2006-2010
Day 86
2006: FBI Issues Report Detailing How White Supremacists Infiltrate Law Enforcement As Way To Advance Their Racist Ideology
Though they had been reporting on this for decades to local police agencies to warn them this was happening, in 2006 they sent out a full report of White Supremacists joining the police ranks in order to protect their members from police, and also further their white superiority over people of color.
You can read the full report, but here is what it looks like according to TheGrio (a news site geared to African Americans, hence why you have likely never heard of it before). This is their article:
Because of intensifying civil strife over the recent killings of unarmed black men and boys, many Americans are wondering, “What’s wrong with our police?” Remarkably, one of the most compelling but unexplored explanations may rest with a FBI warning of October 2006, which reported that “White supremacist infiltration of law enforcement” represented a significant national threat.
Several key events preceded the report. A federal court found that members of a Los Angeles sheriffs department formed a Neo Nazi gang and habitually terrorized the black community. Later, the Chicago police department fired Jon Burge, a detective with reputed ties to the Ku Klux Klan, after discovering he tortured over 100 black male suspects. Thereafter, the Mayor of Cleveland discovered that many of the city police locker rooms were infested with “White Power” graffiti. Years later, a Texas sheriff department discovered that two of its deputies were recruiters for the Klan.
Since coming to law enforcement attention in 2004, the term “ghost skins” has gained currency among white supremacists to describe those who avoid overt displays of their beliefs to blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist causes … At least one white supremacist group has reportedly encouraged ghost skins to seek positions in law enforcement for the capability of alerting skinhead crews of pending investigative actions against them.
In 2015, at least seven San Francisco law enforcement officers were suspended after an investigation revealed they exchanged numerous “White Power” communications laden with remarks about “lynching African-Americans and burning crosses.” Three reputed Klan members that served as correction officers were arrested for conspiring to murder a black inmate. At least four Fort Lauderdale police officers were fired after an investigation found that the officers fantasized about killing black suspects.
The white supremacist threat brings to light a dark feature of the American experience that some believed extinct. It rouses ingrained notions of distrusts between police and communities of color while bringing to bear the vital interest citizens of good will share in the complete abolishment of race as a judgmental factor.
As the nation struggles to resolve the perplexities of police brutality, the white supremacist threat should inform all Americans that today’s civil discord is not borne out of a robust animosity towards law enforcement, most of whom are professional. Rather, it’s more representative of a centuries-old ideological clash, which has ignited in citizens of good will a desire to affirm notions of racial equality so that the moral ethos of American culture is a reality for all.
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Day 87
2007: Innocent Man Released After Spending 25 Years In Jail Due To Confession Obtained Through Chicago Police Torture Ring
This is the story of one man, Darrell Cannon, but this form of torture was used repeatedly by certain members of the Chicago Police to force false confessions. I listened to a Podcast where Darrell, 30 years after this happened, broke down in tears describing the pain he felt and how the police were able to break him- he would literally confess to anything they wanted him to confess to in order to stop the torture. He spent over 20 years in jail because of this forced confession, but he wasn’t the only one. Several black men went to jail because of these torture techniques used on them and lost decades of their lives. I’ll post the link to the Podcast in the comments.
This is from Huffington Post (if that’s too liberal for you, you can easily confirm this information with a simple Google search. I chose this article because it is succinct):
In the early morning of November 2, 1983, Darrell Cannon was taken from his home by a battery of now notorious white Chicago police detectives to a remote area on the far southeast side of Chicago where he was interrogated about the murder of a drug dealer. When Cannon denied involvement in the crime, his interrogators informed him that they had a “scientific way of questioning nig----.” One of the detectives took a shotgun, and, after appearing to put a shell in the chamber, rammed the barrel into Cannon’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The detectives repeated this mock execution twice more, and Cannon experienced the feeling that “the back of my brains were being blown out.”
When Cannon persisted in denials, the detectives forced him into the back seat of their car, pulled down his pants, and repeatedly shocked him on his genitals with an electric cattle prod. The interrogation continued for several hours, with another round of electric shocks, this time in Cannon’s mouth, and the racial abuse was so extreme that Cannon later recounted that he thought his name was “nig---.”
