Still more to be done

There are two cases of police negligence in the news this week. Both were caught on tape. Both ended tragically. However, the victims in these two cases are quite different.

In the first case, EIGHT (count 'em) former boot camp employees in Florida were acquitted of manslaughter by an all white jury for the death of a 14-year-old Black boy named Martin Lee Anderson whom they were responsible for at the camp. A day after Anderson arrived at the boot camp, SEVEN guards saw fit to kick and punch the boy after he, according to their claims, "faked an illness" in an attempt to avoid exercising. Oh yes, and a nurse stood by and watched the beating. After the boy had gone unconscious, they then decided that dragging him around the exercise yard and making him inhale ammonia capsules was the best method to revive him. The video can be seen here. The autopsy concluded that he died of suffocation due to the ammonia inhalation and his mouth being covered.

Let's move forward.

The second case has been much more widely covered in the media. It involves Carol Ann Gotbaum, a 45-year-old Caucasian woman from a "well-connected New York family". Gotbaum, an alcoholic on her way to rehab, was detained in the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport for apparently going ballistic after she missed her connecting flight. This video shows the incident in its entirety. In the video, the officers did not seem to be using excessive force in their arrest. She was forced to the ground, but note she was not kicked, punched, or made to inhale ammonia. Sadly, the woman later died while in a holding cell in the airport, but the cause of death is still unclear.

No one is held accountable for a 14-year-old Black boy's death at the hands of professionals which are trained to give guidance to wayward youth. But it will be very interesting to see if someone is prosecuted and convicted of at least wrongful death in the Gotbaum case. With all the media coverage it has gotten, I have a hard time believing that this incident will be swept under the rug. Maybe I'm being a bit cynical, but due to recent events, such as the conviction of Mychal Bell and the reemergence of nooses on tree branches, truck beds, and office doors, what confidence I did have in the system has dwindled to less than a glimmer.

It is October 13, 2007.
Eight people can share part in killing a Black child and walk away scot-free.
There are "white only" trees.
A noose was hung on a professor's door at Columbia University.
Clarence Thomas is "our" representative on the Supreme Court.
Isiah Thomas says it's more acceptable for a Black man to call a Black woman a bitch than for a white man to say the same.

What is really going on?