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Weekend Edition September 5-7, 201<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/</a><br>
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<div class="subheadlinestyle"><b><big><big>Reading Beyond the
Hashtag #every28hours</big></big></b></div>
<h1 class="article-title">What If Michael Brown Had Been Armed?</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">by ARLENE EISEN</div>
<p>It was simple arithmetic, I thought. In 2012, police, security
guards and vigilantes killed a total of 313 Black people. Divide
the number of hours in a year by 313 and you get one every 28
hours. If federal law required all law enforcement agencies to
report all their killings; if most reporters didn’t depend
exclusively on police department press releases; and if I had had
more time to investigate, I have no doubt that the number would
have been 24 hours or even more often. Yet, after spending more
than 18 months in <a
href="http://www.operationghettostorm.org/uploads/1/9/1/1/19110795/operation_ghetto_storm_updated_october_2013.pdf"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','download','http://www.operationghettostorm.org/uploads/1/9/1/1/19110795/operation_ghetto_storm_updated_october_2013.pdf']);">dogged
research and data analysis</a>, I am sure that at least one
Black person is extrajudicially killed every 28 hours by police,
security guards and vigilantes.</p>
<p>Still, I wish I had never decided to use, the hashtag
“#every28hours”. I was seduced by the promise of social media
that with a dramatic slogan, the Report “would go viral.” The
hashtag encouraged people to reduce 171 pages of radical analysis
and data to 13 clock-related characters. It can’t be done.</p>
<p><b>Operation Ghetto Storm</b></p>
<p>“#OperationGhettoStorm” might have carried more meaning. It is an
adaption of the code name of the first U.S. invasion of Iraq. It
encapsulates the conclusion drawn from studying the deaths of 313
Black people–the purpose, policies, high tech military hardware
and mind-set that were mobilized to invade Iraq also sustain the
occupation and war on Black and Brown communities inside the U.S.
To prevent future extrajudicial killings of Black people by those
paid or sanctioned (security guards and vigilantes) by the
national security state, it is important to know that these
killings are a result of the perpetual war on Black people. But,
even with renewed interest in the Report, with images of police is
full battle gear maintaining a military occupation of the
community of Ferguson, the national conversation has focused more
narrowly on abusive police and taking them to court. <i>Operation
Ghetto Storm</i> urges that we widen our lens to expose that
Ferguson, like most low-income Black and Brown communities, is a
colonized community under siege.</p>
<p>Here’s an example of the pitfalls of communication by hashtag. On
August 20, in one of those debates that corporate media set up
more for entertainment than for enlightenment, CNN pitted
right-wing Black pundit, Larry Elder against liberal Black
commentator Marc Lamont Hill. Lamont attempted explain that the
killing of “unarmed Black youth Michael Brown” was part of a
pattern. Elder interrupted and demanded to change the subject to
“Black-on-Black” violence. In an exchange, now partially deleted
from CNN’s website, Elder accused Hill, “You don’t even know how
many Black people are killed by police.”</p>
<p>“Yes we do know,” Hill proclaimed, “Every 28 hours an unarmed
Black person is killed,” and he cited the Report. Unfortunately
for Hill, neither the hashtag, nor the Report, distinguished
between “armed” or “unarmed”. It counted the total.</p>
<p>Politifact.com gleefully pointed out Hill’s error based on their
review of the Report and then flipped to their own racist
misreading of the Report.<a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftn1">[1]</a></p>
<p>If perhaps, Hill had thought about <i>Operation Ghetto Storm</i>
rather than “Every 28 hours”, he might have countered, with a
quote from the Report. “We certainly do not intend to minimize the
horror and importance of thousands of Black people who tragically
die at the hands of other Black people each year. However, in
general, those killings are not directly sponsored or sanctioned
by federal, state and local governments. On the other hand,
police, sheriffs, security guards and to a certain extent
self-appointed enforcers of the law (vigilantes) ARE authorized by
governments and paid for by taxes.”</p>
<p>They killed 313 in 2012, and 288 of these killings involved
unnecessary excessive force. Only 10 police officers and 16
security guards/vigilantes were ever charged with a crime. In
contrast, both the victims who survive and the perpetrators of
intracommunal violence (“Black-on-Black crime”) end up in the
rosters of the more than million Black people incarcerated in the
U.S. The Report also details the ways that the state even promotes
intra-communal violence through its involvement in drug
trafficking from the federal to local levels.</p>
<p><b>Does it matter: hoodie or suit, aged 9 or 29, gun or no gun?</b></p>
<p>Accounts of his fatal encounter with Officer Darren Wilson, April
9, invariably add the adjective “unarmed” to Michael Brown’s
name. Community outrage flared when news spread that Brown was
unarmed. Demands for justice hinged on Brown’s innocence, proven
by the fact that he had no gun. Protest marchers demonstrated his
unarmed status and made it iconic with the chant “Hands up, don’t
shoot.” Brown was not the first or the last unarmed Black person
to be killed by police, security guards and vigilantes. <i>Operation
Ghetto Storm </i>reported that 136 or 44% of the 313 killed had
no weapon at all at the time they were executed. Another 83 or
27% allegedly possessed a gun, but police reports of gun
possession frequently turn out to be false. <a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftn2">[2]</a>
Police are infamous for planting weapons or declaring that a cell
phone, wallet or other harmless object is a gun. While, reporters
