How to Protect Yourself From Police Brutality

How to Protect Yourself From Police Brutality

By Manny Bade

The death of Jeffrey Reodica has confirmed what we had always suspected: that there exists a racist, rogue element within the police force of Toronto.

At least one eyewitness had asserted that on the day he was shot, Jeffrey was not carrying a knife, contrary to what has been disseminated in the media, and that he did not fight his killer. In fact, it appeared from this eyewitness testimony that he was down, in a fetus-like curled position, his arms covering his head, cowering in fear of a gun just inches from his temple, facing away from his tormentor (the bullet entry wounds would attest to this), and that he was repeatedly slapped by the police officer before he was fatally shot three times from behind.

There is no other way to describe this other than a classic case of police brutality.
The other bitter pill for Jeffrey’s parents to swallow is Jeffrey was only 17, a bright student with so much potential in his young life that his death could only be labeled as senseless.

How many more parents like the Reodicas will bury their children? How many more senseless murders by police of our kids shall we endure? How many of our bright young men will be lost to the callous officers sworn to protect us, and yet turn their guns on us? As a Roman orator once asked: “Who is going to protect us when our own protectors turn against us?”

But the most important question: How can our youth avoid being victimized by police brutality? Can our children ever walk the streets again, safe in the knowledge that yes, they have a tool to protect themselves against the guns of out of control police officers?

The answer is yes.

But before I go further, let me not be misunderstood. I am not fostering disobedience to authorities. I did not say, resist the police. On the contrary, always obey the police officers at all times. They are there to enforce the law and we must obey them. What I’m saying is that a vast majority of officers are good, decent human beings who are there to uphold the law and protect us. It is the minuscule portion of the force, the scallywag bad apples who are even giving a black eye to the rest of Toronto’s finest that we must try to root out. But even them we must obey. Because after all, with their guns, we are at their mercy, and we are helpless to resist anyway.

But, at the same time we can learn from something that happened to Jama Said Jama. Just this week, a police officer was charged with assaulting Jama, a Somali-Canadian who was trying to break up a fight last Caribana, and was himself punched by a police officer with just two years in the service. Then on the strength of the officer’s false report, Jama was charged with assaulting a police officer. Sounds familiar? Well, Jama thought there was nothing he could do. After all, under the circumstances, he was still lucky. He could have been lying there in the pool of his own blood and the officer claiming he was shot because he attacked him with a weapon. Besides, he thought who would believe his word against that of the officer of the law?

But something unexpected happened. Because it was Caribana, there were tourists around who had video cameras with them. And one of them actually captured the whole incident live, on video. It was reminiscent of the Rodney King case in California a few years back. The video scene of King, a black man being punched, hit with batons and kicked repeatedly by white LAPD officers shocked the whole U.S.A. Riots ensued when the four officers involved were found not guilty by an all-white jury. The not guilty verdict was overturned and a new trial was ordered which resulted in the conviction of two of the four officers who were charged.

There’s a lesson to be learned from these two incidents. First, in the absence of a strong evidence to the contrary, the word of the police is taken at face value by the courts anytime. Therefore, the abusive officers believe they can do anything with impunity, thinking nothing can stop them from assaulting you, or even killing you. For then they can always turn around and accuse you of assaulting them, resisting arrest, attacking them with a weapon, etc. Fear will cower eyewitnesses into silence, and you can end up either in hospital and later in jail, or six feet underground, and no one would have known the truth.

Second, the police are scared of cameras. Remember a few years back, after yet another brutal assault by police on a civilian, it was suggested that cameras be installed in police cruisers? The police were up in arms against it. Why? Maybe the Rodney King factor scares them?

So, there is a way to fight back. Use of present technology has potentials to keep these bad apples in our police force in check. One such technology is the cellular telephone equipped with a camera. I suggest we arm ourselves and our kids with these phones which can record events like these and email the images to a preset cyber space, so that the rogue police officers will be deterred from hurting us and our children, or if they do, there’s an impartial witness that cannot be bullied, cannot be bribed and will be credible even in the courts.

To illustrate these cameras’ usefulness, let’s rewind the event back to Jeffrey’s death two weeks ago, and pretend that Jeffrey’s friends actually had camera cell phones at the time. As the officer was roughing up Jeffrey, one or two of his friends could have actually recorded the event on their phones, then email the images to their Internet album (provided by the cellular phone carrier). That way there would have been a permanent indelible record of what happened. Even when afterwards the police officers would confiscate the camera phones, the images would already have been safely saved in the album, and could be used later as evidence. They could not have prevented Jeffrey’s death, but they could have been used either to set the record straight regarding Jeffrey’s actions and/or be used in court should charges be later laid.

Hopefully, widespread use of this technology will deter would be abusive officers into thinking twice before hurting anyone. That way they can truly exercise what they are sworn to: “to serve and protect”, not to harm and kill.