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Black Citizen and the Police Crises; Are There Solutions 12/20/2017 10:53:32 PM
How to Act When Pulled Over By Police: Now a Driver’s Ed Requirement in Illinois
By
Robert Moore, author/owner of Robert Moore & Associates
Police Community Relation Consultant
www.blackmarshalpublishing.com
Watch the Ten Rules for dealing with the police on my website
In the weeks that followed the shooting of Michael Brown — an unarmed 18-year-old African American youth in Ferguson Missouri on August 9, 2014— by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer, anger has bubbled to the surface about how much more likely it is for black men and black youth to die at the hands of law enforcement, or to be profiled while driving, shopping or going to school. These incidents have caused a nationwide crisis that being debated and in some states, legislation is being passed to address the crises. In Illinois legislation has been passed that requires driver’s education students to be taught how to act when pulled over by the police.
The need to develop solutions to the crises is summed up, later in this paper, by Bob Schrieffer host of Face the Nation program. The Crisis in Springfield is further articulated by the Illinois Times writer and a school official in Springfield, Illinois in the following article. Maureen McKinney writing in the November 10 issue of the Illinois Times states “what may be overlooked is how the perhaps, already bruised psyches of black boys are affected by a staccato series of killings of young black men such as Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and countless others”.
McKinney shares a troubling and informative interview with a guidance counselor in one of our Springfield Illinois Schools that suggest a long-term problem for our nation if not corrected. “I know my 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade black youth … they're terrified. We have kids in crisis,' says Kelly Wickham, guidance dean at Lincoln Magnet, a middle school in Springfield. Since Ferguson, she has made it a point of trying to talk to each of the African American and multiracial students at her school — 137 children of the 315 at Lincoln. She says they look at Brown's death and fear it could happen to them. This is certainly a tragic result of the violent street confrontations between police and black citizens. Robert Moore & Associates a Police Community Relation Consultant and the Land of Lincoln Chapter of the Black Law Enforcement Executives of Springfield is working with the police department, community groups and the school district to address this problem.
In response to the killing of black men by police across America and a police culture that has changed from protector to warrior, “Flex Your Rights Org”, a not for profit organization based in Silver Spring Md. has produced a dynamic 40 minute video entitled "The Ten Rules for Dealing with the Police". The purpose of the video is to train citizens of color, especially African Americans how to best manage their own attitude and behaviors, and what action to take if they feel their rights was violated when stopped by police. In an article “A cop advice for dealing with police”, Major Neill Franklin (ret) a 33 year law enforcement veteran and former training commander for the Maryland State Police and Baltimore Police Department and who served as a technical consultant to Flex You’re your Rights organizations, said, “It’s unfortunate that this important information has remained largely unavailable to the public, despite the growing concerns about police misconduct”
On September 1, 2016, with a little flourish, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed HB6131, a bill requiring driving schools and school districts to teach students how to react when stopped by police. Though sponsors of the bill said it had nothing to do with the shooting death of Laquan McDonald of Chicago or other black youth across the country, the bill offers a possible solution to this thorny problem
Police and political responses to the black citizen/police crises is to re-train police and attempt to improve police-community relations by seeking black citizen input and holding town hall meeting to tell the citizen what they plan to do to solve the problem. These strategies have proven to be ineffective. This failure is due to no real change in the police culture and accountability by mayors and police command. Due to recent legislative changes in Illinois, black Americans are now investing their hope for change and better treatment by police in body camera. In the midst of these same strategies being implemented by police departments across the nation we see a mayor and chief of police in Chicago, paying a black family 5 million dollars in compensation for the shooting of their son, refusing to release the video of the police shooting and waiting over a year to file murder charges against the Chicago police officer who shot the youth sixteen times. Is this the way to build community trust?
