Beaten by the Cops: A Shocking New Video
Published in La Repubblica
(Italy) on 20 August 2009
by Federico Rampini (link to original)
One more time, a colored guy is mistreated by the cops in Obama’s America. A new race discrimination case has exploded and sparked new debates, so soon after the arrest of a well-known African-American Harvard professor in his own house faded away.
Since yesterday, there’s been a video on YouTube of a beating that happened in Minneapolis in February. The FBI is now investigating it, but the images leave few doubts. Darryl Jenkins, a colored 43-year-old man, is in his car when he is stopped by police. The cops would later say that he was suspected of drunk driving and that Jenkins resisted the arrest and assaulted a policeman - accusations that have since been withdrawn.
The video - filmed by cameras in the police cars - tells another story. You can see Jenkins on the ground, five cops punching and kicking him. They handcuff him. They keep beating him with a taser, too - the machine that releases electric discharges. Today Jenkins says that he’s surprised to still be alive, that the electric discharges and the blows could have killed him.
The police in Minneapolis say that Jenkins was over the speed limit by 15 miles per hour and had refused to take an alcohol test. But they don’t say why they later withdrew the accusation. Not one of those cops has been submitted to a disciplinary measure. The investigations of police abuse and civil rights are up to the FBI, which now promises an accurate investigation.
In the meantime, that video is setting people on fire again, with public opinion split in two. On the one hand, there’s the colored community and all those who accuse the cops of deep-rooted racism. Statistics prove that even in traffic control, the percentage of black people stopped is disproportionately large.
On the other hand, a large number of whites support the police and claim that the selectiveness based on skin color is justified by the statistics about criminality, where, as a matter of fact, blacks show a larger tendency towards dangerous actions.
Obama’s election doesn’t seem to have been a real turning point regarding this polarization. The president himself has realized that he set foot on a mine field when he dared to criticize the police in the Gates case that dominated the summer’s news.
Henry Louis Gates, an old and respected professor at Harvard, colored and a personal friend of Obama, was arrested on July 16 by a young white cop, James Crowley, a Massachusetts policeman. A neighbor called the police after seeing two people trying to force open the door of a house. Gates, on his way back from a trip to China, couldn’t open the door and was helped by a taxi driver. Irritated by the arrival of the cops when he was already home, Gates reacted with irritation. He was handcuffed and brought to the police station. When Obama dared to comment that the policeman had acted stupidly, he was overwhelmed with criticism.
The incident ended with a “beer summit”: the two protagonists were invited to make peace at the White House. But the after-effects haven’t ended. For the colored community, the Gates case remains emblematic: no cop would have arrested a white professor only because he was rude. Many liberal whites are disappointed by Obama reversing gears, persuaded that the president’s first reaction was right and that he shouldn’t have let himself be intimidated.
On another front, some people remain upset. Sergeant Crowley was transformed into a hero for having held out and refused to excuse the old professor. On August 17, when he was invited to Long Beach to speak at a meeting of a powerful police labor union, the Fraternal Order of Police, Crowley was welcomed by his colleagues with a roar of applause.
The America that has deceived itself to believe that they have finally overcome ethnic-racial divisions with the election of the first black president finds itself sucked in by the ghosts of the past. Several studies on racism, conducted after the vote in November, seem to confirm that the Obama effect is less dramatic than we thought. The Implicit Association Test from Washington University, an exit poll conducted periodically on half a million Americans, indicates that the new president has only moved attitudes towards the racial issue a little bit.
Since yesterday, there’s been a video on YouTube of a beating that happened in Minneapolis in February. The FBI is now investigating it, but the images leave few doubts. Darryl Jenkins, a colored 43-year-old man, is in his car when he is stopped by police. The cops would later say that he was suspected of drunk driving and that Jenkins resisted the arrest and assaulted a policeman - accusations that have since been withdrawn.
The video - filmed by cameras in the police cars - tells another story. You can see Jenkins on the ground, five cops punching and kicking him. They handcuff him. They keep beating him with a taser, too - the machine that releases electric discharges. Today Jenkins says that he’s surprised to still be alive, that the electric discharges and the blows could have killed him.
The police in Minneapolis say that Jenkins was over the speed limit by 15 miles per hour and had refused to take an alcohol test. But they don’t say why they later withdrew the accusation. Not one of those cops has been submitted to a disciplinary measure. The investigations of police abuse and civil rights are up to the FBI, which now promises an accurate investigation.
In the meantime, that video is setting people on fire again, with public opinion split in two. On the one hand, there’s the colored community and all those who accuse the cops of deep-rooted racism. Statistics prove that even in traffic control, the percentage of black people stopped is disproportionately large.
On the other hand, a large number of whites support the police and claim that the selectiveness based on skin color is justified by the statistics about criminality, where, as a matter of fact, blacks show a larger tendency towards dangerous actions.
Obama’s election doesn’t seem to have been a real turning point regarding this polarization. The president himself has realized that he set foot on a mine field when he dared to criticize the police in the Gates case that dominated the summer’s news.
Henry Louis Gates, an old and respected professor at Harvard, colored and a personal friend of Obama, was arrested on July 16 by a young white cop, James Crowley, a Massachusetts policeman. A neighbor called the police after seeing two people trying to force open the door of a house. Gates, on his way back from a trip to China, couldn’t open the door and was helped by a taxi driver. Irritated by the arrival of the cops when he was already home, Gates reacted with irritation. He was handcuffed and brought to the police station. When Obama dared to comment that the policeman had acted stupidly, he was overwhelmed with criticism.
The incident ended with a “beer summit”: the two protagonists were invited to make peace at the White House. But the after-effects haven’t ended. For the colored community, the Gates case remains emblematic: no cop would have arrested a white professor only because he was rude. Many liberal whites are disappointed by Obama reversing gears, persuaded that the president’s first reaction was right and that he shouldn’t have let himself be intimidated.
On another front, some people remain upset. Sergeant Crowley was transformed into a hero for having held out and refused to excuse the old professor. On August 17, when he was invited to Long Beach to speak at a meeting of a powerful police labor union, the Fraternal Order of Police, Crowley was welcomed by his colleagues with a roar of applause.
The America that has deceived itself to believe that they have finally overcome ethnic-racial divisions with the election of the first black president finds itself sucked in by the ghosts of the past. Several studies on racism, conducted after the vote in November, seem to confirm that the Obama effect is less dramatic than we thought. The Implicit Association Test from Washington University, an exit poll conducted periodically on half a million Americans, indicates that the new president has only moved attitudes towards the racial issue a little bit.
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