by Frederick H. Lowe

Black people recently have witnessed two heinous incidents in which police on both coasts shattered any confidence many of us had in law enforcement.

In one case, a California highway patrolman, wearing black gloves, was captured on video brutally beating Marlene Pinnock, a homeless, mentally ill black great-grandmother along the side of a Los Angeles highway. Pinnock is 51.

Weeks later, a New York City police officer killed Eric Garner, 43, by putting him in an illegal chokehold. The black man was reportedly selling “loosie” cigarettes, a crime which evidently comes with a death sentence administered by the NYPD.

The police have not yet issued an official finding in the chokehold death, but individuals acting as unofficial police experts have said the victim did not die from the chokehold alone. In disseminating unofficial information, the so-called experts are creating just enough doubt through the media to increase the likelihood of the police officer returning to duty.

The media and California Highway Patrol also are paving the way for the assaulting cop to return to duty. The highway patrol has a black spokesman, and the media in the chokehold case have employed news readers who are black. In both instances, it sends a message that racial prejudice had no role in the beating or the death. After all, black people are providing television viewers with the information. 

Both cases have several things in common. Neither of the victims was armed. Both were protecting themselves from the police and we know this because both incidents were filmed by bystanders.  Their videos received wide distribution over the Internet.

But we are not supposed to believe our lying eyes. We are supposed to let the police investigate both incidents as though their investigations will make a difference and are not preordained to clear both cops either through an investigation or a grand jury process that refuses to indict. After a couple of months, the brutal cop and the killer cop will return to regular duty as though nothing happened. 

The Huffington Post pointed this out in a recent article about New York City police killing unarmed black men and getting away with it. One of the killer cops was named officer of the year.

After reading the story, it is clear neither the police nor a grand jury will do anything to punish police who kill or beat unarmed black men and black women.  

This was made clear in an incident in January when an unarmed black man seeking help following a one-car accident was shot to death by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police. A partial grand jury initially refused to indict the cop.

Why is this? Most of this country’s laws were borrowed from England, which at one time was the world’s largest slave trader, according to the book “Britain’s Black Debt.” The book, written by Sir Hilary McD. Beckles, chair in Social and Economic History at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, argues that all levels of the English society, including the Anglican Church, African slavery was in the country’s best interest and that Africans were to be treated a brutally as possible.

African Americans are descendants of Africans and nothing much has changed except some black people have adopted the worst traits of the police. I live in Chicago and every Monday morning I hear on the radio about dozens of people who have been shot and wounded or shot and killed over the weekend. Usually, there are no individual stories. Just nameless lumps of discarded black human flesh mentioned for a day at the top of the news hour.

My son works in Englewood, a neighborhood known for its high crime rate and violence, according to the police and news media. He likes his job, which is teaching third and fourth graders math and science. After listening to the bad news on the radio, I’m most happy when he walks through the door at the end of the day and says, “Hi, Dad. What’s there to eat?”

I don’t have an answer to police beatings, police murders, shootings and murders by our own people. We do need to ask “What must be done?”