There is a group in New York called 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.  This is one of the boldest initiatives by anyone in law enforcement that I’m aware of, because these are people who have broken away from that great blue wall that we all know about.  It takes enormous guts to challenge the status quo when you depend upon others for back up.  They’ve taken the risk.

Yesterday, Norman Siegel, former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, stood in front of 1 Police Plaza and called on Governor David Paterson to make reforms in the aftermath of the Sean Bell killing.  From Newsday,

Earlier in the day, Siegel called on Gov. David A. Paterson to help bring about the reforms Siegel says are needed in the system that prosecutes officers. He spoke at a news conference outside 1 Police Plaza in Manhattan, flanked by Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) and members of the group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care

Chief among those changes, they said, is a permanent special prosecutor to handle any fatal shooting or allegations of corruption by a police officer.

Sen. Adams is a former police captain.  He is black.  He is “working on legislation that would give the state attorney general responsibility for crime scenes after any police shooting, not the department involved.”

What is curious is that the two of the police officers who first at Sean Bell were black as well.  To some, this would indicate that race wasn’t a factor.  But 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care know better, and that’s why they, essentially alone amongst police, stand up against their brothers. 

Police officers will say that race had nothing to do with what happened to Sean Bell.  And they will believe what they say.  They will tell you that it wasn’t white against black, it was cops against criminals.  This goes back to the absolute belief that no one understands what a cop does except another cop.  This belief is so firmly ingrained in the NYPD culture that it is beyond discussion. 

But somehow, some way, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care were able to see beyond this internal culture of us against them.  They came to realize that what happens between law enforcement and the African American community is different.  They have rejected the mentality that all black civilians are presumably perps, against whom one must be on guard and vigilant. 

These “accidental” shootings don’t seem to happen too frequently on Park Avenue.  The official explanation is that people on Park Avenue don’t tend to commit crimes too frequently, and hence don’t draw police scrutiny or fire.  It may be true.  After all, there’s not much reason for investment bankers to commit street crimes when they can do so in the privacy of their paneled office. 

But this argument conceals the troubling belief that permeates law enforcement, the belief that blacks are criminals.  This is what 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care are trying to fight.  To change.  They are trying to keep black men, women and children alive.  They are trying to stop them from being killed by bullets discharged from service weapons. 

And what about the reforms?

Why did it take this long to realize that the county district attorneys offices are ill-equipped to prosecute police officers?  Everyone is smarter after the fact, naturally, but the conflict that manifested itself in ADA Charlie Testagrossa’s handling of the trial has long been apparent.  I wrote about it here.  Whether an standing office of special prosecutor would be enough to change anything is questionable.  It’s a start, but it’s not enough.

The special prosecutor still relies on the police to investigate and manage the forensics.  If the police investigate the police, the opportunity for mischief still exists.  Unless a special prosecutor will come with a special police department to do the legwork, he will still rely on the cooperation and integrity of local cops to do the job. 

But even if we assume that the special prosecutor will not be influenced by conflicted reliance on law enforcement, and cops will do their job even when it’s against other cops, there is a problem that has yet to be confronted:  The law is designed to prosecute civilians who break the law.  The law is not designed to prosecute police officers who shoot and kill people.

The defense in the Sean Bell trial was justification, that the officers were justified in the use of deadly force because of a reasonable fear that their lives were threatened.  This defense is nearly impossible for any defendant to use successfully, since the hurdle of a reasonable fear of threat is extremely high.  Except when it comes to cops.  And cops have guns.  And cops are entitled to use those guns when they believe they are threatened. 

Cops are allowed a latitude in protecting and defending themselves that no one would be allowed.  It makes sense, since cops find themselves the object of threatening conduct because of their job and on a regular basis.  If they can’t protect themselves, we could have a lot of dead or injured cops on our hands.  That’s not a good thing either.  Cops must be allowed to protect themselves in order to do their job and go home when their shift is over.

No one else is given this degree of latitude, either in assessing potential threats against them or acting to defend themselves against a perceived threat.  Consider the case of John White.  Claims of justification are scrutinized to death when it’s a civilian who employs it.  Civilians are not supposed to take the law into their own hands.  That’s what cops are supposed to do.

The real problem underlying the Sean Bell case is the one understood by 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.  The problem is that cops, whether white or black or green, perceive African Americans as an inherent threat, as presumed miscreants, and will pull the trigger when they wouldn’t if the person was white.  There is simply a greater reluctance to fire at a white person than a black person.  Until that cultural view toward African Americans changes, we will continue to have cases like Sean Bell.

The solution isn’t to convict cops who shoot and kill black men, but to stop wrongfully shooting and killing black men before it happens.  No special prosecutor will accomplish this.  Our best chance is 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care working to change the culture from the inside.  These are 100 brave people.

FOR ANYONE STILL READING THIS, here’s a fun little blast from the past.  Read  this 2002 NYT Op-Ed following the exoneration of the 4 police officers who shot and killed Amadou Diallo.  We get older each year.  So does the story.