This week Dave Shadrick wants to remind folks not to tear your house down because you are mad about the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial; no matter what that verdict is. No matter what the verdict let’s not have any more deaths. Demonstrate if you must, but use courtesy and commonsense.
It is interesting how many ways the phrase OMG can be used, such as in total awesome disbelief seeing a father lift a car off his trapped son, or how about when there is a worm on your lettuce leaf, that’s a whole different kind of OMG. Then we have the OMG escape our lips when we watch the image of a Minneapolis cop slowly, seemingly arrogantly, extinguish the life of another human being on national television. Now, for any living breathing person with a heart who watched that video who wasn’t totally gut wrenchingly appalled needs to seek immediate therapy.
I don’t want to piss everybody off, but as I have watched the prosecution case build on itself I have been disturbed by the brutality and the arrogance of the entire event. Derek Chauvin, according to media reports served for nineteen years on the Minneapolis Police Department and accumulated seventeen complaints of misconduct complaints during that time. In what probably is a backlash response, I look at Mr. Chauvin and see what is bad about American policing. Not only did Mr. Chauvin fail his department and his community, but his department failed him. His is not an unusual case, other than he was memorialized for 9 minutes and 29 seconds by a teenage girl who filmed Chauvin’s left knee pinned to the neck of a black man while the victim pleaded for relief. Derek Chauvin is now on trial for Mr. Floyd’s death.
In Minneapolis, after 19 years authorities finally took ‘quick’ action against Mr. Chauvin, and three other officers who were on the scene when Mr. Floyd died. This does not mean all of them are gone for good. Public employees can appeal their dismissals and in many cases, police officers win their cases and municipalities put them back on the job every day. Despite community outrage nationwide over the deaths of black men at the hands of police it is notoriously difficult to hold police officers accountable in the United States. Some of the problem is because of the political power police unions wield, the hesitancy of investigators, and the reluctance of prosecutors and juries to second guess a police officer’s split second decision and the wide latitude the law gives the police to use force.
The events have played out against, and in some ways have reinforced the racial divisions in America, as largely white police forces are accused of bias and brutality in black, Latino and other minority communities. The Floyd death came within weeks of killings of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. These deaths have unleashed a wave of protests unlike anything since the 1960’s.
Police Departments around the country are often the core of resistance against change. Departments have consistently resisted civilian review or balked when it comes to overhauling officer disciplinary practices. Police chiefs in cities which have been the sites of high profile deaths of black men by white officers, have failed to punish or remove bad actors. Where civilian review boards are operating most are notoriously weak. Often they do nothing more than collect information, but have no power to make recommendations or enforce recommendations.
Several sources including Minneapolis Police Department Internal Affairs have released information on Dereck Chauvin conduct during his service. We do know that Mr. Chauvin has been involved in at least three shootings in his career. In addition he left a trail of misconduct complaints and a reputation for aggression. Chauvin’s combative reputation extended to his second job as a security person for a nightclub in the area. It has been demonstrated that Mr. Chauvin has operated in disregard for the particular circumstances of a given situation in determining appropriate reasonable force and simply fully restrains suspects with no regard for their well being.
I believe that Derek Chauvin is also a victim. We hear TV commentators laud other cops who are testifying against him, like police chief Medaria Arradondo for “breaking the blue wall of silence.” As if these ‘good cops’ are coming out to punish a ‘bad cop.’ Well, I think that is a pile of horse puckie. All these good cops had nineteen years to stop the bad activities of Derek Chauvin and thousands more like him. He is now on trial because no one was interested in stopping him before his actions were so repulsive and appalling that millions hit the streets to demand better. But, until then, shove it under the rug, ignore it, hide it.
So, here I am today, Sunday 4/18/2021 saying Derek Chauvin is now, just as he always was, just one of the guys. Derek Chauvin was allowed to manifest into a killer within the Minneapolis Police Department. In a warm protective environment. I doubt Derek Chauvin would have ever killed anyone if he had not been wearing a badge. America’s policing is on trial. It is time that police departments sell off their tanks and invest in psychiatric interns, and marriage counselors to accomplish community ‘needs-based’ services.
Calling the cops is not the right answer for every stressful situation. But, the way our 911 system functions, cops are often the first dispatched personnel. Frequently such calls spiral out of control because the appropriately trained individuals have not been dispatched for the call. And often these mishandled calls end up in death. Personally I don’t think the needed changes will happen from the inside. I think we as a nation need to protect the Floyd George’s who are victims of police racism and brutality.
