Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Police Brutality: No End Under Capitalism
Ken Morgan
20 Sep 2017
Police Brutality: No End Under Capitalism
Police Brutality: No End Under Capitalism

“Hiring more black police officers probably doesn’t offer a direct solution to this problem.”

Recently, another cop -- former St. Louis officer, Jason Stockley -- was acquitted for the 2011 first-degree murder of Anthony Lamar Smith.

The police video caught most of the incident. It included the alleged planting of a gun in brother Smith’s car. Investigators only found Stockley’s DNA on the gun in Smith’s car.

Cops need only say those magic words, " I feared for my life." The New York Times reported Judge Wilson’s reason for acquittal.

The judge said: “This court, in conscience, cannot say that the state has proven every element of murder beyond a reasonable doubt or that the state has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant did not act in self-defense.”

A demonstrator among the more than 1000 that protested the verdict said, “There is all of this evidence, and to still get a verdict of not guilty just shows how broken everything is.”

Federal consent decrees achieved between the U.S. DOJ and offending jurisdictions remain popular with anti-police brutality advocates. Beware.

The Marshall Law School Project says that making reforms stick is problematic in consent decree jurisdictions. Benchmarks used do not measure what is to be corrected. Little or no federal monitoring is forthcoming. Some police misconduct issues are not covered under federal law.

“Making reforms stick is problematic in consent decree jurisdictions.”

According to a recent article in the Fordham University Law Review, the Justice Department investigates less than 0.02 percent of the country’s nearly 18,000 state and local law-enforcement agencies each year. Plus these investigations often do not contain elements that most directly impact police misconduct.

Other reforms that do not work: Community police review boards, community policing, police body cameras, and cop training.

More diversity is a familiar cry among black politicians and some of our misguided sisters and brothers. Diversity fails to stem police misconduct. A mainstream Public Administrative Review study author said, “What we find is evidence that [having] more black police officers probably doesn’t offer a direct solution to this problem.” Check your locale.

Too many times, police misconduct gets confused with fighting crime. Yes, neighborhood folks do not want to get shot, robbed, mugged, or burglarized. The capitalist system maintains a dog eat dog mentality. The daily grind to survive creates an inhumanity towards one another. It provides senseless murders and other crimes in Black marginalized neighborhoods. More cops are not the answer.

The cops do policing that protects and serves the interests of the propertied owners and their profits. Job one is to defend the rule of capital. Make no doubt who the “to protect and to serve” on the shield is aimed.

Do we give up and wait for the revolution? No. You might quell police misconduct in the short run. Under capitalism do not hold your breath for the long haul.

Dr. Morgan is a Black activist scholar and Internationalist. Contact him at [email protected]

Police brutality

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Black Panthers, Sacramento CA 1967
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Copaganda
05 January 2022
Copaganda I.
Biden’s DOJ Sleight of Hand on Police Reform
Netfa Freeman
Biden’s DOJ Sleight of Hand on Police Reform
22 September 2021
DOJ "reforms" are a smoke screen covering up systemic complicity with law enforcement.
The NBA’s Black Power
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
The NBA’s Black Power
02 September 2020
Black NBA players, writes Ann Garrison, are just beginning to understand the power of the attention and admiration they command.
Federal Judge Tackles Police Immunity Law
Marjorie Cohn
Federal Judge Tackles Police Immunity Law
26 August 2020
The Black judge listed the injustices of “qualified immunity,” which allows police and other government officials to escape liability for their law
The NYPD Is Withholding Evidence From Investigations Into Police Abuse
Eric Umansky and Mollie Simon
The NYPD Is Withholding Evidence From Investigations Into Police Abuse
19 August 2020
The NYPD has regularly failed to turn over key records and videos to police abuse investigators at New York’s Civilian Complaint Review Board.
LA’s Gang-Infested Police are Deadly – and Costly
Alene Tchekmedyian
LA’s Gang-Infested Police are Deadly – and Costly
12 August 2020
Uniformed thugs calling themselves Vikings, Regulators and Banditos prey on the city’s Black and brown civilians, and even brutalize their fellow c
Reviving the False Narrative on Police
Clarence Taylor
Reviving the False Narrative on Police
22 July 2020
The antidote to police lawlessness isn’t more training, or fancy equipment, but putting the community in charge of the cops.
The Torture Machine, Racism and Violence in Chicago
Jeff Haas and Dennis Cunningham
The Torture Machine, Racism and Violence in Chicago
19 February 2020
Chicago’s torture machine was both a real mechanism to produce confessions through pain, and a racist political instrument.
The US Surges Into A Police State While Media White Out Structural Racism
Netfa Freeman
The US Surges Into A Police State While Media White Out Structural Racism
08 January 2020
Trump wants to “surge” against urban Black and brown Americans in the same way that the US surged against Iraq and Afghanistan.
When Even The FBI Can’t Hold Police Accountable, How Can Anyone Else?
 Nida Khan
When Even The FBI Can’t Hold Police Accountable, How Can Anyone Else?
20 November 2019
A brutal New Jersey police chief who routinely spouted racist slurs and threats was fingered by his own officers, but exonerated in court.

More Stories


  • An Unrealized Political Possibility: Remembering the Grenada Revolution
    Kevin Edmonds
    An Unrealized Political Possibility: Remembering the Grenada Revolution
    20 Oct 2021
    The United States overthrow of the Grenada Revolution in 1983 initiated a vicious and unrelenting regime of neoliberalism that has gutted the Caribbean nation.
  • Colin Powell: Iraqis Will 'not shed tears' for 2003 Invasion Architect
    Alex MacDonald
    Colin Powell: Iraqis Will 'not shed tears' for 2003 Invasion Architect
    20 Oct 2021
    Iraqis say they won't be mourning death of former US secretary of state who oversaw the catastrophic invasion of their country.
  • The U.S. Flies Alex Saab Out from Cabo Verde Without Court Order or Extradition Treaty
    Dan Kovalik
    The U.S. Flies Alex Saab Out from Cabo Verde Without Court Order or Extradition Treaty
    20 Oct 2021
    The U.S. kidnapped Venezuela's envoy Alex Saab in Cabo Verde in 2020 and rendered him to Miami without a court order or extradition treaty in violation of international law.
  • Howard University Sit-in: A Struggle for Democracy at an HBCU
    Jamal Rich
    Howard University Sit-in: A Struggle for Democracy at an HBCU
    20 Oct 2021
    Students at Howard University have historically been in the forefront of movement struggles.
  • Government of Nicaragua Rejects Interference by the OAS
    Telesur
    Government of Nicaragua Rejects Interference by the OAS
    19 Oct 2021
    The Organization of American States (OAS) is a U.S. puppet organization that is poised to delegitimize Nicaragua's upcoming election and attack that nation's sovereignty.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us