- Kenneth Walker, the deceased woman’s boyfriend, in September 2020, “filed a suit against the Louisville Metro Police Department accusing it of misconduct and claiming he did not fire the bullet that injured Mattingly.”
- The lawyer of Jonathan Mattingly, one of three officers who carried out the raid on the deceased woman’s home, announced in October 2020, that “he was filing a countersuit against Walker …, seeking a remedy for the injury that Walker caused;” and claiming “that Walker’s response to the officers raid via a no-knock warrant was ‘outrageous, intolerable and offends all accepted standards of decency or morality.’”
Wikipedia “Killing of Daniel Prude” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Daniel_Prude
Anjanette Young case
… [N]ine officers in a botched police raid broke down the door of Anjanette Young’s Chicago townhouse and arrested her … at gunpoint as she was undressing and preparing for bed.…” She told them they had the wrong address. Sometime later, police “realized she was right, released her cuffs and propped her broken front door shut with an ironing board.” Press reports said police had “failed to confirm whether they had the right address before getting the search warrant approved.”
Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB - © All Rights Reserved
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