police – Unspoken Politics

Are We (Finally) in Late Neoliberalism?

The current wave of protests against austerity and imperialism indicate that we are at (another) crisis point in the roughly half-century since neoliberalism replaced Keynesian economics as the basis of contemporary capitalism.

It’s fitting that Chile, beginning with mass evasion of increased subway fares, and continuing to general strikes and a complete shutdown of the national infrastructure, is part of this wave. Neoliberalism, in its doctrinaire form, began in the aftermath of the 1973 coup that overthrew Salvador Allende and installed Pinochet as a dictator. The uprising in Haiti also connects to a longer historical process, as the Haitian people have been subject to imperialist efforts by major European powers (France historically, the United States now) to make them economically subservient and to overthrow or frustrate any attempt to build a political movement that is against austerity and foreign interference.

From Late English to Late Neoliberalism

Years ago, I wrote a post on this site about the evolution of the English language, and how future linguists will define the current moment. The feeling I had is that since Old English and Middle English both have fairly set beginning and end dates, that whatever form of the language we’re speaking today (usually dubbed “Modern English“) will eventually be given some historical marker, for the contemporary must eventually become the historical. This will be especially interesting given how English has become a highly diverse, global language since the beginning of Modern English, with English in different countries evolving at different rates, in different directions.

This general concept of evolution and the resulting terminology we use applies to capitalism, and neoliberalism more specifically. The term “late capitalism” (The Atlantic wrote about the term in 2017) is now used frequently, though I don’t run into it in academic literature as I do in podcasts and social media. The term usually refers to absurd products and business practices that seem unsustainable, thus giving a general feeling that capitalism is beginning to hollow out and collapse on itself. The saga of WeWork, which was once valued at $47 billion USD, despite losing huge amounts of money and having an obviously untenable business plan, fits into this. At some point I will write a more detailed, economics-focused post on the various players in the contemporary capitalist landscape, as we are likely on the edge of another Great Recession. WeWork fits into this landscape in being a venture capitalist-backed mirage, somewhere between the juggernaut companies that have enough cash on hand to survive even a terrible economic collapse, and the companies engaging in the same speculation that caused the 2007-2008 crisis, who will either be bailed out with public money and no accountability, or perhaps face some kind of takeover and structural change, depending on who wins the 2020 election.

I’ll quote a Jacobin interview with David Harvey to talk about what neoliberalism has meant in the context of post-war history:

I’ve always treated neoliberalism as a political project carried out by the corporate capitalist class as they felt intensely threatened both politically and economically towards the end of the 1960s into the 1970s. They desperately wanted to launch a political project that would curb the power of labor.

In many respects the project was a counterrevolutionary project. It would nip in the bud what, at that time, were revolutionary movements in much of the developing world — Mozambique, Angola, China etc. — but also a rising tide of communist influences in countries like Italy and France and, to a lesser degree, the threat of a revival of that in Spain

. . .

There were very few crises between 1945 and 1973; there were some serious moments but no major crises. The turn to neoliberal politics occurred in the midst of a crisis in the 1970s, and the whole system has been a series of crises ever since. And of course crises produce the conditions of future crises.

In 1982–85 there was a debt crisis in Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, and basically all the developing countries including Poland. In 1987–88 there was a big crisis in US savings and loan institutions. There was a wide crisis in Sweden in 1990, and all the banks had to be nationalized.

Then of course we have Indonesia and Southeast Asia in 1997–98, then the crisis moves to Russia, then to Brazil, and it hits Argentina in 2001–2.

And there were problems in the United States in 2001 which they got through by taking money out of the stock market and pouring it into the housing market. In 2007–8 the US housing market imploded, so you got a crisis here.

Neoliberalism is characterized by the hollowing out of the state, the mass privatization of state assets, and the commodification of all things such that everything that’s not in the market begins to look and act like it. If we concieve of society as existing in three parts- the state, the market, and a civil society that exists externally of both, like this:

In a neoliberalized society, the market expands at the expense of the other two sectors, and the state and civil society begin to have more market-influenced aspects. In civil society, we see the rise of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, which combines market forces with state surveillance. In the government, we see the rise of business metrics and corporate jargon that define and shape state action.

Is There A “Late Neoliberalism”?

So as Harvey says, neoliberalism has led to a series of interlocked, perhaps escalating crises all over the world. In the era of managed, Keynesian capitalism, central banks and governments were paying keen attention to growth metrics and financial speculation, so matters could only get so out of hand before actions was taken- bubbles were popped early or prevented entirely through regulation of speculative investments, slowdowns were countered with state investment. Since the state has become irrelevant in terms of financial regulation- instead being the muscle of the market to force compliance- the neoliberal era is a set of austerity reforms, a crisis related to these reforms, and further reforms in response. The thing is, none of these reforms actually solve anything- they just create further chaos that can be exploited. As Tony Weis states in a 2004 paper about how neoliberal reforms have destroyed the Jamaican agriculture industry, neoliberal action is not logical action, though contemporary economists attempt to depict themselves as following rigorous mathematical and logical precepts.

