More on the Henderson Case
About three or four summers ago, on a Fourth of July weekend, a good friend and neighbor of mine called to — hesitantly — ask me if everything was OK at my house. He could hear the puzzled sound to my voice when I responded “yes, everything’s fine.”
“The only reason I asked is because you have four police cars in your driveway,” he explained. Uh, I immediately saw how that could be taken as a “clue” something might be amiss. It’s not very often anyone has four police cruisers in their driveway, unless of course something like perhaps a grisly axe murder had recently taken place.
I thanked my neighbor for his concern and laughingly explained to him that my buddy, a Cleveland police commander, had bragged so much to other Third District senior officers about how great my baby back ribs always turned out, I’d finally told him to invite them over for a sampling on their lunch hour. It was the least I could do since this cop (now retired) never, ever allows anyone else to pick up the tab, no matter how large the group at breakfast or lunch. He wouldn’t even allow anyone else to leave the tip!
Not to brag, but yes, my baby backs are considered by many to be the best they ever tasted, even though I only eat them — or any other meat — sparingly these days. But as my father (who owned the rib joint on Scovill Avenue that we lived upstairs over) taught me at a very early age, “Son, the only thing wrong with a pig… is that it ain’t as big as an elephant!” But I digress.
I relate the above true story to dispel the notion that I dislike cops. Actually, I’m great friends with a number of mature police officers. The term I’ve occasionally heard, whenever I’ve criticized the actions of police officers, is “cop-hater.” Young cowboy officers, police union leaders and fools with radio shows love to play the juvenile game of “either you’re with us or against us… and if you’re with us, you’ll accept and defend any and everything we do 100 percent of the time, no questions asked,” which is total unmitigated bullshit. Like anyone else, police officers can be wrong.
This “us versus them” attitude, with “them” being the citizenry they are sworn to protect and serve, is what’s wrong with policing in America. But with that said, it’s only a small, tiny percent of officers that “go rogue,” and that’s usually because they were psychologically unfit to wear a uniform and carry a gun to begin with. Not everyone deals with the bestowal of inordinate power in the same manner, and in a few cases it goes to the head of especially young police officers.
But once a law enforcement officer is sworn in anywhere in this country, even when it becomes clear to superiors they should not be trusted with a badge and gun, very rarely is anything ever done to correct the mistake. An unofficial police code of conduct exists among officers and protecting each other — the good, the bad and even the ugly — is what the Blue Wall of Silence is erected to do… the public welfare be damned. Someone has to damn near die before anything is done, and oftentimes not even then.
This is why — around the country — the tragedy of police brutality occasionally strikes. And, make no mistake, what happened on New Year’s Day to Edward Henderson while he was being arrested is a tragedy for all involved. Once the video of the incident is released, lives and careers will no doubt be ruined… and ruined unnecessarily.
Can incidents like the one allegedly caught on camera be avoided? Of course, but only with better training of young officers… something that was supposed to happen back in 2000 but never did. In September of that year the U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation into allegations of misconduct by Cleveland police officers. A spokesperson for the Department said at the time that the investigation was similar to those which led to civil rights lawsuits against the cities of Columbus, Pittsburgh and Steubenville in 1997.
Police departments in those cities “agreed to implement widespread reforms in training, supervision and discipline of officers and to reform procedures for investigation of civilian complaints,” according to published reports at the time. However, for some reason, the investigation in Cleveland died on the vine; it was never initiated. No records of any findings or conclusions can seemingly be located anywhere.
A nationally-prominent civil rights litigator recently schooled me on what happened: Around the country, he said, cases like the one in Cleveland immediately disappeared as soon as George W. Bush took the oath of office. And once departments were freed from the constraints and fears of a potential Justice Department investigation, the number of police brutality complaints around the country shot up dramatically. “Police began serving up ass whippings like they were lunch,” the now-retired attorney told me.
But such incidents weaken our democracy, not strengthen it as law enforcement zealots like to think. To wit: Only in harsh, brutal totalitarian dictatorships are citizens afraid to criticize police or prosecutors, but, increasingly in this country — and certainly in this city and county — people are cautious and guarded, whispering in hushed tones like cowards afraid to speak out when to comes to police misconduct… too afraid to protect the democratic principals our forefathers fought and died to establish. Is this the America we want?
Ironically, on the same day the PD headline announced that the Department of Justice has taken an interest in the Henderson case a meeting was held on Public Square to announce the opening of a Welcome Center (see next article) for immigrants we wish to attract to the area. Seeing as how these folks are minorities, let’s just hope and pray they didn’t see the newspaper that day.
Welcome! We Won’t Caricature You… Promise
Last week a plethora of city and county civic leaders and bigwigs gathered together on Public Square for the announcement of the opening of the Cleveland International Welcome Center, which will attempt to attract educated immigrants from all over the world. Indeed, study after study has shown that immigrants bring talent, drive, innovation and energy to regions where they elect to relocate. And those skills rejuvenate economies and create jobs for all.
Greater Cleveland’s leadership — some members of which had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the table — is finally realizing that in order to grow our economy… indeed, just to hold ground and prevent further erosion of our economic base… we have to attract and retain talent. Real talent. Other areas of the country are way ahead of us in their efforts in this regard, so we’re going to have to mount a serious, sustained and skillfully executed effort if we’re going to beat out cities like Charlotte, San Jose, and Austin in the race to make our region inviting to people from other countries and cultures.
So, if our civic leaders are serious about this effort (and I have to take the word of the people who’ve put years of work into making this Welcome Center a reality that they are), why are we shooting ourselves in the collective foot by being the only city in the country that continues to disrespect a segment of its population by clinging to an outdated racist caricature like Chief Wahoo?
Don’t the very bright people who are putting this initiative together realize the people they are attempting to attract are very bright too? Do they really think immigrants will fail to notice how we treat a group of people who’re from a different minority culture… like they themselves are? Do we expect these potentially new Clevelanders to be as small-mined as some Cleveland residents are, and say to themselves, “Hey, as long as they aren’t clowning me or my race I’m OK with it?”
I don’t know… is it that too many Clevelanders are just diehard racists, or just diehard stupid? You would think that any sane person(s) who really wanted to win would do everything in their legal and moral power to make winning possible. You wouldn’t offend the immigrants you’re attempting to attract, and you wouldn’t offend the gods of good Karma who, to this point, have prevented Cleveland’s baseball team from winning a World Series even when one was all but in the bag.
Baseball players are known to be the most superstitious of all athletes… ask anyone. So, while Cleveland baseball fans might not believe that the curse Native Americans placed on Progressive Field the first day it opened back in 1994 is real, powerful and enduring, it doesn’t matter one whit: The fact remains that players all around the major leagues believe it… and when they get traded to Cleveland they play the game accordingly. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy… you’re supposed to be a bum team. Other teams know the Cleveland franchise is a “mark” and that coming here is usually an easy victory. The question is this: Would Cleveland baseball fans trade Chief Wahoo for a World Series victory? Fact is, they’ll never know until they get rid of that grinning fool, now will they?
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.