Eric Garner Who? New York on Verge of Giving Police Unions Even More Power to Protect Bad Cops

There’s a piece that ran in the Daily Beast today
by Michael Tomasky that called on Democrats to
forget about winning in the Deep South, a geographical region
Tomasky claims has “euthanized” ideas like “trans-racial
community,” that irked me. I’m not interested in the argument over
whether Democrats or Republicans are better for any particular
jurisdiction anywhere in the country. They’re both awful. I’m also
not interested in the bigoted exercise of ascribing belief sets to
entire populations of people based on where they live or where they
came from.

I do understand, however, the power of “racialized resentment,”
something Tomasky assigns to the South. How much easier it is to
work off an idea of reality based on your preconceived notions and
partisan preferences rather than facts on the ground. Last week a
grand jury in New York City declined to indict Officer Daniel
Pantaleo for the death of Eric Garner in police custody while a
grand jury in South Carolina
brought a murder charge against a white cop who shot a black
man twice in the chest in a case the Department of Justice declined
to prosecute last year. State prosecutors had been promising such a
charge once the cop’s spurious stand your ground claim was
dismissed, and they had already charged him with official
misconduct.

The kind of one-dimensional, partisan-colored thinking about
different places isn’t just unfair for the people trying to do the
right thing in the “wrong places,” it’s dangerous for the wrong
people stuck in the “right places.”

Take New York State and this unfortunately not so shocking story
via the Manhattan Institute’s E.J. McMahon writing at the
New York Post:

Sometime before year’s end, the state Legislature must send
Cuomo a bill it passed just weeks before Eric Garner’s fatal July
17 confrontation in Staten Island. The measure would allow unions
representing police and other civil-service employees across the
state to insist on collective bargaining of disciplinary procedures
affecting their members.

The bill represents the latest in a series of attempts by police
unions to nullify a unanimous 2006 state Court of Appeals decision,
which affirmed the New York City police commissioner’s disciplinary
authority.

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association had sued
then-Commissioner Ray Kelly for overriding disciplinary provisions
in the police contract — including a rule requiring NYPD superiors
to wait at least 48 hours before questioning police officers
accused of misconduct.

There have been sporadic protests in New York City and around
the country since the grand jury decision not to indict in the Eric
Garner case was announced last Wednesday night. Over the weekend
protesters in Berkeley, California, threw rocks at cops. Absent in
these protests, as far as I can see, is any discussion of the role
of police unions in
protecting bad cops and creating the space for killings like
that of Eric Garner’s to go unpunished. After all, Pantaleo still
has a job thanks to his union. When another cop in New York City
shot the unarmed Akai Gurley, apparently after freaking out because
the teen and his girlfriend entered the stairwell he was
patrolling, he
called his union rep as his victim lay dying.

There are a lot of intersecting issues that contribute to the
staggering death toll created by police forces across the United
States. None will fit neatly into any partisan’s concern. And none
has gotten less attention from an establishment suddenly concerned
with police violence than the way police unions frustrate effort to
remove bad cops from the job.

And here’s where the over-racialization of the issue of police
violence, especially when combined with partisan concerns, can be
particularly problematic, and lethal. McMahon notes of the New York
bill:

The police-discipline bill was a classic under-the-radar,
end-of-session special — an election-year favor to unions, brokered
on the leadership level in both houses. It passed 57-2 in the
Senate and 132-2 in the Assembly just before they adjourned in
June. (Among those supporting the bill were all 42 of the Black,
Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Caucus members present for the
votes.)

So what’s the point of all this protesting, of all this noise,
when the system continues to produce bodies and the leaders who
help keep it going can also hold onto power by claiming to be
against it? And what’s it say when their claim is given more
credence because of the color of their skin?

Now it’s up to Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) to decide whether this
bill becomes law. Progressives who claim to be concerned about
police violence haven’t appeared to notice the issue. Will Cuomo’s
party affiliation protect him if he signs it? It would’ve been a
no-brainer for him to sign it just a few months ago and it may yet
prove to be.