The question is whether there can be a crisis, a revolutionary reaction, so large that it overwhelms the neoliberal state. There are several directions this can take. One is the rise of far-right populism in the United States and parts of Europe, which use the gutting of the welfare state by neoliberal reforms and places the blames on various Others, stating that removing the undesirable parts of society will allow an era of abundance as existed in a (perhaps mythical) past.

Another is electoral anti-austerity movements. This includes the Bernie Sanders campaigns of 2016 and 2020, the Corbyn era of the Labour party, political parties that grew out of anti-austerity protests like Unidos Podemos in Spain and Solidarity-People Before Profit in Ireland. With the recent coup in Bolivia, and the releasing of Lula in Brazil, in addition to mass movements in Chile and Ecuador, the electoral and non-electoral responses to austerity and far-right reactionaries in Latin America are mixed together. This is not new- social democratic and democratic socialist politicians and parties have used social movements to help press for redistributive policies while in power, and against austerity when out of power.

Is neoliberalism in crisis? Yes, it always is somewhere in the world, and that’s pretty much the point. Is the crisis deep enough to lead to a new society? Well, here’s a bunch of Chileans with a banner reading “Chile will be the tomb of neoliberalism”, so they definitely think so:

The remnant of the state in places like Chile, which is an oversized military and police force with some other things of much less importance, has to contain mass protests and general strikes while having very little to offer people to placate them. This is not the era of the New Deal, where programs were created in large part to stave off radicals who were making inroads in the working class. The neoliberal state has nothing but the stick, or as Loïc Wacquant calls it, the “iron fist” of the penal state. This polarizes people and totalizes the conflict. If the security forces blink, then it can be over- like the Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia at the dawn of the millennium. When a nationwide protest rocked the capital, the police and military decided to stand aside. And with that, the people, not the US and its enormous military, overthrew Slobodan Milošević. The federal buildings were seized, and the dictatorship melted away.

Perhaps it is happening again.

BulldozerRevolution — Belgrade, 5 October 2000

White Supremacist Terrorism and the Long Era of Minority Rule

Content Warning: This post discusses mass shootings and other acts of terrorism, along with the racism and xenophobia that surround it.

It is uniquely American that, for record-keeping purposes, I have to mention at the beginning of this post which mass shootings I am writing in response to. When I began forming this post there was white supremacist shooting in El Paso, Texas. That has been joined with another mass shooting, again by a young white man with access to high-end body armor and weaponry, in Dayton, Ohio.

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, noted the importance of naming the ideology of the El Paso shooter, and how that aligned with the policies and rhetoric of the Trump Administration:

Screen Shot 2019-08-04 at 6.10.14 PM

The manifesto of the El Paso shooter indicates that white supremacist violence is an international contagion, wherein earlier shooters form a model, in their rhetoric and actions, for later terrorists. Though most mass shootings, and most mass shootings by white supremacists, happen in the United States, high-profile terrorist acts like the Christchurch shooting earlier this year in New Zealand, and going back further, the violence of Anders Breivik in Norway in 2011, show that this is an international phenomenon in white, developed countries.

Efforts to address white supremacist terrorism at the state level have been largely token, and programs started under President Barack Obama have been either reversed or cut. White supremacist violence has spiked since 2016. Even admitting that white supremacists are the top terrorist threat, and that home-grown terrorism is much more an existential threat than Islamic radicalism, remains a political third rail. Thus discussions after white supremacist attacks often avoid ideology and instead talk about mental health and video games (among the right) and gun control measures (among mainstream liberals).

It’s important to avoid political amnesia and treat this phenomenon as uniquely connected to Trump. The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right by David Neiwert, which talks about white supremacist rhetoric and how it informed violent acts against liberals, people of color, and other communities, was published in May 2009. Even it is quite dated, because of the many acts of violence tied to an ever-radicalizing media and conservative establishment under the Obama Administration. But white supremacist terror has existed my entire lifetime, going back to the Patriot movement of the 1990s and acts like the Oklahoma City federal building bombing.

800px-Oklahomacitybombing-DF-ST-98-01356 — The aftermath of the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, 1995. Photo by Preston Chasteen, public domain.

What has existed for a while, and is most nakedly apparent since January 2017, is a rise in state-influenced stochastic terrorism (n.), which is defined as:

the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted:

The lone-wolf attack was apparently influenced by the rhetoric of stochastic terrorism.

Acts of terror presently are in essence state-sanctioned, in that the President, and his political party which holds most of the power at the federal level, operate under the same rhetoric and influences.

The increasingly-punitive immigration policy, family separation, and demonization of asylum-seekers, all aim to do the same thing the El Paso shooter was doing- reverse demographic shifts that lead to white-minority societies.

I’m 29. Of all the presidential elections held in my lifetime (seven of them), the Republican Party has won the popular vote in exactly one of them (2004, which many would argue was the result of a badly botched Democratic campaign). Despite arguments made that the Republican Party needed to broaden its base and become more competitive among non-white populations (which followed consecutive defeats in 2008 and 2012), the Party has just steadily migrated further to the right, becoming even more the party of a particular sub-set of white people. The links between Republicans and evangelicals, forged in 1980, have continued to deepen. 2016 saw the “death of a euphemism“, as the latent white supremacy in conservative arguments about immigration and diversity was brought forward and made the explicit policy of a winning presidential campaign.

