To FTP* or not to FTP.
That is the question.
A few weeks ago, two Fullerton police officers were acquitted in a case involving the brutal beating and ultimate death of Kelly Thomas, a schizophrenic homeless man from Fullerton, California. In 2011, a shirtless Kelly Thomas was loitering in a parking lot when police officers were called. Former police officer Manuel Ramos was the first to encounter and beat Thomas on grounds of Thomas’ alleged resistance; as more police officers arrived they also joined in, tazing and beating Thomas to near comatose. Despite his pleas and subordination, officers continued to beat Thomas, who passed away from his injuries five days later.
None of the individuals involved were charged with any crimes, as they were merely doing their jobs as police officers. But, Thomas’ father, a former police officer himself, was determined to find justice for his son. As photos of a traumatically beat Thomas emerged, so did images of lightly scraped elbows of the police officers involved. Somehow, those scraped elbows were justification enough of a gang beating of a mentally ill individual.
Why do we care about this? Nobody, besides Southern Californians, has really heard about this case. It’s a typical police brutality case. Wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. And that’s the problem; this is considered typical, normal, expected of police officers. It just so happens that the same attorney that defended the officers in the Rodney King trial of the early 90s also defended the officers in the Kelly Thomas trial. I suppose I should be impressed at the skills D.A. John Barnett holds in getting obvious criminals off for excessive police brutality charges. But, when entire counties begin protesting—and in King’s (and even in Thomas’ case to a lesser extent), rioting across L.A. and Orange County—there has to be something wrong with the criminal justice system, and even further with the impressionable minds of jurors involved, whom we all know are not among the most intelligent members of society, but the most easily convinced—though many may happen to also be intelligent for all I know.
It’s not just Kelly Thomas, there have been multiple cases in Orange County of individuals being shot and beat and ultimately killed by police officers in the past two years alone. On a national scale, the practice of “stop and frisks” and racial profiling by police officers are all too common for any individual of color to be comfortable with.
This comes back to the overall distrust many people hold in reference to police officers. Young men and women in my community, and most urban communities for that matter, are taught to “f***k the police.” No, that is not a phrase you hear only in East L.A. based Hollywood movies with Jake Gyllenhaal and company. As far-fetched as it seems, there is a relationship between the homeless, mentally ill and ethnic minorities of urban communities. If anything, many times they go hand in hand. Just last week a man recorded police victimizing homeless men in a park, dumping their belongings on the ground and removing their (coincidentally stolen) shopping carts. Much like the homeless, people of color are stigmatized individuals in society.
We (read: people of color) are taught to refrain from calling the police when houses are burglarized, to walk the other direction when a police car approaches, to turn on your cell phone camera when a police officer pulls you over, and as morally wrong as it sounds, to have a few extra bills lying around in your car just in case police officers are low on cash when they pull you over and search your car. We are taught to fight back, to hide, to cower in fear when we see an individual in uniform, even when we are merely walking to the corner store in broad daylight. We have been socialized to fear those who have been hired to protect. “Don’t act so shady and you won’t get pulled over”, you say. If it were only that simple.
My concern is that we are raising a generation of children taught to distrust authority all together. I wish it were not the case and that I could say police officers can be trusted. I cannot find in myself to say it because I have heard multiple stories from friends in which police officers have racially profiled and unrightfully pulled over or stopped them for appearing suspicious. But, with that I have heard a fair amount of “lucky” stories in which friends were let go for being unlicensed or in possession of drugs. But even I irrationally fear the police when driving around town. I’m not doing anything wrong, but I still get a sense of fear and suspicion as I drive past men in uniform.
And there I go again, bringing it back to race and ethnicity. I hate to do it, but it’s just so easy to make a connection between the thousands of ethnic men incarcerated for petty drug charges while affluent White boys in Texas are being diagnosed with “affluenza,” an infliction only wealthy sheltered adolescent can come down with, after brutally killing people while drunk driving. Does that seem fair? Honestly? That a murderer goes to rehab, while young ethnic boys face years in jail for marijuana possession? That’s my problem with the police. This isn’t exactly where I expected this article to go when I began it, but as I further assessed the current state of law enforcement in the U.S. today, this is ultimately where it has brought me.
*”FTP”: a phrase popularized by the N.W.A. song F**k Da Police (WARNING: EXPLICIT LYRICS), the basis on which this article was formed and materialized.