Explaining an explosion

Police accountability in the recent unrest in North Minneapolis
by Lydia Howell

A spray of automatic weapon fire kills a Northside family’s dog with three bullets and hits an 11-year-old boy in the arm. 
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s response is to call for “more aggressive law enforcement” against drugs. Julius Powell wasn’t caught in the cross fire of a drug deal gone bad or gang turf warfare. He was carelessly shot by a Minneapolis police officer, part of a militarized SWAT team, that opened fire when the boy answered the door. The Star Tribune and Pioneer Press have not produced a single eyewitness account of the August 22nd shooting that led to a “melee,” resulting in their reporters’ assault. As is standard mainstream media practice, only the police version of events is given to the public. 
MPD protocol is that the Sheriff’s Department investigates all police shootings,but three days later that investigation had not occurred.
The violent outbreak of rage is more upsetting to many than the police shooting that ignited it. But, such riots (from “the LA Rebellion” after cops were exonerated for beating Rodney King to last year’s Cincinnati uproar when police killed another unarmed black man to what just happened here) are distress signals of our democracy, made by people too often ignored.
The Powells’ big yellow house on 26th Avenue North sprawls almost to the sidewalk, the perfect hub for this African American extended family. The grandmother bought it in 1999 and it’s always filled with grown sons and daughters, their mates, and lots of kids. It’s the place for Sunday dinner, BBQ birthday, where you come if you get laid off your job or are getting a divorce. Next door is the Jordan Community Garden, red paths through flowers and tomato plants. A chain link fence, covered in morning glories, encloses it. Knox Avenue North ends that block and Big Stop Foods begins the next. Unlike white suburbs, inner city neighborhoods buzz with people; the sidewalk and porch extend one’s living room. But, crime too often invades what could be an urban version of a small town. I go to the Jordan neighborhood the morning after the “melee.” My trepidation quickly dissolves.
“There’s drug-selling on the corner. I put my life in jeopardy every day telling them to move along,” said Franklin Powell, uncle to the boy police shot. “They connect our house because we live on the corner.” Swallowing frustration he continues, “We had that dog three years, since he was a pup. Obedience trained. He was on a leash!” Another Powell brother pipes up that yet another brother is a police cadet. Franklin Powell almost mumbles, “Loved that dog. It’s a miracle my nephew wasn’t killed. Why would police start shooting around so many people?”
People talk with angry openness, though few will give their real names, citing universal fear of being identified by drug dealers and/or police. Here, people don’t go from an attached garage directly into their homes, many ride the bus, walk and know what’s up in the ‘hood. People know who “the bad actors” are and who might deal a little marijuana but is harmless. Over and over people make the same complaints:
“When there’s real trouble, the cops take their time or don’t come at all.” 
“We’ve called forever about the dealers on the corner but they don’t do nothin’.”
“I’ve got a job! I’m NOT a drug dealer! I’m sick of being jacked by the police all the time like I’m a criminal.”
I’ve heard the same complaints on the Southside. I’ve experienced the hostile indifference of police that often seems to be the best one can hope for as an inner city resident. 
Despite Chief Robert Olson’s claims about “community policing,” inner city communities are too often ignored. For three years on the West Bank, I experienced this. Crack dealers moved in and sales started around 5 p.m. and went all night. Residents, the caretaker and even the building’s owner called the police for three years. One neighbor, beaten by these invaders, has permanent brain damage. I was assaulted twice—knowing my assailant from the neighborhood. How did police respond?
“What do you expect to happen living in this neighborhood? You ought to move.” Later, I discovered they hadn’t even filed my complaint. I didn’t call the police the second time I was assaulted.
I’m white. How responsive are police when a person of color calls? Can some police tell the difference between a black person and a criminal?
“The cops had a gun to my girlfriend’s face while she’s holding her three-year-old! They put a gun to my uncle’s head,” says Ron Powell, an edge in his warm voice. “This is because of that Officer Schmidt. Cops told Tony that if he didn’t get in the house he’d be dead.”
“The cops told my kids ‘Shut up or we’ll shoot you too,’” says Gertrude Powell who is still furious. Her kids are 8 and 10 years old.
James witnessed the raid on the Powells. (This 14-year-old was abused by police the day before. His mother was met with insults when she complained to the precinct commander.)
“The cops came out of the van like in army formation,” James said. “When the boy came to the door with his dog, they just fired.” Another neighbor, Paul, observed the raid from across the street, echoing this account, saying, “The door opened and their MAC 22s went off immediately.”
In the Star Tribune, MPD public information officer Cindi Barrington called the police shooting of Julius Powell “a freak unfortunate situation.” While no one asserts the shooting was deliberate, it reveals a level of “accepted” negligent carelessness by police proving that black lives—even black children’s lives—are expendable.
The reality is people of color (north and south) live between a big rock and a very hard place: consistently, police treat them with contempt and intimidation; their neighborhoods are “crime containment areas” without the equitable police response to crime that most whites take for granted.