The American Right has gained and retained power through victories in low-turnout elections, widespread vote suppression, and policies of intimidation that maximize the political power of an ever-narrowing white majority. In many places, like California where I grew up, and in Texas where the mass shooting was, the society has become “majority-minority”, presaging a time about thirty years from now where the entire country will be white-minority. Texas especially is a point of huge right-wing anxiety, as demographics and organizing make the possibility of Blue Texas more possible, which would fundamentally change American elections. About half of white people are deeply fearful and apprehensive about these demographic shifts. Changes, made clear by developments like a rise in progressive legislators of color, threaten white elite rule. “Lone-wolf” stochastic terrorism is just another tactic to sustain minority white rule, one that is at a surface level condemned by the right-wing establishment, but below that is clearly being encouraged.

Some issues that are emerging in the past few years include three shifts in the media landscape:

The rise of Sinclair Broadcast Group and its consolidation of local news stations. Many people avoided being radicalized by Fox News- even at its peak, most Americans don’t watch any cable news, including Fox. But an entire population that thought they could trust the local news is instead exposed to a right-wing reactionary politics.
The talk-radioization of cable news. The rise of outright white nationalists like Tucker Carlson has made cable news more like the more radical, openly white supremacist talk radio landscape. Talk radio has always been a beta test for televised news- new reactionary arguments emerge there then are laundered into Fox News and Sinclair. The separation between talk radio and TV news has become increasingly blurred.
The rise of predatory online reactionaries. As I stated in the “A Unitarian Universalist Pipeline to the Right?” series, especially part IV: Anatomy of a Pipeline, the online right-wing landscape has become filled with figures whose job it is to hook people on far-right politics and talking points. Individuals like Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin and others make their money through radicalization. Spaces like 4chan and 8chan are so toxic now that they are dumping grounds for mass shooter manifestos, like the El Paso shooter’s.

Knowing all this, the need for an anti-racist, anti-fascist movement is evermore-urgent. The Lt. Governor of Texas, and Alex Jones both used antifa as a way to deflect from the ideology of the shooter. This is no time to shirk away from anti-fascist organizing, or to have a lengthy debate with bad-faith opponents about antifa on their terms. Anti-fascist groups like Unicorn Riot have helped expose white supremacy through their mass leaking of Discord chat logs, which combined with research helped out hundreds of white supremacist leaders, often in positions of power like the police and military. There needs to be a counter to alt-right groups like the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer, who engage in campaigns of violence and intimidation, often coming to progressive, diverse communities to do so. And for those who think local police departments will contain alt-right violence, there is ample communication and overlap between alt-right groups and the police.

More must be done than trying to wait out the clock until November 2020. The actors moving to preserve white minority rule never rest. And the policy of the state, and the actions of “lone wolf” terrorists, are ever-more entwined.

De-Arrest Every Single One, Free Them All

It’s not clear what the legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency will be. A lot is contingent on whether he leaves in 2021 or 2025 (or maybe stays beyond that, who really knows). It could be his links with the fossil fuel industry during the key period to avoid climate catastrophe. It could be his disgusting personality and history of sexual harassment and violence. I don’t think it’ll be his potential links to Russia, but I may be wrong.

Right now, July 15, 2019, it’s clearly the concentration camps.

2019-03-27t224958z_640528156_rc16ca56cd20_rtrmadp_3_usa-immigration-border_1.jpg_1718483346 — A concentration camp for migrants and asylees, El Paso, Texas. Credit: Reuters

The debate of what to call these horrid human misery camps is tired. They are concentration camps, much like Japanese internment camps were, and the early Nazi-era camps that existed as eventual pipelines shuttling people to death camps. The term is over a century old, and historians nearly-universally see the term as being used fairly like people like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

So with that being established, what are we obligated to do about them? The liberal response, which is focused on symbolic protest and use of electoral politics is, to me, fundamentally flawed. Mass symbolic protests like the Women’s March have had no long-term effect on Trump administration policy. Electoral victories in Congress did not yield a solution, as Nancy Pelosi gave a blank check to the administration to create more camps (or, more likely, keep the camps as-is and increase enforcement and apprehension, creating further crowding and misery). The Democratic Party is hopelessly divided on what to do about the border, with many having bought into the idea that there is a non-manufactured ‘border crisis’ with record unlawful crossings. The truth is more about clogged immigration courts, performative cruelty by the administration as a deterrent to crossing the border, and wasting taxpayer money sending soldiers to the border to do nothing in the heat.

Not to say that there are not urgent crises in countries that produce a large number of migrants. The Obama administration’s support for a coup in Honduras that entrenched military rule, corruption, and gang power, which he nor Hillary Clinton were ever held meaningfully accountable for, has had a domino effect on the region. Mass migration, including unaccompanied minors, rose sharply during the latter half of Obama’s administration. The crisis is a mixture of interventionist, illegal foreign policy and purposefully cruel domestic priorities. The end result is a humanitarian nightmare.