Journalists are supposed to be impartial. A basic course in every journalism school is ‘journalistic ethics.’ Students with other educational backgrounds who want to write journalism are also encouraged to take a course in ethics. This was the path I took after my degree in History. Sadly, it can be difficult to tell sometimes whether mainstream reporting has lost its sense of ethics or if it ever had any at all.
During the continuing coverage of the Derek Chauvin Trial on CNN I have heard the defendant called a “murderer” and the incident called “murder” in connection with the case. Not in the metaphorical sense or that of potentiality, using qualifiers such as “alleged” or “accused” but as a statement of fact. Except the trial is ongoing and Chauvin hasn’t been convicted of anything yet. To refer to him as a murderer as a statement of fact is at best a gross breach of professional ethics and could be grounds for a defamation case if he is found not guilty.
Take Nick Sandmann, the Covington Catholic school student seen in the notorious video in which he seems to be smiling and mocking a Native American elder. Sandmann, who is a minor, received multiple threats of violence and death after publication of the video. Some of those threats came from high-profile celebrities, who faced no backlash, or legal ramifications, for making such threats against a minor. Turns out everyone got it wrong. The inflammatory chants were apparently coming from a group of Black Hebrew Israelites off to the side of the school group. And, the elder had gotten into Sandmann’s face, rather than the other way around. Sandmann and his family sued several media outlets including CNN and The Washington Post for slander and defamation.
The root issue in the case of the “Covington Kids” was that mainstream news outlets were reporting information that was going up online without checking it. A clear, and dangerous violation of the trust the public up in them to be a impartial and reliable media source.
The Court of Public Opinion can be a powerful force in society, possibly turning dangerous when applied to actual court cases, particularly in terms of jury trials. A factor brought into sharp focus by the case of the Central Park Five. There was a wide-spread fear of black youth crime in New York in the late 1980s. The problem magnified by the news media, which could also can be said to be a contributing factor to the guilty verdict. In addition to such outrage as full-page “ads” by Donald Trump demanding the death penalty. Five African-American and Latino youths ended up falsely convicted of raping a female jogger, during a string of sexual assaults in Central Park in the summer of 1989. The youths served sentences of six to twelve years, only to have their charges dropped and records expunged when someone else, a known criminal confessed.
One of the most egregious cases of mistrial by media is that of the West Memphis Three. A trio of teenaged Metalheads with the misfortune to live in West Memphis Arkansas in 1994. The teens were convicted of murder. This was done toward the end of a media driven Satanic Panic. A stupefying case of mass hysteria, almost on par with Salem, which saw everyone from elected officials, to media outlets and parent’s groups believing that there was an organized Satanic conspiracy gripping America. Geraldo Rivera stated on his show that there were “over one million Satanist in America,” Not least because the news media were reporting on utterly debunked claims such as *backmasking and Satanic Ritual Abuse, most of which were associated with Metal music at the time.
Such reports directly influencing the jury when they found Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley, Jr. and Jason Baldwin guilty of the killing of three young children the year before. Echols was sentenced to death. Misskelley Jr. was sentenced to life plus to twenty year sentences and Baldwin was sentenced to life. All on evidence so flimsy as to be considered laughable, much of which revolved around the three dressing in black and listening to Metal. They we’re essentially convicted of being Metalheads.
At least that was how it was suppose to be. In an interesting case of fighting media lies with media truth, Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky produced a trilogy of documentaries on the case. Those productions included, Paradise Lost, Paradise Lost: Revelations and Paradise Lost: Purgatory. Each film was strongly critical of the case, and make it abundantly clear that Echols, Misskelley and Baldwin were basically railroaded by a system dead-set against them. The three were released in 2011 on plea deals which basically amounted to time-served, their convictions still standing, despite new physical and DNA evidence points to two other men.
The media and its influence are incredibly powerful, and need to be held to account. If not by their parent companies or advertisers, then the public they seek to influence and manipulate rather than inform. If you are wondering why you should trust me, when I am part of the media myself, keep in mind I am not a journalist. I’m a historian and I have a firm grasp on how bad things can get.
Definition:
*Backmasking is a recording technique where by a sound or message is recorded backward onto a track that is meant to be played forward. Backmasking is a deliberate process, whereas a message found through phonetic reversal may be unintentional. Wikipedia
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