Month: May 2021

If I Were Police Commissioner

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
May 12, 2021

Last week, Civil Rights advocate Zakir Khan asked “If you were the Police Commissioner of the Portland Police Bureau what would be your first move?”

My answer wouldn’t fit in a tweet because I’ve thought quite a bit about the ramifications of municipalities negotiating contracts with so-called police unions that, in reality, should be classified as hate groups. Other than contract negotiations, these associations actually have nothing in common with the labor unions that police actively engage in attacking. And these associations consistently put Black, Indigenous, and other non-white people in danger by protecting racist officers, advocating reinstatement of criminal cops removed for cause, and fighting even miniscule reforms through lobbying and lawsuits.

Photo of the chest and arms of a person wearing a long-sleeved blue dress shirt writing on a multi-page document with black and gold pen.If I were police commissioner (of any municipality), my “first move” would be immediate cancellation of contract negotiations with whatever association represents officers, such as the Portland Police Association (PPA), the oldest association of law enforcement officers in the United States. Instead, I would have a contract written and offered to all members of that organization on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. Anyone who didn’t sign it by the current contract’s expiration date (June 30, 2021, in Portland) would no longer be employed as a police officer.

This would have one of two results:

  1. The possibility of meaningful reform and a police force that actually served and protected all citizens of any municipality that applied this option, or
  2. All members of that police force quitting.

Either option is a win for the city budget, the citizenry, and especially for those who are routinely harassed, injured, and murdered by police.

What would this fantasy contract include?