So what do we do? While Donald Trump certainly flirts with fascist ideas, there is certainly more space to plan resistance than existed in 1930s and 1940s Germany and Italy. ICE is used to targeting individuals and small groups with the element of surprise- they rely on heavily-armed police to deal with actions like the Portland ICE occupation. There are certainly mainstream actions that can be taken to deal with these injustices. Winning district attorney and mayoral races with progressive candidates that firmly (actually) refuse to cooperate with federal immigration is important. ICE depends strongly on the consent and active assistance of state and local law enforcement- if such support is removed, the house of cards is revealed. Further occupations of ICE buildings, the homes of senior officials, and contractors that do business with the agency could be effective- assuming activists have a clear strategy for victory and do not fall into lifestyle activism like occupation camps have often been criticized for becoming going back to Occupy Wall Street and before.

phonelights960 — A Lights for Liberty vigil. July 12, 2019. Credit: AP

But will history be satisfied with that? Are future generations going to be okay with “I voted” and “I went to a vigil”? Would we be satisfied with that in any prior period with concentration camps? Are we willing to live with hypocrisy?

With that said, let’s talk about de-arresting.

De-arresting has two distinct meanings. One is when one is released from arrest without certain information being filed. The other, which I’ll be referring to, is a form of direct action where a person or persons who have been detained or arrested are freed by protestors using various methods, including force. Given the high amount of illegal arrests at events like the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, it can be said that de-arresting can be justified, assuming we do not start from a position that the only legitimate power is state power, and that law enforcement officers (and prison guards, ICE officials, federal agents, Border Patrol, etc.) are always justified in the actions they take. This is uncomfortable territory for the political center and mainstream, even if they strongly disagree with mass arrests, deportations, child separations, and concentration camps. This is the electoral-direct action divide. Plenty of people have one foot in each camp, but many refuse to cross it. The reasons are complicated- they include personal sympathy with law enforcement (“my brother is a police officer!”), class interest, internalized bigotry, and simple lack of initiative.

Let’s also say that de-arresting is not strictly about the use of force. In Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, which has been used in the color revolutions across Europe and the Caucuses, the Arab Spring, and in the Hong Kong democracy movement, among many others, we see ostensibly nonviolent means that still support actions like de-arresting, given certain circumstances. I’ll bold some I think are particularly relevant:

16. Picketing

66. Total personal noncooperation
67. “Flight” of workers
68. Sanctuary
69. Collective disappearance

139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
141. Civil disobedience of “illegitimate” laws

143. Blocking of lines of command and information
144. Stalling and obstruction
145. General administrative noncooperation

146. Judicial noncooperation

170. Nonviolent invasion
171. Nonviolent interjection
172. Nonviolent obstruction
173. Nonviolent occupation

175. Overloading of facilities
176. Stall-in
177. Speak-in

196. Civil disobedience of “neutral” laws
197. Work-on without collaboration
198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government

183. Nonviolent land seizure

Now, in the streets, when a migrant is being detained by ICE, or held in a concentration camp, or separated from their children, the lines between “nonviolence” and “force” blur a lot. What if a police officer charges you with a baton? Do you resist or not? If an officer is dragging someone towards a car, is it violent or nonviolent to distract or intimidate them into letting them go, or pursuing you instead? It’s why principled pacifism has problematic aspects. I still believe nonviolence has clear advantages- there are clear problems with the actions of anarchist Willem Van Spronsen and his “propaganda of the deed”. These things are best done in massive groups, in which soldiers or police are outnumbered heavily. The more people there are, the less likely authority figures will risk using force, lest they lose control of the situation entirely. There is a long history of mass occupations and civil disobedience, including the mutiny of soldiers- such as the 1986 Peoples’ Power Revolution in the Philippines, and the retreat of riot police from the federal building in the 2000 Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia, leading to the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević. These were mass movements, broad coalitions ranging from the mainstream to hardened activists, to the authorities themselves. Their united actions and planning exposed rifts within the ruling class, which were then isolated and dismantled piece by piece, like the storming of the Bastille 230 years ago yesterday.

The situation is fairly straightforward. Thousands of people are in concentration camps where they don’t belong. Their conditions are horrific. Children are separated from parents, sometimes to be adopted by American families without parental consent. We have to get them out. They have been arrested and detained, but their ‘crimes’ are unjust for any level of imprisonment. They are held and dehumanized as an act of pure cruelty, just like the Boers in South Africa, the Roma, Communists, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals across Europe by Germany, and the Japanese in the United States and Canada.

They need to be de-arrested. The camps must be dismantled. Their leaders need to be tried and convicted of their crimes. How does one do that? You can gather a dedicated coalition and use raw numbers to do the job. You can try to fight the soldiers, police, and agents- though that is the terrain they are most comfortable with, and regular people are least comfortable. You can wait until 2020 and hope Donald Trump loses a partially-rigged election and relinquishes authority. And hope a Democratic president doesn’t maintain such terrible detention facilities.

There are multiple paths, with one goal. Which way will it be?

Police ignore own mental health policies in killing of Alfred Olango

The police have released cell phone and surveillance footage of the Alfred Olango shooting by El Cajon, CA police. It’s obviously disturbing, but CNN is hosting it here.

The video also has a very good picture of what Olango was holding- it looks pretty much like what I described in my last post.