Cannon finally succumbed to the torture and gave a false confession that implicated him in the murder. On the sole basis of that confession, Cannon was convicted and sentenced to life. While in prison, he filed a pro se lawsuit seeking damages, and in 1988, on the advice of an appointed lawyer, he reluctantly accepted a $3000 settlement which netted him a grand total of $1247 after costs and legal fees were deducted.
Soon after the settlement, lawyers for torture victim Andrew Wilson, with the help of an anonymous police source whom they dubbed “Deep Badge,” started to unravel a cover-up — which reached all the way to then Cook County State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley — of a torture ring that was run by Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge, and implicated as his prime enforcers the very detectives who had tortured Cannon.
For the next two decades, using the ever mounting evidence that the torture by Burge’s crew was systemic and profoundly racist, Cannon and his lawyers fought for his freedom; in 2004 Cannon was exonerated, and in 2007 he was released from prison. During the last 10 years of his imprisonment, Cannon was subjected to another form of torture — confinement in Illinois’ Super Max prison, where he suffered extreme sensory deprivation, the death of his parents, brother, and adopted son, and contracted Hepatitis C from shared razors.
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Day 88
2008: Antelope Valley Voucher Program Littered With Racism
Antelope Valley is a mostly white suburb of LA. Between 1990 and 2010, many blacks began to move to the suburbs for the same reasons that whites move to the suburbs: yards, schools, bigger houses, etc. In 1990, 80% of residents were white. By 2010, the number had dropped to 50%- and white people were not happy.
Most of the blacks (but not all) heading to the burbs were on housing vouchers.
Housing vouchers require occasional “wellness checks” by social services to make sure there isn’t any fraud- to make sure the right amount of people are living there as should be living there, that they didn’t sale the voucher to somebody else and they aren't living there, etc. Pretty basic stuff, and usually a social worker just goes and says, “how many people are living there? 3. Cool” and that’s it.
But, in Antelope Valley they decided to use cops to do these checks, and to do it aggressively- they would barge in without warrants and do illegal searches, they would arrive with SWAT teams for no reason, and otherwise find whatever way possible to harass the tenants and try to force them out of the neighborhood.
According to the DOJ, this really turned into a reign of terror. As many as 9 cops would go to these checks. Deputies would routinely approach the houses with guns drawn. (Note: white people on housing vouchers never received this treatment, so it wasn't because they were poor. It was because they were black)
The sheriff's department completely blurred the lines between administrative checks and criminal searches.
In 2008, 4 officers went to a home for a compliance check. Once inside, the officers “identified” property that they thought was stolen, including a moving dolly labeled “Property of USPS.” Ultimately, the officers arrested the voucher holder for unlawful possession of the dolly, estimated at $125, even though they had zero evidence that it was stolen. The voucher holder was kicked out of the voucher program for allegedly stealing the dolly. So, he lost his housing because this sheriff abused his power.
Racial profiling and illegal searches increased dramatically.
Eventually the DOJ investigated. They concluded that “these actions were carried out with the intent that African American voucher holders leave Antelope Valley.”
One African American said, “I don’t care about the KKK because I’m allowed to defend myself against the KKK.”
Turns out, it's white suburbia many of these people need to fear.
THIS podcast has a ton of great information about so many things, and it's the last 15 minutes that goes into detail about this particular post. But listen to the entire episode- it will change everything you think you know about black crime.
Day 89
Day 90
I hate the term "Defund the Police." They don't really mean get rid of all cops, but they mean STOP USING COPS for things that cops are not trained to do and shouldn't be doing- like basic wellness checks. Send social services- that's what their job is- not cops. That's, in part, what defund the police means.
Day 89
2009: Acclaimed Harvard Professor Arrested For “Breaking Into” His Own House
From The New York Times:
Colleagues of Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard’s most prominent scholar of African-American history, are accusing the police here of racism after he was arrested at his home last week by an officer investigating a report of a robbery in progress.
Professor Gates, who has taught at Harvard for nearly two decades, arrived home on Thursday from a trip to China to find his front door jammed, said Charles J. Ogletree, a law professor at Harvard who is representing him.
