[Peace-discuss] Part V: Post-Kiwane Carrington: The final Chapter of Bk 1; Bergeron's Beginnings

[Melodye Rosales]

*Part V: The Final Chapter of Bk 1

Post-Kiwane: **A City Preparing for Community Building* *or* *A City
Fulfilling its Divide and Conquer Plan* *in order to achieve perceived calm
and control.*


*"...Kenith Bergeron is the U.S. Justice Departments Conciliation Specialist
that Champaign City Manager, Steve Carter brought in to "so-called" mediate,
with the City's hand-picked choices they've entitled Champaign's Black
Leaders, after the tragic death of 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington, a slightly
built, unarmed, African-American youth.  Bergeron is not new to Champaign or
the climate unrest among the racial divide.  Bergeron was called in by the
City Manager two-years-ago after the Brian Chesley "resisting arrest" case
that led to this African-American youth's arrest that also caused unrest in
the Black Community, leading to protests and public complaints about the
Champaign Police Department "Use of Force" tactics and Bias Profiling in
areas heavily populated by African-Americans.*.."


*Part V:*

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.

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.

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. However, Bergeron was able to keep the NAACP on track without the
City
taking responsibility for their actions or losing control of their
stronghold over the
Black community.  Though Bergeron was in the midst of the agreement being
settled
at the time of this tragedy, one has to wonder how the voices from within
that Community
were kept at bay, while the Justice Department sang Bergeron's praises and
used this
model of mediation as a blueprint for police/community mediation across the
nation.

*That said---I find our 2009 Kiwane-moment, process and predictable final
outcome eerily
patterned after this 2001 tragedy that Bergeron was at the center of.  I'll
let you decide:*

*INCIDENT That Followed:*
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.
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.

*(note: The City of Champaign can give out up to $250,000 before they need
to tap into
their insurance making wrongful death payments a matter of business as
usual.)*

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.

*Oh...really?*
So...come again?  Why did the victim pick up the weapon "again" after he was
told to place it down?
Moreover, why was the victim pointing the gun at the police instead of the
perpetrator whose weapon
it was in the first place?

More to the point---Bergeron called in the FBI to follow-up on the outcome
of the investigative report.
Are we surprised that the FBI found the same results as the original
investigative team?

A sadder commentary still is the fact that in 2001 the St. Paul Black
Community had been convinced by Bergeron that
the FBI investigation and subsequent results would eliminate their need for
the original conversation,
pre-Bergeron-Mediation, requesting a Consent Decree to be established and
oversee the community/police
relations and solutions to any problems (real or imagined) that had gone
resolved.
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