Urban Terrorists in America?

By Ashahed M. Muhammad and Saeed Shabazz
Updated May 20, 2008, 10:57 pm

Neighborhoods under siege? Many fear militarization of police is a sign of problems to come

Philly Cops Caught on Video (Video Clip)
SWAT teams and helicopter patrols in Chicago (FCN, 05-06-2008)

(FinalCall.com) - State Representative Ronald G. Waters of Philadelphia was disturbed by vivid video images captured by the city Fox television news affiliate. A swarming pack of White officers descended upon three Black men, yanked them from a vehicle, and kicked and beat them with fists and nightsticks for minutes without any apparent resistance from the suspects.

A review of an enhanced aerial video of the beating enabled investigators to initially identify 13 Philadelphia police officers that were involved. All of the officers have been removed from street duty while the case is investigated.

“I don’t want to see the streets of Philadelphia turn into a war zone,” said State Rep. Waters. “I (also) don’t think that arming the police officers with (high powered weapons) is necessary for them to go after the criminals,” he told The Final Call. Mr. Waters presides over a predominately Black district that has few jobs, failing education and areas of high crime and violence.
The videotaped beating that captured the Black lawmaker’s and the nation’s attention again raised questions of excessive force and brutality. Another concern was the growing militarization of police departments.

Police brutality, neighborhood crackdowns

On May 9, Mayor Michael Nutter appeared on CNN and spoke regarding the controversy that has erupted since video of the beating began airing on May 6.

“The conduct was unacceptable,” Mayor Nutter told CNN. “It did not live up to the standards we have set for the Police Department.”

The scene was reminiscent of the infamous 1991 videotaped beating of Black motorist Rodney King, who after being pursued by members of the LAPD in a high speed chase was mercilessly pounded with the nightsticks of several members of the LAPD for several minutes.

This image made from television and released by WTXF-TV Fox Philadelphia shows police officers kicking and beating suspects pulled from a car during a traffic stop on May 5, in Philadelphia. A TV helicopter taped the confrontation. Photo: AP Photo/WTXF-TV Fox PhiladelphiaRev. Al Sharpton on his May 8 radio show “Keeping It Real” said, “I’ve not seen anything like that since Rodney King, and it’s worse than Rodney King.”

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said he did not believe the incident was racial. However, he admitted “emotions are running high” as a result of 12-year veteran Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski being shot and killed May 3 attempting to apprehend suspected bank robbers. The commissioner cautioned against “making accusations from afar” that could exacerbate tensions.

“There is a history in this city of police brutality,” said student minister Rodney Muhammad of Muhammad Mosque No. 12 in Philadelphia. Mr. Muhammad said the department has been out in force and officers are “infuriated” because suspects in the bank robbery were repeat offenders with a history of violent crimes.

“My mind went back to the Minister’s press conference in Washington, D.C. in 1989,” said Mr. Muhammad. “The war that they were planning was against him, the Nation of Islam and Black people in general using Black youth as the invitation to come into the community in a war-like way,” said Mr. Muhammad, who is the host of a radio show and deeply involved with the members of Muhammad Mosque No. 12 who are trying to prevent crime and violence.

Some young Black men in Philadelphia are wearing body armor similar to what soldiers wear in war zones, Mr. Muhammad noted. Psychologically they are prepared to exchange gunfire with someone, a competitor, or perhaps even law enforcement officials, he said. A “war-like” culture has been created, fed in part through movies and music, and has become a path to self-destruction, Mr. Muhammad said.

“The streets and the jails have merged and they are one and the same in the mindset of many of these young guys. So you can’t threaten them with death because they never thought they were going to get older anyway, and you can’t threaten them with jail because that is celebrated,” he said.

“The whole thing about transforming the mind of these young people—it’s only going to come through a word that can resurrect that mind,” Mr. Muhammad said.

Getting to the root causes of violence

“The violence that politicians and law enforcement are reacting to is not about guns, as such, but about attitudes and values,” according to Conrad Worrill, of the National Black United Front. “What we are looking at, in the larger context, appears to me to be the final showdown in the criminalization of a people.”

From Washington state to Florida and in cities small and large, a growing chorus is warning Black America to stem levels of fratricidal violence, especially with summer approaching and police preparing to crackdown.

“Ninety-two percent of gun violence in our communities across the nation comes from our youth; and it is tearing our communities apart,” said student minister Don Muhammad, of Muhammad Mosque No. 11 in Boston.

