Another Rodney King case in southern California
Black community fights police brutality
By John Parker
Los Angeles
Once again, southern California has received national and
international attention because a witness videotaped a beating
incident and exposed ongoing, criminal, racist brutality by one
of its police departments.
Some say the Black community is united in its anger as
"never before since the '60s." Already thousands have marched
and rallied in protest, and another demonstration is set July
17 at 6 p.m. in front of the gas station where the young man
was beaten.
This incident occurred in the predominantly Black and Latino
town of Inglewood, near Los Angeles. The victim--a 16-year-old
Black youth who was beaten repeatedly by police while
handcuffed--was then picked up and pounded head first on a
squad car on July 6.
The beating occurred during the daytime with witnesses
present. Given the record of racist police crimes against Black
youth, Donovan Jackson-Chavis may not have survived if this had
occurred on a secluded road at night with no witnesses.
The other factor in Jackson-Chavis's favor, and which forced
the corporate media to follow this story, was that this
incident was videotaped.
On July 6 Coby Chavis Jr., his father, was parked at a gas
station awaiting his son, who had gone into the station's
market for potato chips. According to Inglewood police, while
the youth was inside two county sheriff's deputies approached
the car because the tag on its license had expired.
The deputies said that when the young man came out of the
store he tried to get into his father's car, supposedly
ignoring their commands to wait while they questioned his
father. By this time four other officers, for some reason, had
joined the initial two and immediately began a confrontation
with the teenager.
According to the police, he then lunged at the officers,
forcing them to beat him before he was handcuffed.
At this point, bystander Mitchell Crooks, from a hotel
across the street, began videotaping the beating.
The officers then lifted the 16-year-old off the ground
while handcuffed and slammed him into the squad car headfirst.
But the beating and humiliation hadn't stopped yet. Officer
Jeremy Morse, who is white, then felt the need to punch the
youth one more time.
The officers involved changed their original account to
adjust to the facts caught on videotape after they found out
the tape existed.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Joe Hopkins, then one of
the attorneys for the Jackson family, had a different account.
He said Jackson-Chavis was "grabbed by the throat to hold him
back and the other four officers took turns hitting him. When
the officers threw him to the ground they continued to beat
him, pulling him by a necklace he wore and kneeing him. What we
see on the tape is the second beating."
By July 11, it was reported that only officer Morse admitted
to hitting the 16-year-old. Police reports, however, indicate
that another white cop, Bijan Darvish, punched him twice before
the videotaping began.
Cops arrest the videotaper
On July 11, five days after the incident, videotaper
Mitchell Crooks was grabbed by police and arrested just outside
CNN's Los Angeles office as he was going in for an interview.
The arrest, allegedly for convictions from five years ago and
warrants from 1999, was apparently meant to silence Crooks and
intimidate others with video cameras.
Witnesses heard Crooks screaming inside the tinted-window
van as police drove away. There is now a broad campaign to
raise $10,000 for Crooks' legal defense, which U.S.
Congressperson Maxine Waters from Los Angeles has joined.
What surprised officials and apparently the U.S. Justice
Department--which was forced to say it was launching an
immediate investigation--was the almost instant and organized
response by the outraged Inglewood community. This was mainly
due to the work of Donovan Jackson-Chavis's family, including
his cousin, Talibah Shakir.
Shakir, a former Black Panther, immediately coordinated
support activities. Almost 2,000 people marched on Inglewood
City Hall on July 12. Martin Luther King III and Dick Gregory
also took part in the march.
The crowd arrived at City Hall around noon on that weekday.
Though it was not a holiday, they found a sign posted there
that said the city offices were closed for the day.
A representative from County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite
Burke's office tried to assure the demonstrators that
authorities would probe the incident. People shouted,
"Bullshit," "Arrest them now" and "You saw the tape, what's to
investigate, send them to jail."
The next day, over 600 people filled Pastor Andrew Gaither's
Faith United Methodist Church in South Central Los Angeles for
an event organized by the family and the Donovan Jackson-Chavis
Justice Committee. Speakers included Rep. Maxine Waters, Dick
Gregory, representatives from Organization U.S., Committee
Against Police Abuse, All African Peoples Revolutionary Party,
October 22nd Coalition, Nation of Islam and International
ANSWER.
"We want to know precisely, exactly, what kind of threat a
16-year-old teenager, eating a bag of chips, poses to adult
armed and trained police officers," said long-time social
activist Thandi Chimurenga to the rally.
Tabilah Shakir told Workers World she is encouraged by the
support.
"We're getting mass support from all groups and from Bloods
and Crips, and we're all united as one. It hasn't felt this
good since way back in the 1960s. We have former Panthers in
New York working with us. There have been demonstrations in
D.C., San Francisco and New York," said Shakir.
No trust in Justice Department's envoy
Worried about this overwhelming community support, Attorney
General John Ashcroft sent Ralph Boyd, head of the U.S. Justice
Department's civil rights division. Many have questioned Boyd's
sincerity, since he played the same role as investigator into
racist police shootings in Cincinnati in April 2001. Those
shootings caused a revolt in the Black community. The police
are still brutalizing the community.
Statements already made by Boyd disregarding community
outrage and labeling all those not willing to wait for the
"legal process" as "outsiders" lend credence to this view of
Boyd.
Many believe the Justice Department and police are just
trying to stall in hopes that community outrage dies down. They
point to the fact that Officer Morse has a history of police
abuse and is only now being investigated for those past crimes
because of the video.
The Los Angeles Times reported Inglewood Mayor Roosevelt
Dorn saying that "one or two other cases" involving Morse "have
been ordered reopened." Dorn said those cases of alleged use of
excessive force, including one in 2001, "had not reached the
level of the city administrator" and that "one was not actually
closed."
In one case police officers, including Morse, handcuffed and
beat Nelson Williams with batons in June. Williams spent five
days in the hospital and time in intensive care.
On July 11 Patricia Surjue, a Justice Department employee,
filed a civil rights lawsuit charging that officer Morse and
two Inglewood officers illegally entered her home in October
and began to shove and threaten her in front of her two
children. The suit says that Mayor Dorn and Police Chief Ron
Banks did nothing.
Banks was deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department
at the time of the Rodney King police beating.
For these past and current abuses, Officer Morse has been
rewarded with a temporary suspension with pay--in other words,
a paid vacation.
Donovan Jackson-Chavis, however, is not being paid for his
trauma. Shakir told Workers World that the young man is still
shaken up by the event.
Anti-police brutality activists have stated that continued
community support and outrage can help build a movement against
these racist cops and the system they represent. They feel this
will prove to be an important ingredient in helping to heal the
teenager and the rest of the community.
Besides the July 17 protest, in August, a caravan for
justice is scheduled to travel to San Francisco.
Those seeking to lend support and get further information
can email the Donovan Jackson-Chavis Justice Committee at
justice4donovan@yahoo.com or racialprofiling2@aol.com.
Reprinted from the July 25, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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