Police say their job is very hard and dangerous. It’s not the most dangerous occupation, and these shootings continue to show the very low expectations society and the justice system have for police officers.

If I was telling you that we were going to help someone who’s having some mental health trouble, when we arrived you would be prepared for certain behavior. You might expect that this person may be agitated, not want to be approached, and would not respond well to escalation. You would know that this would not be a typical conversation.

In the death of Alfred Olango, the police were called on a 5150. That’s the same thing as me briefing you in the above scenario. It’s a mental health call. Quoting Christopher Rice-Wilson:

“The PERT Team [Psychiatric Emergency Response Teams] should have been the ones responding to this. The police were aware of his mental illness: this was a 5150 call and they should have dispatched officers trained to deal with this and de-escalate the situation. El Cajon police didn’t do this; they didn’t follow their own policy.” (SD Reader, 9/28, “Police killing of Alfred Olango protested”)

This is the issue with the argument that bodycams would have saved Alfred Olango’s life. El Cajon PD has policies about mental health. They didn’t follow them, barged right into a delicate situation, and an unarmed black man is now dead. If bodycams become policy, just like the PERT Team, why do people expect that they will be used as needed? Going back to low expectations, the police rarely are rebuked for not following their own protocol. Who’s going to force them?

Protestors in El Cajon have been met with force, including bean bag rounds (video of someone hit by one here). From my own vantage point, with privilege, I can’t fully appreciate how it is to be a person of color in America, let alone a protestor of color. But as someone with a mental illness, and with friends who have very serious conditions, the Alfred Olango shooting is proof that rights on paper and in reality can be radically different.

Analysis of police press release about Alfred Olango raises serious questions (updated)

The police in El Cajon have released, and then updated, a press release about the shooting of Alfred Olango.

Police have video of the incident taken from a bystander, which they say backs up their account, but refuse to release the full video. This is the still that we have to go on.

We know that Olango did not have a gun or a Taser. The press release states the exact objects Olango had were a Smok TVF4 MINI attached to a Pioneer4You battery box.

The first item sounds like the one pictured on the left, as it is described as “all silver.”

2015-09-24-10_53_355429

Pioneer boxes look something like this:

133_g_1469644390387

The device in total is 7″ by 2.25″ by 1″. For a comparison, a Glock 17 is about 8″ by 5.5″ by 1.2″. If the Smok was all silver as shown above, it wouldn’t resemble a gun from any distance, let alone the few feet as shown in the picture. Given that vape devices are commonplace, police should be expected to distinguish between smoking equipment, firearms, and Tasers. That’s an expectation that was not met here.

Other notes:

Shooting was at 2:11, with weather in El Cajon being very hot and bright. So no “it was dark to hard to determine” defense like in the Fridoon Nehad case, where a non-weapon was misidentified also. As the still shows, police saw the device from multiple angles.

Releasing the still seems to be a way of forming a narrative without backing it up in full. You would assume that this single frame, taken out of context, makes the police account look most likely. However, you don’t have to defend police conduct as it actually looked in real-time, nor any police methods used prior to the shooting.

The police deflect why there was not a Psychiatric Emergency Response Team (PERT) personnel at this scene at the bottom of the updated press release.

The El Cajon Police Department does have an agreement with Community Research Foundation / PERT which allows certified licensed clinicians to partner with police officers in the field in order to provide direct support for mental health calls. On 9/27/16, during the hours of this incident, there was a PERT clinician with a police officer. At the specific time of this incident, that team was on a different radio call that was also PERT related. They were not immediately available.

(update: the Associated Press reports it took over an hour for police to respond and one minute to kill Olango. If it took that long, the “not immediately available” excuse doesn’t hold up. This was not a rush, in-the-moment job.

Additionally, someone allegedly so dangerous that police had to quickly kill when on the scene managed to not hurt anyone in the hour before. The person Olango was most likely to hurt was himself, given his state and the presence of traffic.)

This was a 5150 call, in which authorities come to take someone to involuntary psychiatric hold. Given that the call was about mental illness (not a call about crime or a possible criminal), having no special preparation is concerning. Though 5150s can be a good thing in the long run for patient health (I know many people who have had at least one called), this incident makes me less likely to call one in.

As someone who provided information about mental illness to those who came into contact with people with mental health problems, or were otherwise difficult to help, I’m not surprised. The department likely trumpets this local relationship in promotional materials, yet when people’s lives are on the line, they are somehow unavailable. This is a similar issue we’ve seen so far with bodycams- often there, but unavailable or otherwise unaccessible.

The release says this

At this time, the officer with the electronic control device discharged his weapon. Simultaneously, the officer with the firearm discharged his weapon several times, striking the subject.

Why, if the suspect is considered such that one officer has their Taser (rather than pistol) ready, would the two stages not be sequential. Non-lethal methods would not have worked in the death of Alfred Olango, because lethal means were used at the same time. Would Olango have survived if only the Taser been used? Much more likely.

In conclusion, large protests in El Cajon have been held in the aftermath of Olango’s death. Given the official story as presented thus far, I find considerable issue with police conduct before the shooting, the misidentification of the object held by Olango, the use of lethal force before less-lethal means were tried, and the release of a single still image without context, so to prejudice the public.

