Keith A Mayes on White Justice

Minneapolis has a powerful Police Union whose current head advocates training for police officers in 'killology'- which is exactly as evil as it sounds. He believes that Trump has 'taken the handcuffs off' the police. It appears that the rank and file look to this man- who is white- not to the Police Chief- who is black- for leadership.

Trade Unions can be very good things. But Unions of Public Servants can become more powerful than elected politicians and those whom they appoint. That appears to be the root of the problem in Minneapolis which has a nice Liberal Mayor and a very decent black Police Chief.

However, the protests we now see across the globe in response to the killing of George Floyd are interpreted differently by some. The following is an op-ed by Keith A. Mayes, an associate professor of African American and African studies at the University of Minnesota, which appeared in the Washington Post.

The shooting of Justine Damond, a white woman, and the prosecution and conviction of Mohamed Noor, a black police officer, was a historic moment in Minneapolis. On July 15, 2017, at 11:41 p.m., Noor, a Somali American, and his white partner, Matthew Harrity, were called to the scene of a possible assault.

Damond made the call.

Their police cruiser quietly inched down a dark alley when suddenly an object hit the car, and a person later identified as Justine Damond appeared at Harrity’s window.

The two officers had radioed in an all clear. There is no evidence that anything bumped the car. Damond approached it, true enough, but she was shot because a cop got spooked. Arguably, Noor had not been trained sufficiently. He had been pushed into the field to increase 'diversity' but, perhaps because of a shoot first culture within the force, this had fatal consequences.

Mistaking the situation as an ambush, both officers drew their service weapons, and Noor fired a single shot from the passenger seat, striking Damond in the stomach. She died moments later. After an eight-month investigation, Noor was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was convicted and is currently serving a 12 1/2-year prison sentence.

Damond's family received a 20 million dollar settlement.

Last Monday, Minneapolis police detained George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man on suspicion of forgery. Less than 15 minutes later, Floyd laid in the street dead, the result of Officer Devin Chauvin pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck while he lay handcuffed and prone for almost nine minutes. If it weren’t for Darnella Frazier, a teenage onlooker whose phone video went viral, Chauvin and the three other officers would still be policing the streets of south Minneapolis.

The police chief acted quickly to fire the officers. Would this have happened without the video? Perhaps not. There would have been no 'smoking gun'. The officers would have had enough time to concoct a story.

The juxtaposition of these two cases is important for understanding the mood and tenor in the Twin Cities in the past week. A black man became the first police officer convicted of police misconduct in the city’s history.

Jeronimo Yanez, a Hispanic officer, had been charged but was acquitted by a jury in the shooting of Philando Castile. Yanez claimed self-defence and was believed. The culture of police immunity in part depends on the reluctance of Juries to question a self-defence plea on the part of an officer.

Noor’s conviction was a game-changer

it led to the appointment of the first black police chief

— and, less than two years later, it’s a dealbreaker. As demonstrators call for the arrest of the four officers involved in Floyd’s death, some can be heard shouting, “Free Mohamed Noor.”

This suggests that they approve of police misconduct- provided the victims are white.

The irony has been lost on local and state officials: After years of white police violence against black bodies without requisite justice, why is the only police officer behind bars black?

The answer is, because a Jury refused to convict a Hispanic because the guy he shot had a gun in his car and the officer claimed to have been in fear of his life. Noor's victim was unarmed.

Some will say the cases are different, or that Chauvin, who has been arrested, may receive the same fate as Noor. But consider the Philando Castile case. On July 6, 2016, 32-year-old Castile, along with his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds and her 4-year-old daughter, was pulled over in a suburb just north of St. Paul. Castile announced, properly, that there was a licensed firearm in the car, after which, Officer Jeronimo Yanez shot Castile seven times, with five bullets hitting him in the chest. Yanez had asked Castile for his license, but later claimed Castile was reaching for the gun instead of the requested identification. Yanez was charged with second-degree manslaughter and two counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm, and like every other police officer in Minneapolis’s history but one, he was found not guilty.

Why? Because the Jury- which included two black people- believed him.

In the strange world that exists between hope and fate, this was the one we were waiting for. That is why the community was thunderstruck when the verdict got away.

But it was a unanimous jury with two black people on it. Mohamed Noor's jury too had two black people and one Muslim lady from Pakistan. Yet they convicted him.

The aftermath of these incidents brought the usual well-wishes and condolences to the families with occasional commentary about changing the nature of police training. But what is lost on police officials and elected leaders is that a racially predictable way of seeking criminal justice results in the unequal distribution of social justice.

