[Peace-discuss] RE: What happened Friday night?

[Esther Patt]

If you want to get the most mileage out of your appearance at city council, I suggest that a much better question than "why are these officers not on suspension?" is "why does standard police procedure involve use of excessive force when there is no criminal activity underway or suspicion of a crime?"
 
On this morning's T.V. news, Finney was reporting that the Department investigated the incident and decided there was no wrong-doing on the part of the police officers involved because their behavior was standard procedure.  I'm not defending what the officers did, but Finney is right.  The problem isn't cops misbehaving.  The problem IS the standard procedure.  
 
When you criticize personnel, city officials will defend their employees.  Please don't take this down the wrong path.  Rank and file officers are not the source of the problem.  The standard operating procedure IS the problem.
 
The procedure has to change.  I urge those who speak tonight to focus on that instead of complaining about the individual officers who happened to be there.   You could have 100% turn-over of personnel in the police department and nothing would change until the policies and procedures change.  
 
Esther Patt


Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 21:14:01 -0500From: briandolinar at gmail.comTo: announce at communitycourtwatch.org; grosales at ad.uiuc.edu; GinaJackson at ci.champaign.il.us; jenny-p at sbcglobal.net; dj_matt_99 at yahoo.com; melodye at nitrogendesign.com; estherpatt at hotmail.com; contactus at habariconnection.com; williams_clan at sbcglobal.net; stop at iresist.org; peace-discuss at lists.chambana.netSubject: What happened Friday night?Here's a write up from the investigative work of Martel Miller, with the help of Chris Evans.We will be taking up this issue at the Champaign City Council meeting, Tuesday, April 3 at 7pm.Friday night, March 30, a 17 year-old black youth was confronted by police in Douglass Park.  An altercation ensued, ending with the youth being heavily pepper sprayed, an ambulance arriving, and him being taken to the hospitol.  This is the victim's story:
According to the victim, the officer that approached the 17 year old was NOT the officer that attacked the victim. The attacking officer came from another squad car and acted on her own provocation without telling the victim why he was being attacked and apprehended. This happened in front of the nine-year old and 15 year-old. Still not explained is why the female officer needed to use force in the first place. When she attacked the 17 year-old, his "hoodie" got caught in a chain link fence, and other officers joined in the fray, and the youth was trying to get his shirt unhooked off the fence. The victim was NOT resisting. Other officers piled on top of him, and it was then he was punched in the face causing the bleeding. While he was piled upon and subdued already, it was then that the officers used pepper spray directly into his face and nostrils. According to the victim, he was punched in the face, there were knees into his neck and back while he screamed that he was having difficulty breathing. It was then when they pepper sprayed him. The nine-year old and 15 year-old watched all this. One other youth watching was the one who ran down to Gina Jackson's house, which may have stopped the police brutality from escalating further and saved the young man's life.Questions from the community are why are these officers still on active duty and will there be some suspensions? Chief Finney promised nearly 3 years ago, that it was his priority to improve relations with the black community and police. It looks like we have a long way to go.-- Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.303 W. Locust St.Urbana, IL 61801briandolinar at gmail.com 
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