He forced the door open with the help of his cab driver, Professor Ogletree said, and had been inside for a few minutes when Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department appeared at his door and asked him to step outside.
Professor Gates, 58, refused to do so, Professor Ogletree said. From that point, the account of the professor and the police began to differ.
According to his lawyer, Professor Gates told the sergeant that he lived there and showed his Massachusetts driver’s license and his Harvard identification card, but Sergeant Crowley still did not seem to believe that Professor Gates lived in the home, a few blocks from Harvard Square. At that point, his lawyer said, Professor Gates grew frustrated and asked for the officer’s name and badge number.
According to the police report, Professor Gates initially refused to show identification.
In the report, Sergeant Crowley said a white female caller* had notified the police around 12:45 p.m. of seeing two black men on the porch of the home, at 17 Ware Street. The caller, who met the police at the house, was suspicious after seeing one of the men “wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry,” according to the report.
A spokesman for the Police Department did not return a call seeking comment. But in the report, Sergeant Crowley said that as he told Professor Gates he was investigating a possible break-in, Professor Gates exclaimed, “Why, because I’m a black man in America?” and accused the sergeant of racism.
“While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence,” Sergeant Crowley wrote in the report, “I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me.”**
Professor Gates followed him outside, the report said, and yelled at him despite the sergeant’s warning “that he was becoming disorderly.”*** Sergeant Crowley then arrested and handcuffed him. Professor Gates was held at police headquarters for hours before being released on his recognizance.
“He is cooperating now with the city to resolve this matter as soon as possible,” Professor Ogletree said, adding that Professor Gates wanted the charges against him dismissed.
Professor Ogletree said that Professor Gates had “never touched” Sergeant Crowley, but did “express his frustration at being subjected to the threat of arrest in his own home.”
*One of the worst parts of the story is that the professor had lived at this house for two decades, yet his neighbor who lived right next door did not recognize him. But, this shows the racial divide- we don’t get to know our black neighbors.
**While I agree it isn’t nice to call someone a racist, it is hardly a reason to arrest somebody. If you are an officer who is so easily offended, perhaps you chose the wrong profession.
***By definition, “disorderly conduct” must involve the public. In Massachusetts, you can not be “disorderly” on your own property. This was an extreme abuse of power and horrific arrest meant simply to embarrass Professor Gates because he called the officer a name.
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Day 90
2010: A False Arrest, Years of Daily Beatings, And A Suicide
This story will break your heart.
Kalief Browder, a Bronx high school student, was arrested and sent to jail for three years, two of them in solitary confinement, without ever being convicted of a crime.
He was accused at 16 of stealing a backpack, and his family was unable to afford his bail, set at $3,000. There was no evidence to support this arrest. The person who accused him lied multiple times to the police and said that “maybe the backpack wasn’t really stolen.”
In a normal arrest like this, the defendant pleads guilty and strikes a deal with the prosecutor. Kalief, however, refused to plead guilty for a crime he didn’t commit. The punishment for not playing the game cost him his life.
He was sent to Rikers Prison where he was beaten multiple times every day- sometimes by prison guards, sometimes by other inmates. He was only 16 years old, but he was nevertheless sent to this prison which had a "deep-seated culture of violence", in which inmates suffered "broken jaws, broken orbital bones, broken noses, long bone fractures, and lacerations requiring stitches". After fights, he would be sent to solitary confinement, where he said guards would attack him while he was in the shower.
The violence was unbearable, but he still wouldn’t confess to a crime he did not commit.
Eventually, after three years, the accuser went back to his home country and all charges were dropped.
Finally Kalief was allowed to go home, but the damage was done. He was severely psychologically scarred.
He did complete his GED and began attending college. Browder said, "I see businessmen and businesswomen dressed in suits ... I want to be successful, like them".
Unfortunately, the demons from his time in prison wouldn’t go away, and in 2015 he committed suicide. His mother found his hanging body.
Sources/Comments:
In three years, he never stood trial. He spent three years in jail waiting for a trial and was subjected to daily abuse. Not only is this a massive waste of taxpayer dollars, this is immoral in every way. How do we let this happen? Remember, this was a 16 year old kid.
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