Imagine you can be stopped by police any time, for any or no reason: new car or junker, day or night, dressed for work or play. Imagine that any stop can result in arbitrary arrest, hours in jail even with no other charge except “resisting arrest.” Imagine this is a fact of life that isn’t just inconvenience for the sake of “ public safety” because any stop might result in your serious injury or death.
It’s called DWB: Driving While Black (or brown). For black teenagers, it’s a grim rite of passage with their driver’s license. For black parents it’s a terror for their children few white parents can comprehend.
National polls show most whites acknowledge that police practice racial profiling. Tracking (and ending) this bias is impossible when police departments refuse to collect data systematically. State Rep. Rick Staneck, (a Maple Grove cop) pushed a toothless bill last year, ending debate and blocking real solutions.
Civil rights organizations report they are called daily about police brutality, though feel there’s little they can do about it. Almost every black man this writer spoke with the morning after the “riot” (and some women, too) described experiences of police abuses. Those who tried to complain were harassed by police, ignored by Internal Affairs or Civilian Review “lost” their case. Most said it wasn’t worth the risk of further police abuses to file a complaint no one would address anyway. This frustrated justice is a major cause of the “tensions” that boiled over Aug. 22.
Other recent police shootings intensified these ongoing, ignored and unanswered daily abuses. The August 1st death of white MPD Officer Melissa Schmidt (allegedly shot by African-American, 60 year old Martha Donald) escalated a police attitude of “Us vs. Them” toward the black community. On Aug. 13, police shot Terrelle Oliver four times in the back, as he fled over a fence. Afterwards, many witnesses reported officers saying, “You got one of ours. Now we got one of yours.” Cops “pointed a trigger finger” at Northside residents saying, “You’re next.” The morning after the Powell shooting, Jordan neighbors said this “trigger-finger” intimidation by police is common, but increased since Schmidt’s death. While anyone could understand officers’ grief, the total dehumanization of Martha Donald and vengefulness towards the entire black community added fuel to smoldering coals. 
The Police Federation attack on Minneapolis’ only black City Council member, Natalie Johnson Lee, was a struck match. She lauded Officer Schmidt, yet, expressed condolences to both the Schmidt and Donald families for “the deaths of two fellow citizens—two fellow human beings.” The Police Federation responded with scathing assault on Johnson-Lee’s character, a demand she resign and the continued total dehumanization of Donald. (To read both statements, see www.spokesman-rec.com)
A dozen unarmed (almost all black) people have been killed by police in recent years. Each death was considered “justified.” Not only are police above the law, but their lives are considered more valuable. Relentlessly, black people are told that their lives are worth nothing at all.
In war zones, journalists are usually seen as “neutral non-combatants.” Why were Star Tribune reporters beaten and TV news vehicles vandalized? I believe mainstream media were quite specifically targeted for the role they play as the public relations organ of police departments. 
The Star Tribune reported the shooting of Julius Powell only from a police perspective, without any civilian witnesses or comment from the Powell family. They’ve continued to criminalize the Powells by repeating “a gun and narcotics” were found, to bolster MPD claims a SWAT team raid was justified. The fact is about four cigarettes worth of marijuana were confiscated and it was a legal, registered gun.
In the Oliver shooting, the press reported he had 22 arrests, without clarifying if he’d ever been actually charged or convicted of any crime. Commonly, “resisting arrest” (without any other infraction note) means a trip downtown. Many black men have records of such baseless arrests, a side effect of racial profiling. 
“Blacks are arrested far more often by ‘officer discretionary crimes’ and held without charges. Whites arrested are more often actually charged with a crime in the same circumstances. That means officers had probable cause to arrest whites,” explains civil rights lawyer Jill Clark. “I believe this use of arrest without charges is a form of harassment that violates civil rights.”
It also serves to discredit people of color after being brutalized by police. Mainstream media collaborates in this character assassination which, in our white supremist culture, ripples out to undermine the credibility of entire communities. Few black people are believed even in the rare moments that corporate media quotes them. Mainstream media sunk to a new low by continually repeating the (physically impossible) allegation that Martha Donald “concealed a 38 caliber gun in her buttocks.” The female officer who shot Donald says the elder woman was wearing tight pants and was pat searched, before going into the restroom with Schmidt.”
“Media portray us as animals,” states Tracey Williams, president of Minneapolis Spokesman-Recorder, a 68-year-old African-American newspaper. “They rarely have us as eyewitnesses. When we’re allowed a voice, they pick the most upset person—to discredit us.”
Conversely, police veracity is never questioned. Police commonly claim suspects lunged for officers’ guns or made some other threat that justified shooting the suspect. Autopsies reveal the victim was actually shot in the back—which isn’t reported. Lawrence Miles, a Northside 15-year-old, shot in the back four years ago, lived. Media said he had a gun, but a firefighter saw an officer place a ‘throw-down’ gun by the youth—never reported. (‘Throw-downs’ are guns confiscated from suspects and “re-used” to back up police after questionable shootings.) Such cover-ups have been exposed around the country, yet the police version remains all you see on TV news.
“It’s about our voices not being heard,” says Williams of reporters being attacked. “Media plays a role in saying whatever is done to African-Americans is OK.”
“What kind of world do we live in when police shoot a child and the family is blamed? All the mayor can think to say is ‘we need more aggressive policing,’” says Michelle Gross of Communities United Against Police Brutality. “With communities in a state of siege, we need more aggressive measures against police brutality.” At press time, no City official offered an apology or help with medical care for the shooting of Julius Powell. Gross posed a question to ponder: “Why is the grandmother charged with child endangerment when police fired the guns?”
A day after police shot Julius Powell, CUAPB welcomed federal mediator Pat Glynn to Minneapolis. Mayor Rybak refused to mediate around police accountability a month ago. The Northside explosion and Glynn’s successful mediation after Cincinnati riots last year may be convincing. The Civilian Review Authority redesign proposal, stripped of significant changes by city co-coordinator John Moir, comes before the City Council soon. A public hearing for community voices was held Aug. 29 at Minneapolis City Hall. A class-action lawsuit is being formed with eyewitnesses police refused to interview. For information on these activities, call CUAPB 612-874-STOP.