By: Rmusemore from Rmuse
Over the course of the past year while many different groups weighed in with opinions surrounding the epidemic of African Americans being killed by police, there is one group that has been relatively silent. Police officers have generally closed ranks and defended the racially-motivated killing of unarmed African Americans, and have been brutally airing their contempt for anyone demanding accountability from law enforcement whether through protests, demonstrations, or public displays of support for demonstrators. However, there has been precious little comment from African American police officers, and according to a recent report, there is a reason that reinforces the assertion that many white police officers are racists.
The report by Reuters revealed that Black New York City police officers admitted they are regularly racially profiled by white officers and worse, are victims of the same violent abuse and mistreatment as nearly every other African American male. The report focused on 25 Black male policemen; ten currently serving the public and 15 retired cops. Not surprisingly, all but one of the Black cops reported they were victims of racial profiling in and out of uniform. The report defined racial profiling as a law enforcement officer “using race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed a crime.”
The black police officers said their experiences were the same type of racial profiling that cost Eric Garner his life after he was swarmed by police and choked to death for the capital crime of selling loose cigarettes. The officers reported regularly being pulled over by police for no reason (multiple times for most), being stopped in public and frisked, thrown into prison vans, and being physically assaulted and threatened by white cops. The issue is not reserved to the New York police department, and the threat of retaliation or retribution is why the abuse goes largely unreported; not that the media or general population would care if it was reported.
The officers interviewed for the report related “having their heads slammed against vehicles and having white officer’s guns being brandished in their faces.” One recently-retired NYPD sergeant reported he was stopped while jogging by white police officers and only prevented a rapid escalation into violence because he had his department issued police ID close at hand. The retired sergeant is suing the NYPD for being racially harassed on the job; not for what police told him was being stopped and accosted like a common criminal for being “suspicious while jogging in jogging clothes.”
