[Peace-discuss] "To FBI or Not, that is our question..."

[Melodye Rosales]

Here is a reference to the City of Champaign's generous and racially
sensitive offer by Chief Finney to bring in the FBI to review Civil Rights
procedures in the Department post-Kiwane.  My problem is that the City and
Chief have negotiated and found the unit and individual(s) they want to
bring into the process.  It reminds me of when they brought in Kenith
Bergeron (Justice Departments mediator) who is African-American (Creole) to
provide strategies to the CCAAP members of how to self police and keep the
natives calm.  Naturally I was alarmed when I see Bergeron in the document
below.  I was even more startled to read that after the investigation (like
ours) report was released exonerating any wrong doing by the officer who
shot an unarmed Black man, the NAACP requested an independent FBI probe.  I
must make you read the document below in order for you to find out what
happened pre and post-FBI intervention.

-M
*

...Another issue involved determining viable methods to
prevent law enforcement agencies from utilizing techniques based on the use
of racial
profiles. Of concern to any police department is the potential for adverse
legal action
against an agency accused of utilizing racial profiling techniques that
could result in civil
lawsuits, federal consent decrees, and legislative mandates.*

As was the case at the national level, the State of Minnesota and the City
of Saint
Paul were actively involved in discussions regarding racial profiling, yet
the two
government entities experienced completely different outcomes. In April of
2000, the
state legislative session ended with prominent members of the executive and
legislative
branches of government, and many chief law enforcement executives throughout
the
state, publicly stating that racial profiling was not a problem in
Minnesota.
*
The communities of color, civil rights advocates, and civil liberty
organizations did not agree
with this determination. No forum existed for resolution of the disparate
viewpoints.*


This policy is intended to address biased-based profiling in general, and
racial-based profiling specifically. Profiling of this type is an issue with
communities and law enforcement agencies across the nation, and has
been specifically prohibited by Saint Paul Police Department Policy and
General Orders since July 1996. The practice of unlawful profiling is
based on stereotypical characteristics of persons or groups that some
officers believe may have a propensity to engage in criminal activity.
Profiling has been identified as the stopping of motorists, the detentions
of
a person, the search of a person or vehicle based solely on the individual’s
race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, and marital status,
status
with regard to public assistance, disability, sexual orientation, or age.
Bias-based profiling is illegal and inconsistent with the core values of the
Saint Paul Police Department.


The Saint Paul NAACP decided to use the published report by the Institute on
Race and Poverty to convince the Community Relations Service of the U. S.
Department
of Justice to assist in an effort to mediate concerns between the
African-American
community and the Saint Paul Police Department. The Saint Paul Police
Department’s
leadership viewed the voluntary mediation as a necessary step for improving
relations
with the African-American community. The department made the decision to
engage in
the voluntary process without prior knowledge of the NAACP’s discussion with
the U. S.
Department of Justice regarding the option of seeking a *consent decree.*

[*consent decree **is an option to consider for the Champaign Police
Department]*

In 2001, the police administration and the executive board of the Saint Paul
Chapter of the NAACP met and discussed measures designed to address racial
profiling
and police community relations in general. The meetings occurred between
March 19
and June 19, 2001, and included *Kenith Bergeron, assigned as the mediator
from the
Community Relations Service of the U. S. Department of Justice.* The
measures agreed
to were contained in four basic categories: 1) taking steps to ensure racial
profiling does
not occur; 2) expanding the jurisdiction and improving the effectiveness of
the Saint Paul
Police Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission; 3) improving police
relations in the
communities of color; and 4) improving the police department’s community
relations in
general.

[*Kenith Bergeron **is the mediator brought in by the Champaign City
Manager, Steve Carter for both the Brian Chesley incident and the Kiwane
Carrington killing]*

*The NAACP Agreement* served the community and the police department well by
elevating the level of cooperation and lowering the tension between the
entities. One
particularly *tragic event that seriously challenged* the partnership
between the NAACP
and the Saint Paul police department *occurred within six months after
completion of the
agreement.*

During December 2001, an individual seriously injured three people in a
series of drug related shootings occurring during one hour within a six
square block area.
Shortly after the shootings, an officer responded to a *report of an armed
carjacking in
progress*, apparently involving the same offender wanted in the previous
shootings.
When the officer arrived, he observed two African-American men of similar
description
struggling over control of a handgun. The officer ordered the subject in
possession of the
handgun at the time to drop the weapon.

