Revolutionary Worker #1159, July 21, 2002, posted at http://rwor.org
Ugly. So, so ugly, it hurts to watch it. And even though you've seen it dozens of times on TV, you still have to squint your eyes closed and turn your head away when it comes on again. The first frames of the video show a skinny young kid lying face down on the asphalt, handcuffed, utterly still. Four beefy cops surround him. They yank his limp body off the pavement by grabbing the silver chain around his neck. He is choked unconscious. They slam him hard face-first onto the trunk of the black-and-white. The blow jolts him awake. The camcorder zooms in on his face: His mouth is red-wet, and the blood smears across his cheek. His jaw is slack and his eyes can't focus. He tries to lift his head, but it falls back down. The four cops are close around him, an unforgiving wall. Officer Jeremy Morse, on the Inglewood force for three years, grabs the back of the kid's head and turns it to the right, spending a few seconds to position it just so. He smashes his clenched fist into the youth's face, then wraps his hands around his throat. On the video, you can see Morse's face clearly: contorted by a grimace, teeth bared in a snarl, he truly does look like a beast. So, so ugly.
And, like the video that captured the beating of Rodney King more than a decade ago, these pictures have focussed the eyes of the world on the epidemic of police brutality that is a daily reality for oppressed people and youth in this country--and reminded everyone of the fierce uprising after a jury acquitted the cops who beat Rodney King in the spring of 1992.
*****
About 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 6, Donovan Jackson-Chavis and his dad stopped for gas in Inglewood. Historically an African-American community, Inglewood spreads between the soft comfort of L.A.'s Westside and the hard reality of South Central, its eastern edge blending into Watts. While L.A. County Sheriffs patrol the streets and the LAPD lurks around the perimeter, Inglewood has its own police department with its own long history of police brutality.
While his dad was getting gas, Donovan went into the station's mini-market to buy some potato chips. When he came out, his dad was being harrassed by the sheriffs for driving a car with expired tags. The sheriffs say that Donovan began arguing with them. The sheriffs say they tried to calm him down by talking to him, but he kept arguing. The sheriffs say he then lunged at them. The sheriffs say two of them were struggling to handcuff him when four Inglewood police officers came to their assistance.
Donovan's dad and another witness tell a different story. Holding his bag of chips, Donovan walked toward the car. The police ordered him to stop, but he kept moving slowly toward his dad. They ordered him to put his hands on the car, but he acted as if he didn't hear them. His dad tried to intervene, but the cops restrained him. Donovan just kept on moving forward as if he didn't even hear the cops yelling at him, as if he didn't understand what he saw happening right in front of him. And, in fact, that's pretty close to the way it was: 16-year-old Donovan, a very shy and very quiet Special Ed student, has a developmental disability that includes auditory processing delays that slow down how his brain processes what he hears. In other words, while Donovan hears and understands, his reactions are delayed while the sounds work their way through his brain. It takes him a while to react to things.
While nature permitted this delay, the cops wouldn't tolerate it, and they attacked. They hit Donovan repeatedly, throwing him onto the pavement. According to his father and another witness, one cop knelt on Donovan's back, then hit him in the face with his fist. The dad said he heard one officer call his son the N- word. The other witness watched the attack from 20 feet away, and never saw the youth offer any resistance. "We didn't understand why they were doing this. It did just seem vengeful and racist." All this happened before the video even started to roll.
*****
Mitchell Crooks was staying in a hotel next to the gas station. When he heard a woman scream that someone was being beaten by police, he ran outside with his video camera. Aired on all major L.A. news broadcasts, the footage was picked up nationwide.
Local law enforcement contacted Crooks, ordering him to appear before a county grand jury, which he agreed to do. When they demanded that he turn over his original tape to them, he began to get nervous. The next day, while being interviewed live on a local radio station, Crooks said he was willing to cooperate with authorities but was worried that he might face unspecified charges. At this point, the Chief Deputy District Attorney startled Crooks and station listeners with a shocking on-air interruption: "Mitchell, ... there is a grand jury subpoena for you, and I suggest you honor it! You show up at the Criminal Courts Building ... and be there promptly."
Crooks replied, "Yeah, well I hope the city rallies behind me. They're coming after me because I shot the video. I fear for my life." Mitchell went into hiding. When he showed up at CNN for a scheduled interview on Thursday, the station's security cameras captured the incredible scene of undercover law enforcement officers pouncing on Crooks when he tried to enter the station. As they spirited him away in an unmarked SUV, Crooks' screams could be heard clearly. Later that night, he was treated for unspecified injuries at County Hospital. On Friday, he was extradited to northern California.
*****
The authorities have responded in other ways, too. Official oppressors on all levels are calling for "a full investigation," including U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. Ashcroft has sent his top civil rights lawyer, Ralph Boyd, to L.A. to "lead the investigation." Boyd, who was sent to Cincinnati last year on a mop-up operation in the wake of the rebellions against police brutality there, has already met with federal prosecutors, FBI agents, and Inglewood city officials.
What accounts for this speedy official concern? Has John Ashcroft, a known racist and reactionary lunatic, suddenly discovered police brutality? Or is the memory of the whole Rodney King incident and the Los Angeles Rebellion connecting with contemporary realities--and sending officialdom rushing to put out the fires of rebellion before they can truly ignite?
Beyond the digital images detailing the beating of Donovan Jackson-Chavis, a deeper picture emerges from the Crooks video: a picture of a society where the official enforcers have a license to brutalize and murder the basic people--a license which has been carried out even more intensely since the so-called `war on terrorism' began after September 11. And at a time when the U.S. government is demanding a free pass to dominate the world, such pictures reveal the American way of life for what it is.
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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