Extrajudicial Killing of Black Life, the Supreme Court, and Election 2020
When our Black countrymen flee law enforcement, police behave in a way that reveals they are personally offended, as if a Black man running were an act of aggression and defiance, as opposed to what it actually is—an act of self-love, self-preservation, and fear for his life. As if they have no compassion or empathy for Black life. Police harbor a diabolical urge to oppress Black life, rooted in our national history—slavery and Jim Crow, the Prison Industrial Complex, the War on Drugs—but are either curiously unaware of it, or else recognize and justify it, as they act above the law, as the law, simply because their badge, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), and their embedded mentality of impunity, allow them to. Attorney Generals, District Attorneys, do not charge police, not even in the clearest of cases of criminal police activity. As a result, these cases never reach the Supreme Court. If they did, a balanced Supreme Court would likely rule in the families’ favor and create precedence for future cases. As it is now, families, prosecutors, are rarely given opportunities for appeal through the legal system, and so we lack legal precedence.
Shutting these cases before they reach the courts defies due process for all Black people. In a report published in 2013 and updated in November 2014, Operation Ghetto Storm compiles a table of all the Black victims of state-sanctioned violence in 2012. In total, the report found 313 Black victims killed by law enforcement or citizens acting as the law (such as store clerks), which averages one victim every 28 hours. With photos of the victims (when possible); a brief description of the case; whether they suffered from mental illness or were self-medicated (with alcohol or drugs like marijuana); whether they were armed, and the aftermath, or how the case transpired—the report provides a broad perspective of the fear of Black life that US police harbor and cultivate.
This is an important report, as there is no public, national database documenting these killings. And police records, grand jury transcripts, autopsies, are notoriously sparse with details or unavailable to the public. With 313 Black citizens killed without due process in 2012, the report suggests that over half of all people killed by law enforcement in 2012 (609 total) were Black. Yet Blacks make up only 14% of our population. Moreover, 275 (88%) of the killings were extrajudicial, meaning the perpetrators used excessive force without lawful justification, thus violating basic human rights (Eisen 2014, p. 27).
Given lack of detailed official reports, there is much we don’t know, which appears to be by design. But what we do know is frightening. Former Marine Sergeant Manuel Loggins Jr., 31, was accused, judged, and executed for being alone at a local school track in San Clemente, California. What Orange County Deputy Sherriff Darren Sandberg did not know, or bother to know, was that waiting in the car were his two daughters, ages 9 and 14, and they were on their daily routine of exercise and prayer. What did this Deputy Sherriff assume about Mr. Loggins that would drive him to be judge, jury, and executioner, without any facts whatsoever? Then–Orange County District Attorney, Tony Rackauckas, ruled the killing unfortunate but “justified.” Rackauckas was voted out of office in 2018 after allegedly fabricating facts in a rape and kidnapping case. Wendell Allen, only 20, was shirtless in pajama bottoms in New Orleans when undercover police officer Joshua Colclough, 28, shot and killed him in a police raid for marijuana. There were four children in the home at the time. Marijuana, a recreational drug used by college students and adults alike for decades, is now legal in 11 states, and approved for medicinal purposes in 20 states and two territories. Officer Colclough pled guilty to manslaughter charges brought forth by Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro, and served a four-year sentence for the unlawful killing of Mr. Allen and the trauma those four children endured for no reason. Cannizzaro remains as active DA for the county.
We have, as voters, an obligation to vote with our Black brothers and sisters against police brutality. Our local votes matter. Our presidential votes matter. For the sake of our Supreme Court and our judicial system, we must uphold our longstanding beliefs in due process. We must vote District Attorneys, Attorney Generals, and political players out who side with police and against justice, like Kentucky’s AG Daniel Cameron, during his future reelection campaign; like Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, whose political fate you decide this year in the same state. We need justice and due process, for Breonna Taylor and all the Black victims of state-sanctioned violence before and since, and it is within our power to make it happen.
Bio: Taneesh Kaur is a freelance writer and social justice advocate based in the Bay Area. You can see more of her work in English and Spanish at http://www.TaneeshCantos.com.
References Eisen, A. (2012). Operation Ghetto Storm: 2012 Annual Report on the Extrajudicial Killing of Black People (updated November 2014). Malcolm X Grassroots Organization. http://www.operationghettostorm.org/uploads/1/9/1/1/19110795/new_all_14_11_04.pdf
Wikipedia (2020 Nov 17). “List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States