What is a 'racially predictable way of seeking criminal justice'? Presumably, it means race determines guilt. But why would black people, serving on juries, deliver this type of justice? As for 'social justice', how is it related to criminal justice? Perhaps my mugging wealthy people would improve 'social justice'. But criminal justice is not concerned with this outcome.

Justice is not guaranteed because we live in a democracy; neither is justice neutral.

Justice is not guaranteed at all if juries have a reasonable doubt as to guilt. The scales are weighted against the prosecution in criminal but not civil actions.

Justice is only as good as the men and women rendering it.

So the problem is with Juries.

If justice is blind, as the cliche goes, then injustice has 20/20 vision, for it continues to track black bodies and deliver differential outcomes for blacks and whites: convictions for black folk and exonerations for whites and others.

But injustice is doing all this tracking through juries which include black folk.

White justice is a form of white entitlement.

Which black jurors reliably honor.

When white people are the victims of deadly violence, the expected outcome is the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator, despite the complexity of a legal case.

Which is why a lot of people were unhappy about O.J walking free.

When black people are the victims of deadly violence by police,

the coppers say 'he was reaching for his gun and it was a real big scary gun and I was in fear of my life and I said 'please Mister, don't shoot me with your very big scary invisible gun' and he laughed maniacally and cocked his invisible gun and so I had to restrain him by pumping a lot of bullets into his brain'.

the expected outcome is a hope in things seldom seen and experienced in the legal system — especially the arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentencing of police officers.

Which happened in this case only because of camera phones

Black people rarely procure the latter two, even if they are lucky enough to receive the former two. Though Yanez was an officer of color, the benefit of his acquittal still accrued to white America because he represented state-sanctioned power, which has a white face.

Very true. Justine Damond had a white face. This endangered Mohamed Noor's life. So he shot her in self-defence. Why is this innocent man in prison?

Noor’s sentence is a victory for white America, too, because he had to pay for the sin of mistakenly killing a white person.

It was also a victory for white Australia- because she had dual citizenship. She must be very happy that her getting shot has yielded such tremendous triumphs for White people on two different continents.

The longer it takes to prosecute and convict the four officers directly involved in killing Floyd, the longer white America evades judgment.

Why not just lynch them?

I fear the power structure is already working to bend Floyd’s case away from justice.

This is a not entirely unreasonable fear. Rioting may get out of hand and the 'thin blue line' might suddenly appear Civilization's last hope. Politicians may suddenly remember that Police Union Chiefs control a lot of votes. It turns out, one of the 4 officers is classed as Black. He and the other 'rookie' may be acquitted.

I remember watching the media coverage of Damond’s death and filing away some important curiosities. I distinctly remember Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman acting as both prosecutor and healer. I saw stories that humanized Damond, from her impending wedding to the vibrancy of her personality. I remember hearing repeatedly what Damond did for a living: She was a yoga instructor and a life coach. I saw pictures of her with her fiance, friends, and family members here in Minneapolis and in Australia smiling and enjoying life as they knew it. At the tender age of 40 years, Damond had so much to live for, the coverage went.

Similarly, the prosecutors will present George Floyd in a sympathetic light. The truth is both Damond and Floyd had much to live for. The difference is that Floyd was high on fentanyl or some other such drug. The people who called the police did not represent 'White Privilege'. I think they were concerned the guy would drive his car while intoxicated. They never dreamed that the police would kill him in a brutal manner.

And then I remember the trial — feeling that Noor did not stand a chance, that he would be convicted of one of the charges, not only because he was guilty, but because the men in blue in Minneapolis would not stand up against the rolling tide of whiteness as it sought justice.

By then, the Police Chief was Black.

When the jury came back in a day with a guilty verdict, I remember how easy it was to convict this police officer. I almost forgot he was one.

He wasn't one. He had been sacked. What Noor should have done is say 'I saw this big black man with a very big, very scary, invisible gun. Fearing for my life, I returned fire. A white lady intercepted my bullet coz bitches be kray kray.'

Perhaps Noor's Somali heritage prevented him from sobbing and soiling himself as he described his terror of invisible black men intent on anally raping his partner's white ass. This was a mistake. Everyone knows dark and scary alleyways are inhabited by large black men with very big invisible guns. Firing off your gun when you get spooked is like standard operating procedure, dude. Any white women who might illegally intercept one's bullet were probably yoga instructors and thus very bendy and likely to pop up all over the place. What matters is shooting at invisible black men whose invisible guns represent a clear and present danger to your partner's lily white ass.

The good news is that Prof. Keith A Mayes is in no danger from trigger happy Minneapolis police officers. This is because everybody now assumes that a well built, virilely bearded, Professor of African American studies is just Rachel Dolezal in drag.