Residents were providing information (regarding which of the two men
fighting was the carjacking offender)
to the police communication center during the confrontation, but attempts to
relay the information to
the officer on scene were unsuccessful. The officer on scene reported that
the subject in
possession of the handgun set the weapon down on a refuse dumpster then
picked the
weapon up again, but this time, according to the officer, he pointed the
weapon at the
police officer. The officer fired his shotgun killing the subject with the
handgun and
inflicting a non-lethal gunshot to the second subject.

The individual killed by the officer was Charles Craighead who was
determined
after the fact to be the victim of the armed carjacking. The officer
intentionally used
deadly force on the victim believing he was the offender because of the
threat posed
when the victim pointed the handgun at the officer.
*
After the shooting, community members angrily demanded the officer be
charged
criminally because a white police officer had killed an innocent
African-American man.*

One can easily understand the community’s outrage due to the circumstances,
emotion,
and history of police killings of African-American individuals. The
community generally
lacked the information necessary to form an accurate understanding of the
facts on which
to base a decision. Initial statements made by Craighead’s wife to the
police during the
investigation differed greatly from the statements she made later and
publicly. Her
actions exacerbated the situation in the community.

*The NAACP abided by the agreement signed in 2000, maintaining an impartial
stance in response to the community’s demand that the officer be subject to
criminal
sanctions before the investigation could be completed.*

President of the NAACP Nathaniel Khaliq chose a course of action for his
organization
that included calling for calm and admonishing people to await the results
of the investigation
before making public statements condemning the actions of the police
department and the officer.
Communication between the leadership of the NAACP and the police department
continued during the volatile period following the killing and kept the
NAACP informed
of the information developed during the investigation. NAACP members were
also pivotal in
convincing reluctant witnesses to cooperate with the police department.

Following completion of the department investigation and grand jury
proceedings,
the NAACP *requested the FBI to conduct an independent review of the
incident to ensure
the impartiality of the criminal investigation.*

[*Though in the Saint Paul investigation, the NAACP requested the FBI to
conduct and independent review,
it appears the members of the NAACP were more like the City's surrogates
then that of their
community.  In the City of Champaign, City Manager Steve Carter and Chief RT
Finney are the
ones who requested the FBI to enter to determine if any Civil Rights issues
were violated, NOT
to determine the fate of Finney or Norbits.  What is very clear, is the
pattern that is used in all
incidents that involve Police shootings, use of force, racial profiling etc.
When I read this
tragedy in St. Paul which made no sense for why an innocent man who was
being held up for a
carjacking, would take the perpetrators gun and point it at the Police who
came to rescue him]
*
*The investigations by the police department, the grand jury, and the FBI
all found that the officer
did not commit a crime, nor did he intentionally violate Mr. Craighead’s
civil rights. The City of Saint Paul did
settle a wrongful death suit in federal civil court resulting in monetary
damages of $275,000.*

*[I am certain the City of Champaign will award their limit of $250,000
without blinking because*
*this is the threshold (unless it has increased recently) before their
insurance and its rate is
affected. However, I feel the family should not settle for less than
7-figures]
*
*Below is the way the City celebrated the community for accepting the tragic
incident.  That said,
I not only do not agree with the findings---but reading this summary of
events that took place in another
city seems eerily parallel to how Kiwane's Killing has unfolded.  I just
hope our ending doesn't read like theirs
(below). I pray that our ending reads we have changed the climate and opened
the opportunity
for social justice and racial equity by empowering our community.
Empowerment will happen when
Truth (whatever it looks like) will be allowed to flourish and from that
point we will all finally feel
like stakeholders in this community.*
*

This is part of the Press Release the city of Saint Paul circulated after
the investigation was completed
*
This story demonstrates the benefits of building strong relationships, based
on
mutual respect and trust, with the community an agency serves, to enhance
public safety
and to form a partnership that is able to survive a catastrophic incident.
The relationship
between the Saint Paul Police Department and the NAACP, as well as the
relationship
with the community, survived a potentially devastating event due to the
stakeholders’
commitment to the agreement.
*
READ MORE On The Actual Agreement:*

http://www.stpaul.gov/index.aspx?NID=1809


Read the St.Paul (Twin Cities) Citizen's Police Review Board's web
They call themselves: *"Communities United Against Police Brutality" *

http://www.cuapb.org/PoliceComplaintRecords.asp

*
An example of one of the officers records of complaints:*

http://www.charityadvantage.com/CUAPB/ChristopherAbbas.asp
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20091213/390f9c55/attachment.html