The death of Alfred Olango, disability, and “failure to comply”

A black man, Alfred Olango, was killed by a police officer on Tuesday in El Cajon, CA. It’s the first major city to the east of San Diego, about 20-25 minutes by car from where I live.

screen-shot-2016-09-28-at-3-23-02-am — Site of shooting in downtown El Cajon, Sept 27 2016

Not much is known for sure, other than that the dead man was “acting erratic.” A woman identified as his sister said he had mental health issues. According to the NBC report, the police “did not release details on the specific threat he presented to officers.” There is also contention about whether the police confiscated cell phones of bystanders who may have had video of the incident. They likely did, given how often the police aim to suppress video that may run counter to police testimony. There’s also little reason to give police the benefit of the doubt. Look no further than the recent allegations of gun planting in Charlotte and a much clearer case of planting in 2011 in St. Louis.

The killing of a mentally ill man echoes last year’s killing of Fridoon Nehad, which involved a long fight to release surveillance footage of the incident. The details I covered in December 2015 here. A big similarity in these cases is the difference between being erratic and being dangerous. Erratic behavior has many sources- in Olango’s case it looks like a seizure is the reason. A variety of disorders like bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, and some types of depression can also make individuals confused and incapable of responding to police demands- which are often given loudly, on top of one another, and with a very small time window for compliance. At my low point in 2012 when my mental health was worst, I could have easily been described as erratic. And I now realize that can put my life at risk, in a way never before considered.

Police protocol in these cases is infested with ableism. It assumes a perfectly compliant, quick, enthusiastic response to police orders. If someone fails on any of these counts, their life can be in danger. Sometimes the cops will just open fire before any real attempt at less-lethal options- Fridoon Nehad was shot by an officer who spent about 25 seconds from parking his car to killing him. But consider the case of Charles Kinsey, a black man shot for trying to help a young autistic man in his care, Arnaldo Rios. Kinsey served a perfectly compliant surrogate for someone who was unable to do so, and yet police did open fire on Rios, missing and hitting Kinsey instead. The resulting trauma for Rios has been awful, with him not getting proper therapy. But many people with mental or development disorders don’t survive their encounters with police. Robert Ethan Saylor, who had Down’s Syndrome, was tackled and asphyxiated over a dispute about a movie ticket. Again, defensive behavior or tics was interpreted as a threat. People who are deaf or hard of hearing routinely suffer from violence, since a basic assumption is that all people can hear instructions. And of course, many people don’t speak English, so being yelled at in the foreign language is just confusing and may lead to so-called ‘erratic’ actions. Police always filter civilian behavior through a lens of perfect ability. That is, those who are not fully able and somehow lesser and more likely to be targets of violence. The most vulnerable sections of the population are threatened by the institutions that in theory should protect and serve them.

These issues would be much less prevalent if American police really committed to deescalation, and had proper understanding of the symptoms and nature of mental illness. I was even part of a county program in 2014 that helped explain mental illness and stigma to schools, crisis lines, and yes, police departments. But it’s not working- street-level cops still can’t process disability at any level. The existence of the ADA, and the sense that people with mental and physical disabilities have rights has no place among the police.

Screencap of ABC 10 report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi5Xa_ja_7I

The true answer, to help make sure there is never another Alfred Olango, is community policing. Community members and organizations band together to help keep things safe, using their pre-existing trust to make bonds that the police will never be able to. And a community effort means more local knowledge, including those who live with mental or developmental disabilities. Communities also don’t want gun homicides and violence- they have the most vested interest in deescalation. Restorative justice can change mindsets in a way mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline cannot.

Alfred Olango is not the first, not in this country or this county. But he is a reminder that police departments have the most sinister and deadly ableism one can imagine.

San Diego will participate in 022, the October 22nd National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. Event details are on Facebook here. The national event website is here.

Privilege in activism: avoiding white monopolization

Criminal is an eclectic, short-form true crime podcast, part of the Radiotopia network of eclectic, short-form podcasts. It’s genuinely a great listen, usually dealing with stories that are local, often in a historical context. The most recent episode, “The Finger”, deals with a white Oregon man who tested the limits of free speech protection by giving every cop he sees the bird.

This episode highlights something that I think is important, if we wish to have healthy social justice activism. The question of how white people fit into Black Lives Matter as a structure is not new- the White Panther Party is proof of that. What “The Finger” represents is a deep double-standard where authorities criminalize speech for marginalized groups, but are indifferent when coming from traditionally dominant ones.

If I decided to flip off every police officer I saw, there would be some consequences. My car would get pulled over more. Small infractions like jaywalking or speeding could get me fined. A cop might even yell at me and be confrontational. And though I can’t say this for sure, I’m relatively confident that I would not suffer bodily harm for my choices. This applies to acts of protest in general. The same action has a fundamentally different meaning depending on who does it. For me, the consequences are real, but limited. For a black person, someone LGBT-identified or undocumented, people have been killed for much less than The Finger.

