“Between January 1962 and July 1965, Los Angeles law enforcement (mostly police but also sheriff’s deputies, highway patrol personnel, and others) killed at least 65 people. Of the sixty-five homicides by police that the Los Angeles coroner’s office investigated during this period, sixty-four were ruled justifiable homicides. These included twenty-seven cases in which the victim was shot in the back by law officers, twenty-five in which the victim was unarmed, twenty-three in which the victim was suspected of a non-violent crime, and four in which the victim was not suspected of any crime at the time of the shooting.” from Black Against Empire, pp. 28-29, by Bloom and Martin.
“Since July 18, 1964 Harlem “riots”, there have been some fifty rebellions in the black communities throughout the nation….If one would look closely, and check this three-year history, he will find that in damn near every rebellion a racist cop was involved in the starting of that rebellion. And these same pig cops, under orders from the racist government, will probably cause 50 or more rebellions to occur the rest of this year alone, by inflicting brutality or murdering some black person within the confines of one of our black communities.” Bobby Seale, July, 1967, quoted in Black Empire, p. 82, by Bloom and Martin.
One month later, in July 1967, just as Seale had predicted, Newark, N.J. erupted in violence after black cab driver John Smith was pulled over by two white Newark police officers, beaten, and arrested. Detroit, Michigan followed a few weeks later when white police officers raided an after-hours blind-pig where a celebration was occurring for two returning black veterans from Vietnam and one black soldier who was about to be deployed. Citizens took issue when police began arresting and roughing up patrons.
It is hard to believe that so little has changed over the last almost 60 years. The above description of police homicides in Los Angeles between 1962 and 1967 could easily be used to describe what still happens today. Bobby Seale’s words in July 1967 ring too familiar with what is presently happening in cities across America.
Black Americans have long complained about racist police departments and police brutality inflicted on them. Many have suffered in silence; carefully and fearfully living their lives in the hopes that the police would just leave them alone, afraid of retribution against them if they spoke out. Others have spoken out in vain, trying to call attention to the injustices occurring all around them. White Americans largely ignored the plight of black citizens, many willfully ignorant of what was going on.
The age of the computer-phone, the rise of the internet. and a new generation of Americans has begun to change all that. It is hard to deny and ignore police brutality towards and the murder of black Americans by police when it is recorded on computer-phone and distributed over the internet. Also, a new generation of young, white Americans, who are more open to progressive values, have joined with black Americans and others of color to demonstrate and demand an end to systematic racial injustice and police brutality.
Whether or not this will finally be enough to lead to real change remains to be seen.
