Black community organizes against police brutality

Once again Springfield cops have been let off after brutally beating a Black man. But, as this outrage resonates in the community and more police terror is brought to light, a multi-faceted campaign led by oppressed communities and their allies is fighting back.

The Springfield Police Commission voted 3 to 2 on Jan. 31 to let off four white cops accused of beating and choking Douglas Greer, a principal at a local charter school, on Nov. 4.

According to Greer, principal of Robert M. Hughes Academy Charter School, he was viciously beaten by the cops when he drove his car into a South End gas station after feeling ill. A worker at the gas station called police after he failed to rouse Greer, who had lapsed into the early stages of a diabetic seizure. When the cops arrived, according to multiple eyewitnesses, they smashed Greer's window, dragged him through it and beat him unconscious on the pavement. Greer said he repeatedly attempted to tell the cops about his medical condition, but the four cops accused him of being "on drugs."

Greer needed 18 stitches to close lacerations in his head. The police report on the beating claims Greer became violent and they had to use force and pepper spray. The cops also claim that while police were subduing Greer, he smashed his own head on the pavement.

At least two of the cops have long track records of racist, terrorist activity in the Black and other oppressed communities. Jeffrey Asher was suspended from the police force for a year in 1997 after a video tape show ing him kicking an African Amer ican man was broadcast on local television. James Shewchuck, another cop invol ved in the Greer beating, has been accused of organizing a "welcome back" party for the cop who shot and killed Ben School field, an unarmed Black youth, during a traffic stop in 1994. Although Schoolfield's family, after years of litigation, won some minimal monetary compensation due to a civil suit, all the cops involved were let off.

Greer is exploring legal and other avenues for justice with Springfield's Nation of Islam, among others.

Two days after the commission's decision on the Greer beating, a videotape obtained by local media showed three members of a Black Springfield family being beaten and arrested in the Spring field police headquarters lobby in Septem ber 2004. While filing a complaint at the lobby window, the family, which has a long history of being harassed by the Spring field cops, was descended upon by at least 10 cops, who came from two side doors. The video shows police swinging batons and placing one of the family members in a choke hold.

Resistance

"Pastors have always been in the forefront when it comes to seeking justice," said the Rev. J. Williard Cofield, president of the Pastors' Council of Greater Spring field, at a news conference on Feb. 9 announ cing the council's complaint filed with the Massachusetts Com mission Against Discrimination. The council, which has 30 mostly Black pastors, filed the complaint concerning the Greer and family members' beating as a response to increasing complaints of police terror issued by its parishioners. (masslive.com)

"We have heard the cries of our community, and it is our business to speak up so the truth can come forward," said Cofield.

A probable-cause finding by the commission would force a public hearing. If the commission's investigation renders a lack of probable cause, the complaint will be moot.

The U.S. Justice Department has requested that the FBI investigate the complaint. This is like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop. Independent community organizations like the Spring field Technical Community College- based Urban Awareness Group are planning more independent actions like a Nov. 20 demonstration the group sponsored after the Greer beating.

The STCC students, with other community residents and organizations, hope to engage in anti-police brutality actions this spring and to conduct a people's commission to investigate and protest police brutality, terror and occupations of oppressed communities in the city.

Dick Gregory--activist, social commentator and humorist--spoke at STCC in early February and denounced the Spring field police department's racist actions.

In the progressive communities in Western Massachusetts there's a dawning awareness that the anti-war movement must connect the U.S. war in Iraq with the war on working-class and oppressed communities in the U.S.

A central component of these struggles must be anti-racism, especially in the struggle against the cops, the courts and the prison-industrial complex, which affects the oppressed communities most directly.

Nick Camerota contributed to this report.