rarely question police reports, <i>Operation Ghetto Storm </i>required
corroboration before accepting allegations as fact.</p>
<p>Still, 62 or 20% of those 313 killed in 2012 were armed—including
three who carried toy or replica guns. Please keep in mind that in
41 states, including Missouri, it is legal to carry a pistol
openly, in public.<a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftn3">[3]</a>
Some states require permits, most do not. Carrying a gun is not a
crime, let alone a capital offense.</p>
<p>However, Black people have been so demonized that the public,
including some Black people, typically sees an armed Black man as
a menace at best, and, at worst, as a terrorist to be shot on
sight as efficiently as possible with militarized overkill.</p>
<p>Study of the 313 deaths profiled in <i>Operation Ghetto Storm</i>
leads to the conclusion that whether a Black mother’s child is
young or old, wearing a hoodie or a suit, carries a gun or not,
makes little difference. That child will still be subject to
omnipresent surveillance, racial profiling, mass incarceration,
trial without due process and execution without trial. For
example, conservative white pundit Ben Stein insisted, “He
(Michael Brown) wasn’t <span style="text-decoration: underline;">un</span>armed.
He was armed with his incredibly strong, scary self.” <a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftn4">[4]</a>
Before you dismiss this remark as the hate speech of a right-wing
fanatic, consider that 47% of killer cops are routinely justified
and returned to duty when they claim, without a scintilla of
evidence, that they felt threatened by an unarmed “suspect” and
another 36% kill with impunity based on their unsubstantiated
allegations like “suspect lunged”.<a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftn5">[5]</a></p>
<p>Regardless of how fatal encounters with police begin, whether
they involve activity that violates the laws of the state or the
laws of basic human decency, no one should be sentenced to death
without trial. In most countries, even with a trial, capital
punishment is considered barbaric. The use of deadly
force—regardless of how police paperwork, investigators and juries
try to rationalize it—is almost always excessive and
“extrajudicial” by international human rights standards. The
Report pointed out one exception. In 2012, twenty-five cases or 8%
involved situations where the “suspect” shot at, wounded and/or
killed police officers and/or others while the police were on the
scene. Although it may have been preferable to stop them with
non-lethal force, the use of lethal force in these circumstances
can be justified.</p>
<p>No comprehensive study for 2013 or the first half of 2014 has
been published, but it is safe to assume the numbers have not
improved since last year’s update of <i>Operation Ghetto Storm</i>.
Given the escalating militarization of local police and
intensified demonization of Black people, there is reason to
believe that the numbers have deteriorated. The painful truth is
that these state-sponsored and sanctioned killings are part of a
comprehensive system of containment that ranges from surveillance,
profiling, mass incarceration to military occupation and death.
Until Black and Brown communities organize for a long haul
struggle against this system, the killings will continue.</p>
<p><b>Police Impunity Exposes National Security State </b></p>
<p>The legal system almost always police to commit homicide with
impunity. The names of only a few of the 313 people on the 2012
death roll have become nationally- known rallying cries for
justice: like Trayvon Martin, Remarley Graham and now Michael
Brown.<b> </b>Their murders have sparked massive mobilizations,
media commentary, calls for government intervention, lawsuits and
endless legal wrangling. However, after the initial announcements
in local news media, the lives of most of those who were executed
are forgotten. In some cases, scanty police reports and press
coverage barely note their deaths. The failure of the federal
government to require police to fully report all killings,
including race-based data, is deliberate and helps perpetuate
police impunity.<a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftn6">[6]</a></p>
<p>The standard procedure in most jurisdictions is for police
involved in fatal shootings to be given paid time off or
“desk-duty” while the department investigates itself. The press
applauds their fine records, while headlines scream about the
“criminal past” of the deceased. Almost all killer cops are
routinely exonerated and quickly return to duty. Grieving families
who typically ask, “Why did he have to die?” are ignored. If there
is some demonstrated, concerted community outrage, the case may be
investigated further. The legal system rarely charges the
executioners. In 2012, of the 313 extrajudicial killings only ten
officers were ever charged: three for vehicular crimes stemming
from reckless driving and seven for manslaughter.</p>
<p>To date, of those ten charged officers, four were acquitted or
had their charges dropped. Two pleaded guilty to misdemeanor
vehicular manslaughter, two of the have not yet been litigated,
and two faced “unimpeachable” evidence.<a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftn7">[7]</a>
New Orleans plainclothes officer Joshua Colclough shot Wendell
Allen, who was wearing only his pajama bottoms. Confronted with
videotaped evidence and community outrage at the killing of a star
athlete, Coclough pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced
to four years. Randy Trent Harrison of Del City Arkansas was
convicted of first degree manslaughter for shooting Dane Garrett
Scott in the back. Scott was unarmed with his hands in the air. In
a nearly unique act, another police officer who witnessed the
shooting refuted Harrison’s version of events. Harrison was also
found to have drugs in his system. He received a four-year
sentence.</p>
<p>The convictions of these two officers are the exceptions that