  • Total elimination of qualified immunity by requiring that all police officers to agree to take personal responsibility for all actions performed while on duty including, but not limited to, payment of any settlements or judgments for wrongful death, denial of civil liberties, inappropriate use of force, false arrest, etc.
  • All police employees must reside within the municipality for which they work. For example, all Portland Police officers, more than 80 percent of whom currently live out of town and out of state, must reside within the city of Portland. Any employees living outside the city who wish to retain their employment would have one year to relocate.
  • All police officers, including those currently employed, must receive training from social service and mental health professionals in de-escalation techniques and other ways to stop a crime in progress without resorting to force. Any officer who does not demonstrate proficiency in these techniques would be put on probation until that is rectified. Any use of force when de-escalation was an option would be grounds for termination and revocation of police certification.
  • Attendance at any workshop that teaches ambivalence regarding use of force, “killology”, or an equivalent philosophy justifying/mitigating police injuring and murdering civilians, will result in immediate dismissal and revocation of certification.
  • All police officers, including those currently employed, must receive a thorough and complete education in systemic racism, colonialism, and white supremacy taught only by individuals who have suffered under those paradigms and who are paid adequately to develop and teach appropriate curricula. To continue employment, officers must prove they understand the consequences of systemic racism, colonialism, and white supremacy in the United States and their state/city of residence for those who are not white, straight, cis, native born, Christians speaking English as their first language. Any evidence of prejudice and bigotry on the part of an officer will be grounds for immediate termination and revocation of certification.
  • All police officers, including those currently employed, must receive a thorough and complete education in the difference between consensual sex work and human trafficking taught only by current or former sex workers who are paid adequately to develop and teach appropriate curricula. To continue employment, officers must prove they understand the difference between consensual sex work and human trafficking including trafficking for domestic and agricultural labor.
  • All police officers, including those currently employed, must receive a thorough and complete education in types of neurodivergence taught only by qualified psychologists and individuals on the spectrum who are paid adequately to develop and teach appropriate curricula. To continue employment, officers must prove they understand the difference between the behavior of someone on the spectrum, someone who has other mental health diagnoses, and someone who is using drugs.
  • All weapons must be registered, including those personally owned by officers. Any officer found in possession of any unregistered weapon will immediately be terminated and their certification revoked.
  • All munitions, including those classified as “less than lethal” must be strictly accounted for and their use documented and justified with verifiable facts.
  • No current police officers will be eligible to continue employment if they meet any of the grounds for termination listed below at any time, past, present, or future.
  • Membership or participation in any group that espouses white supremacy, nationalism, racism, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, and/or misogynistic sentiments and/or disparagement of any religion (including but not limited to Indigenous religions, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Paganism) will be grounds for immediate dismissal. This includes posting any information supporting any of those attitudes to social media. No one with any involvement in any group designated as a hate group will be eligible for employment in any capacity by the police force.
  • Any police officer who injures or kills an individual will immediately be placed on unpaid leave; required to surrender their weapons, uniform, badge, and police certification; and restricted from interaction with the public until the case is investigated and resolved. The officer will be required to answer questions about the event within 24 hours and may only be accompanied to that interrogation by their attorney. No other police officer or representative of any organization may participate on behalf of the officer in any questioning. Investigations will always be conducted by an outside body such as the citizen review board.
  • If an officer is found to have caused harm to an individual without being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they did so to protect their life or the life of another, that officer will be terminated, their police certification permanently revoked, and they will be required to stand trial for any and all crimes committed. While it is possible that such an officer may not be found guilty of any criminal offense, they will never again be allowed to work as a police officer or carry a weapon and they will be liable for any civil penalties resulting from their actions
  • Any police officer found to be in violation of any department standards or policies on or off duty will immediately be terminated and their certification revoked.
  • Any police officer convicted for any criminal offense on or off duty, including DUI, will immediately be terminated and their certification revoked.
  • Police officers convicted of more than two moving traffic violations per year, or more than five in total, will be terminated and their certification revoked.
  • Any traffic enforcement officer who neglects to ticket a police officer will be terminated and their certification revoked.
  • Any police officer who witnesses any crime committed by any other officer, does nothing to prevent an officer from causing harm, and/or does not immediately report the criminal/harmful activity to their superior will be considered an accessory. They can be criminally charged as an accessory, terminated for aiding and abetting a criminal, and liable for any civil penalties assessed by a court of law.
  • Armed police officers will only respond to calls involving actual threats to human life and safety. No armed officers would engage in:
    • traffic enforcement
    • enforcement of drug possession or prostitution laws
    • answering calls about an individual experiencing a mental health crisis (unless there is a credible and confirmed evidence the individual is threatening to use a lethal weapon)
    • property damage and theft
    • protest response
    • directing traffic
    • harassing/arresting houseless individuals who have not committed any offense unrelated to not having a home (e.g., sleeping on the street, camping in the park, food preparation in public)
  • Any citizen complaints about inappropriate behavior, harmful actions, and/or abuse by a police officer including, but not limited to, domestic violence, threats, coercion, animal abuse, and racial harassment, will be investigated by a citizen review board with the power to determine appropriate discipline including unpaid leave, additional education, and termination of a police officer for violation of department standards, policies, city code, and/or state and federal laws. Any police officer terminated by the citizen review board will also have their certification revoked.
  • This citizen review board also will be the only entity to which a police officer can appeal if they believe they have been wrongfully disciplined and/or terminated. The citizen review board’s decision will be final.
  • No former or current police officers or employees of the police bureau will be allowed to serve on the citizen review board. No prosecuting/district attorney may serve on the citizen review board until a minimum five years after they have retired or worked in a different aspect of law. No more than 25 percent of the citizen review board can be currently or previously elected officials.
  • Any officer terminated for any of the above reasons automatically loses all access to any pension funds accrued on their behalf. Any pension contributions deducted from their paychecks will be held toward payment of damages until the statute of limitations expires and/or all court cases are resolved. No interest accrued on the withheld amount will be owed to the officer.
  • Any officer who resigns rather than face discipline as outlined above will have their certification revoked and will forfeit their pension. They will still be liable for any civil penalties assessed by a court of law.
  • Police officer pensions will be based only on the amount of annual pay earned by the officer at the time of retirement and will not be influenced by selecting specific periods of time. Overtime pay will never be used to calculate pension amounts. Police must contribute a portion of their salary to their pension fund.
  • Membership in police associations will be allowed unless/until that specific association has been designated as a hate group. However, police associations will have no standing in contract negotiations and will not be permitted to advocate on behalf of officers under any circumstances. Any police association involved in lobbying any elected official must register as a lobbying organization and follow all legal requirements for lobbying organizations and individuals.
  • Police officers will be required to hire and pay for their own legal counsel in all criminal and civil proceedings.
  • A portion of the money saved by anticipated reductions in the police budget due to attrition will be used to create and/or fund separate departments. Employees of those separate departments will be educated in methods of and certified responsible for:
    • traffic enforcement
    • directing traffic during events (including protests) and at the scene of crimes, fires, and traffic collisions
    • responding to mental health calls
    • property damage/theft investigations
    • investigating major crime such as rape, murder, shootings, assault, etc.
    • answering calls to emergency and non-emergency numbers, differentiating between actual threats to human life/safety and all other situations including callers who exaggerate circumstances in order to weaponize police responses, and making appropriate referrals based on callers’ demonstrated needs

Employees of these divisions will not be permitted to carry lethal weapons. They will only be able to issue citations and will not have the power to arrest anyone. In the event a perpetrator of a major crime is identified by investigators, that information will be turned over to police officers for the purpose of arresting the suspect. Police officers will be responsible for safely taking a suspect into custody and remanding them over to the courts. No information about any suspect will be made public until/unless they are tried and found guilty in a court of law. Sharing information about people who have received citations and/or been arrested will result in the termination of the person who leaked that private information.