This author of the historic book, “The President Men: Black United States Marshals in America”/ police community relation consultant Robert Moore, who has served as a Illinois State Trooper, Deputy Chief of Police Savannah, Georgia, Chief of Police Jackson, Mississippi, United States Marshal in Springfield, Illinois and police writer has joined with Flex Your Rights Org to help educate citizens about their rights when stopped by police and help the nation through the black citizen police crises. PBS television station WSEC in Springfield, Illinois has collaborated with the author/ consultant to produce a ninety-minute u-tube video encompassing the ten rules with a five-person panel and a live audience which was taped broadcast six different times in its viewing area. It is now a nation-wide u-tube production.
The author/consultant has presented the video to the city council and city official of Decatur, Illinois following a shooting in their city, school district 186, the Springfield Optimist Club, the Rotary Club, the Springfield Police Department, the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, the Midwest Security and Police conference, the Interfaith- group of Springfield, Illinois, the Springfield Illinois NAACP Board, the Central Illinois Chapter of Noble, the 100 Black Men of Central Illinois, the State convention of the Elks Club of Illinois, the Diversity office of the University of Illinois at Springfield, and the Nigerian Migrants from Beardstown Illinois. This strategy of training citizen to manage and control their own police encounters has great promise.
How do police improve relations with minority communities?
Police departments are taking a second look at their relationships with minority communities after the deaths of three black Americans following confrontations with white police officers have sparked protests across the nation
Bob Schrieffer host of Face the Nation program said, “We must fix this disconnect between police, and the black communities” he further says the protests against police killings of unarmed black men shows the persistence of racial tension in America.
One of Mr. Schaeffer’s guests on November 16, 2016, was New York City Police Department Commissioner William Bratton, who discussed the department's response to the death of Staten Island man Eric Garner after a police officer used a chokehold that resulted in his death. Commissioner William Bratton outlined the steps his department is taking in the wake of Eric Garner's death following an apparent chokehold by an NYPD officer, including full retraining of 22,000 officers who work in the field and implementing new smartphone technology for all officers. "There's probably no department in America right now that's doing more on these issues," Bratton said.
In a separate interview on Face the “Nation” NAACP Cornell William Brooks, said the department is not doing enough. "If we're looking at the tragedy of Eric Garner as a single incident it's not enough. To talk about training retrospectively, training prospectively as opposed to holding people accountable retrospectively, that's where we have to go. We have to look at yes, body cameras. We have to look at training, we have to look at fundamentally changing the culture of policing in New York City and across the country," Brooks said. As a major component of the Community Policing model is citizens input. Mr. Brooks is providing some essential information for consideration for a community policing plan.
Brooks further emphasized to the host that, "We have a model of policing that is predicated on essentially operating in the community and not being of the community and that is fundamentally a problem. And so this is part of a longer narrative. We simply can't treat these as individual incidents to be assessed in that way without larger reform," Brooks said. The larger reforms he proposed include federal legislation to ban racial profiling, a national standard for use of force, and more examination and implementation of a body camera policy.
Schrieffer also interviewed J. Scott Thomson, the Camden County Police Chief in New Jersey. Once ranked the most dangerous city of its size in the country, Camden has begun to see improvements in its crime rates after it established a new police department in May 2013. The Chief discussed how his department is working with the community to turn around one of America's most troubled cities... "Nothing builds trust like human contact," he said. "The transformation we were able to do enabled us to connect with our people and to establish the fact that cops are going to perform as guardians and not as warriors. The result that we have seen is that we've cut shootings and murders in half in less than 24 months."
Chief Thomson is proud of the progress his department has made in building trust in his community and changing the culture of his department. During the interview he stressed that "We established a culture from very early on that the relationship that would bind us with our people was one based on building the community first and enforcing the law second," Thomson said.
When the host asked the chief to describe the single thing that has been most successful for the department, Thomson cited” human contact”, including having officers walking the beat, spending more time outside of their squad cars and talking to residents about what matters most to them and what has most negatively defined their lives.
