Pandemic, systemic police brutality magnify 2020 vision
A bloodied Miles Davis beaten by NYPD offi cer who racially
profi led the jazz trumpeter in 1959 outside Birdland Jazz
club where he headlined an appearance and out to take a
smoke break.
Caribbean Life, June 12-18, 2020 11
Call it the big reveal.
Label it how you will, much
attribution must be given to
the COVID-19 pandemic which
forced a global community to
cover the mouth, leaving eyes
wide open to glean the clear
2020 perspective anticipated
with optimism for the new
decade and new year.
Six months after the jubilation
welcomed the era, the
health mystery also unveiled
the ugliness of police brutality
— historically masked by
excuses, hypocrisy and tendencies
to proceed with apathy.
Quarantined to slow the
spread of the coronavirus, the
entire world was forced to take
a closer look at news reports,
focus on the atrocities and
despite the consequences act
with protests to decry inequities.
Many here disturbed by
images of repulsive police
behavior risked the hazard of
COVID-19 infection by defying
shut-in orders to represent
intolerant citizens in protest
of acts previously described as
“isolated.”
Were it not for a declaration
of a national state of emergency
the murder of George
Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota
might have received temporary
attention and perhaps
little or no accountability from
law enforcers.
Through the decades a long
list of casualties victimized
by police directly implicated
the murderers of grandmother
Eleanor Bumpurs, African
immigrant Amadou Diallo,
graffiti artist Michael Stewart,
bride groom Sean Bell, Staten
Island choke-hold victim Eric
Garner and a much longer list
of Black victims.
And as heinous as those
murders of unarmed citizens,
other related criminalities are
also now glaringly visible for
the world to see. In fact, Black
reporters were often brutalized
while attempting to report
injustices. Their abuses did
not seem of interest to major
media outlets, politicians or
a public too busy to sustain a
prolonged attention span.
But with confinement, cell
phones, social media and breaking
news reports the pandemic
magnified the actions of police
who used rubber bullets, mace,
tear gas and other restraints to
disperse reporters.
There for the world to see,
reporters representing major
media outlets are now experiencing
the unfair treatment
meted out by police to members
of the Black press.
Another reprehensible and
revealing visual showed a senior
citizen in Buffalo being
pushed to the concrete by a
policeman. Although bleeding
from the head, the helpless
man was ignored, with his
plight blamed on “tripping.”
Yours truly can readily
relate to incidents while covering
Haitian rallies, weekly Bensonhurst
murder protests, and
numerous others particularly
the horrendous Crown Heights
uprising where my photographer
Christopher Griffith and
I were beaten and arrested by
officers of the NYPD.
Without a pandemic in
1991, and despite relentless
defense effort by attorneys William
Kunstler and Ron Kuby
to seek justice, the NYPD justified
their brutality citing
lies claiming assault in order
to adjudicate their criminal
behavior.
Needless to say, three decades
ago when an angry community
amassed to protest
the death of 7-year-old Gavin
Cato, pandemonium inflated
by members of the NYPD
attributed to the tragic death
of rabbinical student Yankel
Rosenbaum.
Catch You On The Inside!
Inside Life
By Vinette K. Pryce