Any additional funds saved from the police budget resulting from the above changes will be returned to the municipal budget specifically earmarked for housing, social services, education, and restitution.

Congress Has Blood of Babies on Their Hands

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of U.S. Representative Suzanne Bonamici‘s “both sides” answer to a Valerie’s question about the bloodshed in Palestine during a town hall phone call on Saturday, May 15. As her constituent, I was just embarrassed by her ignorance and/or complicity. Because, there is no “both sides” to apartheid, genocide, and settler colonialism.

People crowding the streets of London carry signs demanding freedom for Palestine and waving the Palestinian flag to protest Israeli apartheid and genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.
11 May 2021 – Emergency Rally For Jerusalem, Save Sheikh Jarrah protest in London. (Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash)

Israel forces began terrorizing eastern Jerusalem five days before a single rocket was launched by Hamas. Slaughtering women, children, and civilians, destroying their homes, is not a “conflict” you “deescalate”.

Mobs of armed Zionists (aided by Israeli police) who dragged Palestinian women and children out of their homes and attacked them in the street proved that apparently the only problem Israelis have with the Shoah is that they weren’t the ones murdering children and openly declaring genocidal war.

Did Bonamici miss Kristallnacht 2.0? This time it was Jews breaking all the glass and celebrating the destruction/deaths.

Bonamici and the U.S. Congress have the blood of Palestinian babies on their hands. By signing the Deutch-McCaul letter (along with Q-conspiracy believers Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, along with other Congressional racists), by continuing to fund the Israeli military so U.S. arms-selling corporations can profit, she and her colleagues gave Israel carte blanche for apartheid and genocidal violence.

That letter, not anything Hamas did, triggered this current violence . Because the primary purpose of the atrocious Israeli violence against Palestinian civilians is to keep Netanyahu in power so he can avoid criminal charges. Sound familiar?

For the record, I was born to a family of Jewish immigrants and my grandparents escaped pogroms in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and what was then Palestine. I lost family I will never know in the Holocaust. However, I will not stand by and not speak out against a government doing the exact same things Hitler’s did.

Never again is now. Step up or step down, Bonamici.

You. Can. Not. Reform. This.

F.I. GoldhaberLeave a comment

First published on The Big Smoke.
April 19, 2021

On Friday, Portland, Oregon, police murdered an unarmed man who had no home, had expressed a long-time (unfortunately validated) fear of cops, and who may have been experiencing a mental health crisis. They were responding to a call about a different man possibly experiencing a mental health crisis in Lents Park. The cops fired impact munitions at Robert Douglas Delgado’s body and prevented anyone from offering medical attention until seven and a half minutes after police shot him (four minutes after arriving at the scene) almost five full minutes after he finally stopped moving, attacked with chemical weapons those who gathered to mourn the victim and protest his murder, and ate pizza over the corpse which they left lying in the grass for hours while they tried to “find” the gun they claimed was in his hand when they shot him. (Some reports before the fact that they had shot the “wrong” man was released, included the existence of a replica handgun, but cops are known to carry those to drop at a scene when they’ve murdered yet another unarmed person. Three days after the shooting, police produced a photograph of a toy handgun with an orange tip identifying it as fake that they allegedly found at the scene. Audio released at the same time “does not indicate that Delgado had a gun — or replica gun — in his hand at the time he was shot. … none of the officers on the ground say they see a gun in Delgado’s hand before” shooting him.)

This all took place:

  • after police in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, murdered 20-year-old Daunte Wright in front of his girlfriend during a traffic stop and then brutally attacked those who rallied to protest his death and the reporters who covered those protests;
  • before a “trigger happy” cop placed on administrative leave for sexually abusing a child murdered three people in Austin, Texas;
  • during the same week that Chicago police finally released the video showing how many times and how many ways they lied about their murder of 13-year-old Adam Toledo;
  • while Derek Chauvin’s defense attorneys did their best to put his victim, George Floyd, on trial for Floyd’s own murder including smearing him with false overdose theories and other lies.

Image of a black sign with "Defund Brutality" written in white block print over three red fists and the outlines in white of two raised hands.For reference, Brooklyn Center police — who shot at protesters from tanks and continued using tear gas and other “crowd control munitions” after the Brooklyn Center’s city council passed a resolution “banning dangerous crowd-control tactics including the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, and protester kettling” – gained national recognition as a “police reform model” last summer.