Why African Americans feel targeted by police
Responding the interviews by Commissioner Bratton and Chief Thomson, Soledad O'Brien, the executive producer, and director of the "Black in America" documentary series said she saw a contrast between the reforms Bratton described and those championed by Chief Thomson. "Thomson used the word community, he talked about culture, about transforming, and how you interact with people. What you're actually realizing is that those aren't the words that Commissioner Bratton used. He talked about retraining, he talked about cameras; it's a different philosophy," O'Brien said.
Obrien further stated that "African Americans feel they are treated differently in the criminal justice system, they are treated differently under the law. There is this aggressive targeting of black people that doesn't happen in white communities and it's that anger over so many years that are really percolating up now,"
Both Obrien and Brooks talked about the widespread racial disparities in policing. Something O'Brien said "becomes very damaging" to both the individuals who are frequently stopped by police as well as the communities. Brooks said an entire generation of young people says they live in the middle of "a pandemic of police misconduct."
Going forward, the question will be what changes.
The major question facing America and our criminal justice system is how we move forward to address the grievances African American have with the Criminal Justice system and society as a whole. Chief Thomson believes it’s not a time for law enforcement to circle the wagons and take a defensive position, but to keep our ears and our minds open and move forward in a way that has a collective universal agreement of how the justice system should operate. However, until the criminal Justice system can reform itself, change its culture, and enforce laws in a fair and equitable manner, The Honorable Robert Moore United States Marshal (ret) police writer/Author and former Chief of Police of Jackson Mississippi believed that Flex Your Rights Org approach to teaching citizen their right under the 4th 5th, and 6th amendments to the constitution through a program called “ten Rules for dealing with the police is the most effective training program and guidelines for African American and other to follow to eliminate deadly street confrontation. Testing of the program has received raving reviews in Springfield and other test areas.
Guidelines for African American Men and other to follow when stopped by police to avoid deadly street confrontations
• Remain Cool and Calm when stopped by Police
• 5th amendments give you the right to remain silent and not incriminate yourself in criminal cases- best- protection keep your mouth shut and ask for a Lawyer.
• The 4th amendment allows you to refuse consent searches----It’s your decision to allow a consent search---or use the protection of the 4th amendment and refuse consent searches—politely tell office you don’t consent to warrantless searches
• I caution you not to get tricked into giving up your constitutional Rights (Police can legally lie to you)
• If officer is not arresting or detaining you, simply ask officer am I being detained or am I Free to go
• Don’t expose your presence to the police by being a nuisance, loud music, etc.
• Don’t ever run from the Police
• Don’t touch, hit, push, or resist an officer this can turn into felony charge-
• Comply with office request-- Report Misconduct ---and file complaints---We want you to become a good witness.
• Understand your rights under the 4th 5th and 6th amendment’s----and know the exceptions to these amendments, especially-exceptions to search warrants.
The goal is to make sure black citizen and the police officer go home safe every day during police stops. Every person I stopped went home safe and so did I.
Sources
Schieffer, Bob, Face the Nation interviews with Chief Bratten and Chief Thomson
Obrien, Solada comments about Bratton's and Thomson’s interview on face the nation
Moore, Robert --Author personal Experience
Silverman, Steve, Flex your Rights Org –10 Rules of dealing with police’ July 2010
HuffPost “ A Cops advice on dealing with police “ November 15th, 2010
Gruebel, Jerry PBS WSEC Television October 5th production
McKinney Maureen F. NPR Illinois “Writer Tells How she Broke the Laquan McDonald Story—November 25, 2015
McKinney Maureen F and Rachel Otwell “After Ferguson—a look at Obstacles facing young Black Males—Illinois Issues November 10, 2015
The Retired United States Marshal Robert Moore is the author of the historic book
“The Presidents Men: Black United States Marshals in America". He has written articles for the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, the website Black Past.Org, the Command Magazine of the Illinois Association of Chief of Police. He has been interviewed by numerous newspapers, televisions and magazines on criminal justice and community issues.
