By Kevin Barragan
WASHINGTON, DC – Former criminal prosecutor Paul Butler admits when he wrote Chokehold: Policing Black Men in 2017 someone at his publishing house said “it was a perfect topic from a marketing perspective because it would always be in the news.”
“The remark has proved sadly accurate. In the years before my book and in the years since, we have witnessed innumerable cases of Black people subjected to vicious beatings and unjustified killings,” declared Butler, now a Washington Post columnist and law professor at Georgetown Law.
He noted African American folks have recorded police demonstrating police brutality, but many white people have stated they don’t believe such violent behavior.
The public, though, can see the police action because it “had Darnella Frazier, the teenager who recorded Derek Chauvin squeezing the life out of George Floyd with his knee on Floyd’s neck. Nor did the movement need CBS, because the revolution no longer had to be televised. Darnella was on Facebook.”
Butler continues, “But the advancement in technology has not led to an advancement in racial justice. The police still kill more than 1,000 people each year, and those people are disproportionately Black and Brown. Attention has not yet meant progress.”
Recent books have been published containing corruption information and the inability to hold police accountable for their actions leaving readers distraught by our system, notes Butler, citing The Riders Come Out at Night: Brutality, Corruption, and Cover Up in Oakland by Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham that provide historical information of Oakland, California’s, criminal justice system.
He adds that Joanna Schwartz’s article, “Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable,” is an examination of why officers get away from police brutality.
According to Winston and BondGraham, “even when the Justice Department takes legal steps after a federal investigation to order changes at a local police department, “back sliding is common. New abuses constantly surface…Resistance to change imposed from outsiders, especially civilians, is baked into police culture in the United States.”
Butler writes, “The book, a detailed history of Oakland told through the lens of policing, contains lots of juicy details.”
He explains how Huey Newton arrived in the city of Oakland as a little boy. His life was filled with ups and downs. He went from killing a racist law enforcement officer out of self-defense to being accused of murdering a sex worker and earning a PhD from the University of California. Yet, he was shot by a Black man on the streets of Oakland.
“We learn that Robert Mueller’s failure to bring Donald Trump to justice in the Russia investigation was foreshadowed by his failure, when he was head federal prosecutor in Northern California, to hold accountable a gang of Oakland police officers known as the Riders,” said Butler.
Moreover, the book continues to state the unethical acts of police officers toward the residents of Oakland, adding, “Winston and BondGraham intend their narrative as a cautionary tale for other cities and, ultimately, present changes undertaken by the Oakland Police Department as a success story.”
“They write approvingly of the city’s most recent police chief, LeRonne Armstrong, a reformer who got the job after the previous chief, Anne Kirkpatrick, was fired for not effectively implementing court-mandated improvements,” said Butler, adding, “Armstrong himself has been fired by Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao after he allegedly gave special treatment to Michael Chung, a sergeant accused of official misconduct.”
Butler states how once the incidents became public knowledge, “Armstrong claimed he wasn’t aware of all the facts, but an independent investigation found that his comments were not credible or consistent with the evidence….
“Issues and shortcomings that go beyond the conduct of individual officers to the very question of whether the Oakland Police Department is capable of policing itself and effectively holding its own officers accountable for misconduct.”
Butler argues that “civil rights litigation against individual officers would advance reform more effectively than the rare criminal prosecutions of trigger-happy cops or federal takeovers of local police departments.”
Qualified immunity is a judicial doctrine that was implemented by the Supreme Court making it impossible to sue cops, and Butler explains, “Schwartz would get rid of that doctrine, placing more hope in local lawmakers and judges than in the federal government to lift the barriers that insulate police departments from civil rights suits.”
Officers that are held liable can motivate prospective officers to abide by their badge, said Butler, noting Floyd’s death as sadistic.
Referencing the Memphis Tyre Nichols case, Nichols was pulled over for reckless driving “but the Memphis police chief has said she has seen no evidence of that,” said Butler. Thus, “police reports have been fabricated indicating false information on the incident of Breanna Taylor and George Floyd.”
Butler said, “At one point when Nichols had been beaten so badly he couldn’t stand, one officer held him up so another could punch him in the head. Nichols died three days later. Five officers, all Black, were fired and are now charged with second-degree murder.”
Butler said, “Nichols was beaten down by ‘Scorpions’ which is a Memphis law enforcement squad and their mission was to demonstrate they are the toughest specialized unit. President Obama announced his concern for this policing stating, ‘law enforcement culture should embrace a guardian — rather than a warrior — mindset.’”
Butler insists the criminal legal system “desperately needs repair.”