In Portland, a federal judge found in February of 2020 that the police department was in “substantial compliance” with a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice reached after DOJ found officers often used excessive force on people who were experiencing a mental health crisis. Portland recently launched a pilot program in Lents — the Portland Street Response team — which is supposed to answer calls for anyone experiencing a mental health crisis rather than police. The Portland Street Response was not sent to the scene because the caller (possibly a member of a group notorious in Lents for attacking the houseless and which organized a “back the blue” rally the day after the murder) claimed that a man “acting erratically” had a gun. It also should be noted that the murderer, Zachary Delong, has expressed support for Michael Brown’s killer Darren Wilson and that Delong’s boss, East Precinct Commander Erica Hurley, is under investigation by the Secretary of State for violating Oregon law last month. In addition, Portland Police are currently under investigation by the DOJ for brutal attacks on protesters, failing to file use of force reports, and using flawed, possibly unconstitutional logic to clear themselves of alleged misconduct.

All of the above represents just a few of the incidents that occurred in less than a week of egregious police malfeasance and murder in the United States of America.

Over and over again, politicians at federal, state, and municipal levels play the “reform” game. They pass laws, enact codes, and implement policies which police then ignore, fight in court, and/or claim are in violation of their contracts. Most of the time, even if the police obeyed them, the laws/code/policies changes touted by reform politicians won’t even prevent the most egregious violence and brutality that police inflict. The U.S. House of Representatives’ so-called “Floyd Act”, passed March 3rd, “could not have even saved George Floyd’s life” or all those police have murdered since Floyd died, begging for his life, on May 25th, 2020.

Portland is preparing to revive, yet again, the racially biased, ever name changing Gang Enforcement Team (GET) Gun Violence Reduction Team (GVRT) Focused Intervention Team without ever discussing with those who experience and understand the causes of gun violence whether or not this program offers any solutions. “Adding more police is like putting sugar on shit. It makes it taste a little better, but it’s not really changing anything. You may prevent murders, but you won’t stop the problem. You’re just going to have a lot more guys in jail… a lot more families without fathers. Then what?” asks Mike “Bretto” Jackson, former gang member who’s now a hip hop artist and youth mentor.

Meanwhile, using gun violence as an excuse, the agencies that claimed deputizing local law enforcement as federal officers last year was only temporary have announced a “gun violence collaboration” that includes Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, who ran for office as a progressive reformer. Collaborating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), Portland and Gresham police and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office “entered into a voluntary agreement … to “deputize a small contingent of local law enforcement officers”.

Because Portland public officials don’t understand, or refuse to acknowledge, that correlation does not equal causation. In reality, gun violence spiked across the country during the pandemic, resulting in overall gun homicides at the highest rate in more than 20 years. “The COVID-19 pandemic worsened many of the underlying conditions that contribute to community gun violence risk — poverty, unemployment, food and housing insecurity, ” according to Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz, who researches violence prevention at the University of California.

One of the centerpieces of reform is the call to require police to wear body cameras. But there has been no reduction in police violence as more and more departments spend millions of dollars incorporating this requirement and citizens with smart phones fill the Internet with videos of egregious police conduct. And we have a multitude of video evidence of police brutally attacking and maiming the thousands of people who gather to protest police behavior, no matter how peaceful.

“Rather than thinking that they ought to be chastened by being caught on tape beating, tear-gassing, and pepper-spraying protesters, perhaps doing all this in full view of the public is the point. They’re not afraid of being filmed, because being filmed simply reinforces the central theme: If you come to protest, an action that explicitly challenges the order and my place in it, this is the consequence,” Patrick Wyman wrote last June. It’s “about sending a message: Try to hold us accountable, and we’ll find you. Whether the violence is real or merely threatened, the goal is public acknowledgement of this order, rooted in racial inequality and the protection of property.”

Mass arrests of protesters across the country are “all about intimidation” of people who vocally oppose police brutality, said Detroit Will Breathe organizer Tristan Taylor. “It says something about the nature of policing when that’s a uniform tactic.” The vast majority of citations and charges against protesters were ultimately dropped, dismissed, or otherwise not filed, but “police response created this whole additional public health crisis that wasn’t something people talked about much, but, in the moment, that was one of the biggest issues we were concerned about,” said Tyler Crawford, the National Lawyers Guild director of mass defense.

Reform is not possible when, as Colin Kaepernick stated in his introduction to a 30-part series demanding abolition, “The central intent of policing is to surveil, terrorize, capture, and kill marginalized populations, specifically Black folks.” He echoes the words of Huey P. Newton, Black Panther Party co-founder, “The police are in our community not to promote our welfare or for our security or our safety, but they are there to contain us, to brutalize us, and murder us.”

Organizations with roots in capturing and punishing Africans who attempted to escape carceral slavery, whose members ignore the law themselves while using it to capture, incarcerate, and kill those who are not white, cis, straight, able-bodied, males — or otherwise do not fit in what their limited worldview defines as citizen — cannot be reformed. They must be abolished.