Late yesterday Roderick Douglass posted a news story on how the “Endicott Police Mistakenly Tase Disabled Bystander, Causing Heart Attack.” As Douglass reports, witnesses state that Devon Johnson, an Endicott resident, rushed to scene of a car accident last Sunday, removed a victim from the car, and waited for first responders. Searching for a Black man who fled the scene on foot, the police grabbed Johnson—another Black man. While his partner frantically told them he had a pacemaker, he was tased several times. He had a heart attack, and was taken to UHS hospital. The police charged Mr. Johnson with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and his partner with disorderly conduct.
This is the third time there has been public community protest about police violence in recent weeks. The first focused on Binghamton officers who on August 11th roughly handled and detained a 13 year old girl and a developmentally challenged 14 year old boy. This was captured on video. The second, also on video, involved the abusive treatment and arrest of a Black woman outside the YWCA. A large public demonstration on August 17th protested the first; the second led to a public rebuke from the YWCA for the violent, public escalation of a dispute that had resolved itself until police arrived on the scene.
There are some elemental truths here. If you call the police, expect an armed and often fearfully violent response. That is how police are trained to respond to every call, as senior officers and police research groups themselves report. If a Black or Latinx person is involved, expect a racially-biased response: data and studies from across the nation continually document this. If the incident involves a person with mental health problems or substance use disorders, expect the criminalization of the individual, their incarceration, and, in too many cases, their death.
Can we imagine different outcomes? Can we employ community forces trained in de-escalating, rather aggressively exacerbating, domestic and family disputes? What might happen if persons with mental health problems were met by counselors rather than armed police? Is it possible to imagine giving persons who want drug treatment access to it, rather than repetitive confrontations with the police followed by stints in jail (or worse, death by overdose)?
Thanks Bill for alerting us to this police violence and asking for alternate responses for help. At London’s ICOPA conference, a Audre Lorde Project from Brooklyn member told us that they use alternate phone numbers for emergency intervention. Calling 911 isn’t an option when the mission of the police is “law enforcement.”