Recently I read a 2010 paper titled “The achievement gap and the discipline gap: two sides of the same coin?” (PDF). A section talks about how white and black students are disciplined for different acts, despite similar levels of misbehavior.

reasons for referring White students tended to be for causes that were more objectively observable (smoking, vandalism, leaving without permission, obscene language), whereas office referrals for Black students were more likely to occur in response to behaviors (loitering, disrespect, threat, excessive noise) that appear to be more subjective in nature.

The arrest of Sandra Bland was similar to this– based on subjective judgement about “attitude” and “disrespect.” Her minor traffic offense was inflated- despite white drivers doing a similar maneuver all the time. Similar actions, but vastly different consequences.

So that gets back to privilege and protest. I have space that others do not- I can get away with more provocative and militant tactics. The police are more likely to issue warnings before physical confrontation. Authority figures divulge more information around me because they don’t automatically assume I oppose them. This means people with privilege can be the most provocative, visible members of the movement. In the process, it diverts attention away from communities that are under attack by the state.

That’s unfortunate and counterproductive, because one of the most powerful aspects of Black Lives Matter is how dangerous it is to publicly confront the police as a black person in the United States. I can flip The Finger and curse out a police officer, but it doesn’t carry the same meaning.

One line of thought is weaponizing privilege. That is, people with privilege should exploit it to fight for social justice. My critique of white supremacy, the theory assumes, has special meaning because it is a critique of one’s own identity. But at the same time, it feels like things are going in the wrong direction. Privilege used for noble purposes is still fundamentally unjust, and its use cements it within society.

A counter, which after a year and a half around BLM, is that white, male allies are taking leadership positions within the movement when they weaponize privilege. I think that does happen, and I have witnessed it.

Ultimately, I feel my actions should exist within the democratic framework of a movement. That is, not unilaterally using my advantages, but rather offering it as an option should others feel it can be used in some way. White people have a tendency to make decisions personally, and then seek retroactive approval. That’s dangerous and undermines social justice movements. Marginalized groups should have their autonomy acknowledged and respected.

So I choose not to give cops The Finger, because most people cannot. It is important to respect how dangerous activism can be for certain groups of people, and not casually antagonize just because I can get away with it.

The culture of ‘imminent threat’

In my current home of San Diego, a man named Fridoon Rawshan Nehad was shot this spring by a police officer. While there was a surveillance video of the shooting, its release was blocked by much of the political apparatus, most notably District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.

The video is obviously graphic, and is available here. Officer Neal Browder arrives on scene around four minutes in, with him opening fire about 25 seconds later. In this screenshot Nehad is in the foreground, and the white flash is a gunshot.

Screen Shot 2015-12-23 at 12.15.29 AM

I won’t go into the details of the video itself, since it seems discussion of systemic state violence gets bogged down into a ‘was the victim threatening’ discussion for each case. What I will say is that Nehad did not have a knife (he actually had a pen), he was experiencing a mental health episode, he was not moving any faster than a casual walk, and though he was walking towards Browder he was not walking at Browder.

That this situation even happened is testament to how people fall through the cracks- Nehad suffered from serious mental illness and houselessness for many years prior to his death. Despite the prevalence of mood disorders and schizophrenia, most police departments have no understanding of how to deal with individuals who are unable to understand and comply with police demands.

District Attorney Dumanis and the police leadership are selling the same justification as usual- the idea that as the victim was an imminent threat, lethal force is justifiable. cjones11292014

This thinking ties the domestic to the international. Drone strikes, airstrikes, and the wholesale invasion of nations are all justified based on imminent threat ideology. With the militarization of the police, calculations about the use of lethal force by American institutions sound the same no matter where on Earth you happen to be.

But the thing is, the definition of an imminent threat can only be stretched so far. Nehad was erratic, but he was not in any sense threatening. Most of the body count from drone strikes had no connection to threats against the US or the West. The structures of power, at any level, want the maximum amount of autonomy and the minimum amount of accountability. Eliminating threats is only the stated purpose. Gaining power by setting precedent and pushing against any and all limitations is the key. With DA Dumanis (known for being corrupt) as an ally to prevent judicial oversight, the police rise above the law.

Many cases since Mike Brown throughout the United States were even more egregious than Nehad- they lacked even the foundation of a defense. But almost nobody goes to jail. Police security culture makes investigation and prosecution- even if the courts are willing, all but impossible.

The list of those killed by city and county police in San Diego is long. The answer to ‘who polices the police?’ is pretty simple- it’s you. Agitation at the grassroots level have made sweeping lethal police shootings under the rug far more difficult. Popular opinion since Ferguson has shifted radically. The idea that America is not a color-blind, egalitarian society is creeping into the mainstream. Police power grows best in the shadows, and the institution never expects dedicated resistance.

San Diego Sheriff hate mail III: Media reports, department takes things “very seriously”

Following the press conference by United Against Police Terror and its allies this morning, news coverage is pouring in. The conference was followed by a perfunctory statement by the department stating that they were taking the matter of hate email coming from the Sheriff’s Department IP address “very seriously” and were conducting an internal investigation.

NBC 7 San Diego: “Sheriff’s Dept. Launches Internal Investigation After Activist Group Receives Hate Email”

From NBC 7 San Diego newscast, 9/22/15. Shows excerpt of hate mail.