The Boston Police Department, seemingly at wits end, has been trying to deploy a program that allows searching homes for guns without warrants. “The community must take ownership of this issue, not just the police, parents know when there is a gun in their home,” Don Muhammad said.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley recently pressed parents to take responsibility for their children, but also ordered heavily armed SWAT teams and helicopter patrols into Black neighborhoods. In a three-week span, over 50 people in the city were shot. Fifteen people died.

But while many people want relief, city residents may get something much different than what they expect. Dr. Peter Kraska, a University of Eastern Kentucky professor of police studies, wrote in a study titled “Militarilizing American Police: The Rise of Normalization of Paramilitary Units,” “residents will get accustomed to cops armed to the teeth like Marines in Baghdad, which sends a message to the civilian population; you now live in an authoritarian police state.”

Dr. Joseph McNamara, a former police chief and a lecturer for the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, recently wrote “it is dangerous when you are telling cops they’re soldiers and there is an enemy out there.”

Civil liberties advocates and community groups say opening the floodgates to tighter law enforcement likely will bring more charges of brutality, more violations of rights and more stringent laws.

Art McKoy, founder of the Cleveland organization, Black on Black Crime, said law enforcement has already turned Cleveland into a police state. “Our young men have limited opportunities; and all they see is drugs and guns,” he said. “As our communities deteriorate, the politicians throw up their hands and call for martial law, as represented by these SWAT teams.”

When asked about gang prevention funding, Mr. McKoy said, Cleveland received millions of dollars in 2007 for prevention and only “one percent” flowed into the community, while “99 percent went to law enforcement.”

A coalition of community organizations in Seattle, Wash., launched a campaign in the end of March to stop Gov. Christine Gregoire from signing a bill they said encouraged racial profiling. Gov. Gregoire put her signature to HR 2712 and it became law in April.

According to a bipartisan group of legislators, the bill was in response to public concerns about gang violence.

James Bible, president of the Seattle branch of the NAACP, said the law gives police an excuse for stopping and searching young people of color. “The bill’s constitutionality is questionable,” Mr. Bible told The Final Call.

In Florida, legislators are working on an anti-gang bill that requires gang members to register and has local police work closely with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to use and maintain a gang database.

“We are very concerned about this database,” said Florida’s statewide NAACP president, Adora Obi Nweize. She believes the database is another way of pushing Black children into the criminal justice pipeline.

“We were able to stop the state legislature’s efforts to make it unlawful for our youth to wear baggy pants, but we don’t have a good feeling concerning our efforts to stop the anti-gang bill,” she said.

The New York Civil Liberties Union May 7 filed a “Walking While Black” lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, charging the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” policy is illegal. The Center for Constitutional Rights filed a companion class-action suit against the same NYPD practice. The suits say there is a systemic pattern of discrimination in the stops: Data shows half of those targeted were Black, while census figures show Blacks are just 25 percent of the city’s population. Blacks and Latinos were involved in 90 percent of the police stops.

The city of Springfield in Massachusetts recently announced its Street Crime Unit will return to black military-style uniforms, as part of a strategy to deal with youth violence.

“All the SWAT teams in the world are not going to solve the problem of street violence,” said Abdul Muhammad, founder of Newark, New Jersey’s Street Warriors. “The peace in the streets has been violated because of the large disconnect our youth feel, which for us has become a cultural issue,” the activist told The Final Call. “We have to teach the community how to defend itself against violence. We have lost our value system,” he said.

“The other problem? We are not dealing with this as a mental health problem,” Abdul Muhammad added.

“Why are the children so angry, is any one asking that question?” asked Dr. Joseph Strickland, Ph.D, a researcher on “Advocacy Issues that Affect Black Males” at the University of Chicago. The mayor deploys police to deal with street violence because it is seen as a youth issue, not a community issue, he said.

“Two years ago we found that we had in Chicago a 50 percent (high school) drop out rate. Students were turned off by the system—and then they were told they couldn’t make it without an education—they became angry,” said Dr. Strickland, who is also founder of MAGIC, a non-profit youth development and advocacy group.

Dr. Carl Bell, who runs a community mental health clinic on Chicago’s southside, agreed with Abdul Muhammad’s assessment. “SWAT use doesn’t make much sense to me. Being connected to the community in a positive way is the answer. That cancels out the need for violence.” Dr. Bell said.

(Fred Muhammad contributed to this article from Philadelphia.)

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