prove the rule. In 2012, district attorneys, grand juries and
other state agents refused to charge nearly 300 police officers
responsible for the extrajudicial killing of Black people. Several
recent Supreme Court decisions have reinforced this impunity.<a
title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftn8">[8]</a></p>
<p>Nor have the Executive or Legislative branches of government done
anything to limit the impunity police enjoy. On the contrary, they
have supplied police with enough military hardware to wage several
wars at a time, passed legislation that strips citizens of the
basic rights that protect against all forms of police tyranny,
given various agencies carte blanche to monitor citizens’ every
move and utterance, justified racist profiling and provided
infinite funds to maintain a system of mass incarceration. If you
think the label of “national security state” for our government
and its armed agencies is hyperbole, think again.</p>
<p><i>Operation Ghetto Storm </i>reported on more than the
extrajudicial killing of one Black person every 28 hours. The
study of the outcomes of the killing of 313 human beings
documented that federal investigations, lawsuits, trials and
tweaking laws won’t protect our children or prevent the next
Michael Brown. <i>Operation Ghetto Storm</i> sounded an alarm
that the national security state threatens the survival of Black
and Brown people and ultimately negates everyone’s rights. The
horror of police troopers firing on protesters in Ferguson,
hurling curses along with teargas, calling them animals and
threatening them with death—all on camera—turned that alarm into a
deafening siren.</p>
<p>The actual eardrum piercing military equipment used against the
people of Ferguson spurred their resistance. Their example of
massive community participation gives new energy to a national
comprehensive campaign to challenge surveillance, racist
profiling, mass incarceration, police impunity—-to organize block
by block a movement capable of ending military occupation of all
oppressed communities so they become self determining with full
human rights to life, housing, health, education and dignified
employment.</p>
<p><em><strong>Arlene Eisen</strong> is the author of the report
called Operation Ghetto Storm: 2012 Annual Report on the
Extrajudicial Killings of 313 Black People by Police, Security
Guards and Vigilantes, published by Malcolm X Grassroots
Movement with preface by Kali Akuno, revised edition posted
October 2013 at <a href="http://www.operationghettostorm.org/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.operationghettostorm.org']);">www.operationghettostorm.org</a></em></p>
<strong>Notes.</strong><br clear="all">
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%">
<div>
<p><a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftnref1">[1]</a>
<a
href="http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/aug/26/marc-lamont-hill/unarmed-black-person-shot-every-28-hours-says-ma/">http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/aug/26/marc-lamont-hill/unarmed-black-person-shot-every-28-hours-says-ma/</a>)</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftnref2">[2]</a>
.A classic study documented that 76% of officers admitted that
they frequently bent the facts to establish “probable cause” and
48% said that judges were correct in tossing out police
testimony as untrustworthy.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.vice.com/read/testilying‐cops‐are‐liars‐who‐get‐away‐with‐perjury">http://www.vice.com/read/testilying‐cops‐are‐liars‐who‐get‐away‐with‐perjury</a></p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title=" "
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftnref3">[3]</a>
.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_by_state">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_by_state</a></p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftnref4">[4]</a>
.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ben-stein-michael-brown-unarmed">http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ben-stein-michael-brown-unarmed</a></p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title=" "
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftnref5">[5]</a>
See <i>Operation Ghetto Storm” at </i><a
href="http://www.operationghettostorm.org"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.operationghettostorm.org']);"><i>www.operationghettostorm.org</i></a><i>
</i>p. 25-26.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftnref6">[6]</a>
<a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley%5Fbalko/why%5Fis%5Fthere%5Fno%5Fgood%5Fdata_b_2278013.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley‐balko/why‐is‐there‐no‐good‐data_b_2278013.html</a>
and</p>
<p><a
href="http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sunday%5Fcommentary/20120810%5Fstephan%5Fsalisbury%5Fpolice%5Fshootings%5Fgo%5Flargely%5Fignored.ece"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.dallasnews.com']);">http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sunday‐commentary/20120810‐stephan‐salisbury‐police‐shootings‐go‐largely‐ignored.ece</a></p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title=""
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftnref7">[7]</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.operationghettostorm.org/uploads/1/9/1/1/19110795/14_09_02_impunity_table.pdf">http://www.operationghettostorm.org/uploads/1/9/1/1/19110795/14_09_02_impunity_table.pdf</a></p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title=" "
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/what-if-michael-brown-had-been-armed/#_ftnref8">[8]</a>
<a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/opinion/how-the-supreme-court-protects-bad-cops.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.nytimes.com']);">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/opinion/how-the-supreme-court-protects-bad-cops.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0</a></p>
</div>
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