My first client #blacklivesmatter
warning: this article includes instances of police violence
My first criminal defense client when I was a new attorney was a young black man who lived in Oakland. Cops had beaten his friend for so long they broke his back, and when my client yelled at the cops to stop, that his friend needed an ambulance, the cops arrested him and charged him with criminal threats to a police officer. When he said he didn’t do anything wrong, they added a charge of resisting arrest. He had four friends who also saw it all happen, and they were also all arrested and charged with resisting arrest. These were all black men in their early twenties in the front lawn of their own homes in Oakland. His friend with the broken back and face was taken to prison to receive ”medical care.”
According to my client, his friend was on parole (for a drug offense) and he was worried when he saw the patrol car that the cops would make up a charge as a parole violation to drag him back to prison so he started running towards his home. Cops saw him (a young black man) running and hopped out of their cruiser. They didn’t shoot him. They chased him, cornered him in a driveway, hit him with batons, and continued hitting him. As he lay crumpled and screaming they arrested the five eye-witnesses yelling at them to stop. These false arrests are common tactics in cases when there’s been an overuse of force since it discredits the witnesses when they have to testify on the stand they saw the event but yes, they were arrested.
After some work, I was able to convince the DA to dismiss the case against my client. But the five young men whose friend was beaten in front of them by police officers still had to watch that happening, unable to stop it, still had to spend a night in jail, and still had to come back to go to court. They all received the implicit message that if they testified- if they spoke truth to power, it would come at a cost. Even if they prevailed and won their cases, it wouldn’t be pleasant. And those who didn’t have an attorney? Some might have plead guilty to a misdemeanor just to be released and not have to deal with it anymore, perhaps preserving energy from reliving that trauma for something constructive. And of course the potential collateral consequence of that choice no doubt found its way into the inbox of future prospective employers who might conflate what actually happened with how the victims of that violence chose to move out of it and refer to them as “convicted criminals.” Interfering with police protocol, threatening a police officer, resisting arrest- these were charges I saw almost exclusively aimed at my young black male clients. Don't believe the hype.
The criminal justice system has always been plagued by abusers. If you are fortunate enough to have grown up in a community where you didn’t see this abuse and were not subject to it yourself, it may seem surprising what has been happening over the past week. State sanctioned murder is particularly horrific when it occurs against the innocent (some also believe it’s horrific when used against the guilty). But we do mostly all agree as a society on immense procedural safeguards to try to protect against innocent people being put to death. We craft extremely narrow limitations (like self-defense or military combat) where lethal and extreme use of force is legal. Those safeguards aren’t reaching our black communities and citizens.
Abuse of power and loss of life affects all of us, and if it doesn’t, that reflects a moral failure not just of the person who has no capacity for it but of society. If we have an inability to create a space in our hearts for empathy with the breathless then we are ceding that space to the blinding power of the sickness of the mind that is racism. The health of our society depends on rejecting this sickness. On restoring sight. So if you’re somebody who has the magic ability to be seen or hold voice in a community that people listen to, reflect on how this call to action can be a line in the sand to help prevent the next generation from these abuses. Can we perform alchemy and and transform the tattered heartbreaking remnants of a year with so many to mourn into some element of hope?
-Gabriel Bellman, Esq.
June 2020