Twice in Two Weeks
On November 24, the Ferguson grand jury announced its decision: no indictment. A few days later, on December 3, in New York City, another grand jury reached the same unsatisfying conclusion in a separate case of police violence, declining to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo for the killing of Eric Garner.
Earlier in the year, on July 17, 2014, New York City police confronted Garner, another unarmed Black man, allegedly for selling single untaxed cigarettes called “loosies.” Video shows four officers pulling Garner to the ground, one with an arm around his neck. Garner gasps repeatedly, “I can’t breathe.” He died on the way to the hospital.15
“In the span of two weeks,” U.S. Representative Marcia Fudge, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, observed, “this nation seems to have heard one message loud and clear: there will be no accountability for taking Black lives.”16 Phrased this way, she invited a comparison, deliberately or not, between the recent grand jury decisions and the nineteenth-century legal principle, solidified in the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott ruling, that African Americans represent
a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.
Or, more simply: “they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”17
For Dred Scott, the issue was slavery; for Brown and Garner, it was murder. Connecting the cases was the failure—or rather, the refusal—of the judicial system to extend its protection to the African American population. That sense of existing without rights, of living under threat, of being discounted was sadly, insistently, conveyed in the slogan that arose in connection to the protests: “Black Lives Matter.”
It is shameful, I feel, that we even have to make this point. That it is necessary to say, even once, that Black lives matter is itself a testimony to the racism of our society. It ought to be obvious that Black lives matter, that Black people matter, and by implication, that their murder, especially at the hands of the state, cannot go unanswered. And yet it is not obvious. In the context of the legal system, the recent evidence suggests that it is not even true. The slogan represents, then, not simply a fact, but more importantly a challenge. If we believe it, we must make it real.
When the Ferguson grand jury announced its decision, protestors mobilized in more than 170 cities across the country, blocking streets and even freeways, enacting “die-ins” at police stations, briefly occupying the mayor’s office in Chicago. Most were peaceful. Only Oakland matched Ferguson in terms of intensity: breaking windows, looting businesses, blockading a police station, building and burning barricades.18
The protests grew when the New York grand jury likewise declined to indict Officer Pantaleo. Approximately 10,000 people joined protests in New York City, chanting “Shut the whole system down!” while blocking the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges and sometimes skirmishing with police. In the first two days, 302 people were arrested, three for felonies.19
Displays of solidarity started appearing in some unexpected places. Across the country, individual athletes and sometimes entire teams—professional and college, men’s and women’s—began wearing “I can’t breathe” T-shirts during their pre-game exercises.20 And, in the rush of one of the busiest weeks on the Congressional calendar, dozens of Capital Hill staffers walked out of their offices, gathered on the Capital steps, raised their hands in remembrance of Michael Brown, and prayed for forgiveness.21
Officers Down
In the midst of the turmoil, on December 20, a disturbed man named Ismaaiyl Brinsley approached two New York City police officers as they sat in their squad car. Brinsley shot both officers, Wenjan Liu and Rafael Ramos, firing at point blank range and killing them instantly. He then killed himself. He had posted messages on the Internet earlier that morning announcing a plan for “putting wings on pigs” to avenge Eric Garner: “They take 1 of ours. Let’s take 2 of theirs.”22
Naturally police and politicians, from New York Police Commissioner William Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama, were quick to condemn the shooting and express sympathy and support for the police—as did prominent civil rights leaders and Eric Garner’s family. Patrick Lynch, the head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA), however, put the blame on the cops’ political enemies: “There is blood on many hands,” he said, “from those that incited violence under the guise of protest … [to] the steps of city hall in the office of the mayor.” He later repeated: “The mayor’s hands are literally dripping with our blood because of his words, actions and policies.” The PBA went on to declare war, though with the perpetrator dead, it is unclear against whom: “we have, for the first time in a number of years, become a ‘wartime’ police department. We will act accordingly.”
The PBA also offered its own instructions to patrol officers: “At least two units are to respond to every call, no matter the condition or severity, no matter what type of job is pending, or what the opinion of the patrol supervisor happens to be.” Meanwhile, patrol officers began an unofficial, and likely illegal, slowdown. In the days following the ambush of Liu and Ramos, police made 66 percent fewer arrests and wrote 94 percent fewer tickets.23
The rift between the cops and the mayor seems particularly deep: Lynch has complained repeatedly of a lack of support after Garner’s death, in part because Mayor de Blasio spoke publicly about a conversation in which he advised his bi-racial son to “take special care” when interacting with police. In retort, the PBA began offering a form for officers, instructing the mayor not to attend their funerals if they die in the line of duty. Then, when de Blasio spoke at Liu and Ramos’s funerals, hundreds of police turned their back to him.24
“A Legitimacy Problem”
The death of Eric Garner, and that of Michael Brown, the grand jury decisions, and even the riots—all fit an established pattern, one we’ve seen repeatedly in just the past few years, beginning in Oakland in 2009, then Portland and Denver in 2010, Seattle and San Francisco in 2011, Atlanta and Anaheim in 2012, Santa Rosa, Flatbush, and Durham in 2013, and Salinas and Albuquerque earlier in 2014.25 But the scale of the crisis sparked by Brown’s shooting, and its duration, make it truly exceptional, and both political and cultural elites seem to have understood it as such. Police unions, and some commanders, as well as the reliable right-wing pundits, have obstinately defended their positions and cynically used the deaths of two hapless patrolmen to go back on the offensive. Other authorities, however, have been more careful and conciliatory, offering modest reforms and adjusting their rhetoric to match the nation’s overall mood. As journalist Matt Taibbi so succinctly put it, “the police suddenly have a legitimacy problem.”26
President Barack Obama did his best to equivocate, while calling for “peace and calm”: “There is never an excuse for violence against police or for those who would use this tragedy as a cover for vandalism or looting…. There’s also no excuse for police to use excessive force against peaceful protests or to throw protestors in jail for lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights.”27 Attorney General Eric Holder added, “At a time when we must seek to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the local community, I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message.”28 Soon thereafter, the president ordered a review of the police use of military weaponry.29
It’s too early to know whether any lasting structural changes will result from the current unrest, but if nothing else it has certainly changed the terms of the debate. Time magazine, for example, ran a surprising piece titled “In Defense of Rioting.” It cogently argues:
Riots are a necessary part of the evolution of society.… [Until human rights are respected] the