The email says, in part, “The police aren’t the problem. It’s the criminals out there victimizing the real citizens of the country that are the problem.”

Much of the email is too profane to broadcast on TV or copy in an article.

Mendonça said perhaps the most troubling part of the email was where the writer described Ferguson protesters as “animals.”

“It just perpetuates that ‘lesser of a being’ (stereotype), and it highlights how much racism is still present to this day,” [Catherine] Mendonça said. “There’s still hundreds of years of racism that we still need to overcome.”

San Diego Union-Tribune: “Sheriff’s probe origin of hate email to activist group” by Pauline Repard

The email rant that referred to Ferguson, Mo. protesters as animals and said “real citizens” of the county love the police was sent Sept. 16 to the website of United Against Police Terror San Diego, its spokeswoman, Cat Mendonca said.

Mendonca held a news conference outside the sheriff’s Kearny Mesa headquarters on Tuesday to say her organization had filed a complaint with the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board, which handles complaints against sheriff’s deputies.

CBS 8 News: “Sheriff’s Department Investigating Profane Email”

Jeff Olson of Socialist Alternative San Diego speaks at the press conference. 9/22/15

Protesters are calling on Sheriff Bill Gore to take action after a profane email traced back to sheriff’s headquarters was sent to an activist group critical of law enforcement policies.

Univision San Diego: “Organización recibe correo amenazante y lo rastrean hasta el Departamento del Alguacil (Organization receives threatening mail tracked to the Sheriff’s Department)”

Press conference at Sheriff's Dept. 9/22/15 — Press conference at Sheriff’s Dept. 9/22/15

En un comunicado de prensa señalaron que el mensaje fue recibido el miércoles 16 de septiembre con insultos, defendiendo a la policía y llamando a los protestantes de policías de Ferguson “animales”.

Mencionaron que en esta era de anonimato en internet, el recibir este tipo de correos es algo común para la organización, lo que no fue común, fue que supuestamente lo recibieron del Departamento del Alguacil.

Frontera San Diego: “Carta de odio enviada a activistas desde oficina del Alguacil” by Ana L. Gómez

A copy of the complaint filed against the Sheriff's Department by United Against Police Terror San Diego. 9/22/15 — A copy of the complaint filed against the Sheriff’s Department by United Against Police Terror San Diego. 9/22/15

The Anti-Media: “Email Traced Back to San Diego Sheriff’s Shows How Cops Really Feel About Protesters” by Derrick Broze

This latest saga between police accountability activists and the police is yet another example of the divisions gripping the country. Without a doubt, individuals who threaten violence against other free humans should be held accountable. However, we should not allow ourselves to be sucked into a false paradigm of the people versus the police.

Any good-hearted police officers remaining within the ranks of the increasingly militarized local police departments should quickly leave as conscientious objectors. Only by making it clear that their intention is to support the community — not defend the state — will officers gain the support of the people. At the same time, the activists in the streets should make it clear they are against violent criminals, not misguided individuals who joined the police force in an effort to serve and protect.

We can find common ground and strengthen our bonds and unity by recognizing the way this system is dividing us along lines of race and profession, among other things. We are one and it’s time we start organizing and acting like it. Let’s not further divide ourselves. Instead, let’s work towards the harmony and unity of all people and focus our energies on our mutual enemies.

The Raw Story: “Someone in the San Diego sheriff’s office thinks police protesters are drug-addicted ‘animals'” by Travis Gettys (Sept. 24)

The San Diego sheriff’s department launched an investigation after someone sent obscenity-riddled hate mail to an activist group protesting police brutality.

But investigators soon learned, like the babysitter in the urban legend, the calls are coming from inside the house.

Mediaite coverage by Ken Meyer (has mistake- this was the county sheriff not the San Diego PD)

spokeswoman Cat Mendonca and Lt. Marco Garmo held a press conference on Tuesday where they said that an internal investigation was underway, acknowledging that the IP address did, indeed, come from their computers.

Copblock: “San Diego Activist Group Tracks Hate Mail to Sheriff’s Department” by Dylan Donnelly

This message isn’t anything new for police or the internet. The author illustrates a common “Us vs Them” mentality among police officers that dehumanizes the people they claim to serve. The “thin blue line” culture is intolerant of dissent, drawing a line between the “real citezens [sic]” and those not worthy of police protection, common decency, dignity or life.

Catherine Mendonca of UAPTSD said, “I really do hope that the broader discussion of why we’re a target can happen #SDSTOLENLIVES need #Justice uaptsd.org“.

San Diego Sheriff hate mail II: activists take it to the media

Catherine Mendonca speaks to the media about hate mail traced to police computers. Credit- Birdie Gutierrez

A press conference was held outside a San Diego County Sheriff’s Department administrative building this morning, concerning the September 16 hate mail received by police watchdog group United Against Police Terror. The unsigned email had an IP address that matched a Sheriff’s Department building in San Diego. Full info and commentary at an earlier post here.

Five San Diego TV channels covered the rally, so check the local news tonight for coverage of an episode of appalling police behavior in San Diego.

Rafael Bautista speaks to Univision regarding police threats to San Diego activists. Credit- Birdie Gutierrez