Rochester Police Department (RPD) officers Matthew Drake, Steven Mitchell, and Jeffrey Kester were caught on store surveillance cameras brutalizing David Vann and are named in a federal civil rights lawsuit along with the city of Rochester and several other officers, investigators and supervisors alleging police brutality, violations of Mr. Vann’s constitutional rights, and a police cover-up. Mr. Vann is represented by Elliot Dolby-Shields, Esq. of Roth & Roth LLP; the lawsuit was filed on May 16, 2018.

 

The anti-police brutality group Enough Is Enough (EIE) recently released to Rochester Indymedia an edited video of the incident as well as the convenience store surveillance camera footage. The group screened the edited video at the Intersections of Rebellion and Accountability panel discussion held in late May. Members of Enough Is Enough were present at Mr. Vann’s criminal trial and received the footage directly from him at that time. You can watch the edited clip below and the raw surveillance camera footage at the bottom of the article.

 

Enough Is Enough's Edited Video of the Police Assault on David Vann

 

The edited Enough Is Enough video

On September 4, 2015, about 11:00 pm, David Vann, 23, a Black man, went to the A & Z Market at South Avenue and Comfort Street in Rochester, New York. He bought a loose cigarette, which cost $0.75 according to the complaint. The store clerk shortchanged him and when Mr. Vann demanded his proper change, another store employee, Dawan Algazali, assaulted Mr. Vann and forced him out the back door. As he walked away from the store, Algazali “exited the store and invited him [Mr. Vann] to come back into the store to get his change,” according to the complaint. Mr. Vann returned to the store, and shortly thereafter, Rochester Police Department (RPD) officer Matthew Drake arrived at the scene.

 

The edited video of the incident begins with a Time Warner Cable News (TWC) story disseminating the false narrative put out by the RPD that someone at the mini mart fought with officers injuring two of them. The TWC clip also shows Mr. Vann in the back of the police car unconscious, being checked by a paramedic.

 

After the news clip, a black screen appears with a single question in white font: “But what really happened?” The video fades from black to the interior store surveillance camera footage. The surveillance system only captures video, no audio. Mr. Vann is seen walking down the store aisle moving back toward the counter. His arms are briefly outstretched with an incredulous expression on his face. The next cut shows officer Drake entering the store and speaking with an employee. Eventually, Officer Drake appears to ask Mr. Vann to leave the store, and Mr. Vann can be seen complying with his request and following Drake out of the store.

 

While Mr. Vann was speaking with Drake, officers Mitchell and Kester arrived. As Mr. Vann was exiting the front door, Mitchell stopped him in the doorway and can be seen making aggressive hand gestures towards Mr. Vann, who seems to remains calm. Eventually, Mitchell permits Mr. Vann to exit the store. (This is not seen in the edited EIE video. It is noted in the complaint.) But, after exiting the store and beginning to walk away, the officers say something to Mr. Vann and he turns around to face them. Without apparent warning, officer Steven Mitchell and officer Jeffrey Kester grab Mr. Vann, put his hands behind his back and handcuff him. After handcuffing his right hand, the officers jerk his right arm up, and Kester then pulls Mr. Vann by the head and neck toward the ground while Mitchell and Drake push him from behind. As a result of Kester, Mitchell, and Drake’s actions, Kester falls to the ground and pulls Mr. Vann and Mitchell down on top of him; Kester’s leg is allegedly broken and he is unable to get up off the ground.

 

David Vann is now handcuffed, prone, and helpless on the ground. Mitchell can be seen striking Mr. Vann in the head and searching his person. Mitchell then jerks Mr. Vann to his feet and walks him to the police car. With Mr. Vann’s arms handcuffed behind him, Mitchell pushes him against the police car then slings him around in the opposite direction and executes a haymaker-style punch hitting Mr. Vann square across the jaw. Drake runs over to join Mitchell in assaulting Mr. Vann. Mitchell and Drake then body slam Mr. Vann onto the ground for no apparent reason (although in their paperwork and at trial they claimed that Mr. Vann had escaped from his handcuffs to they had to take him down to reapply the handcuffs). As a result of Mitchell and Drake’s actions in body slamming Mr. Vann onto the ground, Drake allegedly dislocates his shoulder. He sits down on the sidewalk, unable to move his arm. Meanwhile, with Mr. Vann still handcuffed, Mitchell punches him in the head, slams him on the ground, and, uses pepper spray inches from his face on both sides. At the criminal trial of this matter, Drake testified that it is against RPD policy to utilize pepper spray from a distance of less than seven feet.

 

Other officers arrive at the scene and three of them hold the unresponsive Mr. Vann on the ground while Mitchell searches him (again). The officers then haul Mr. Vann—apparently unconscious at this point—to his feet and carry him to the rear driver’s side of a patrol car. In a sickening display of torture, Mitchell pulls Mr. Vann’s arms up over his head (still handcuffed behind him)—"hyperextending his shoulders”—for at least 60 seconds until the video cuts out. Two paramedics look briefly toward the torture being inflicted on Mr. Vann but keep moving forward and assist officer Kester. The other officers on scene fail to intervene against the unjustified use of force being inflicted upon Mr. Vann.

 

According to the complaint, Mr. Vann was then placed in the back of officer Mitchell’s car where paramedics eventually treated him and informed the officers that Mr. Vann needed to go to the hospital. The police officers, named and unnamed in the complaint, refused to take Mr. Vann to the hospital or allow the paramedics to take him.

 

Instead, Mr. Vann was transported to the Monroe County Jail where officer Mitchell and officer David Kephart (along with several unidentified RPD officers) “removed [David] from the RPD vehicle, threw him on the ground, and punched and kicked him about his head and body numerous times.” The complaint also alleges that officers Mitchell and Kephart told the jail staff that Mr. Vann had “assaulted Kester causing him to break his leg, and assaulted Drake causing him to separate is shoulder” and further, to “deny Mr. Vann needed medical treatment in retaliation” for Kester and Drake’s injuries. Mr. Vann was denied medical treatment and placed in solitary confinement for nearly a month. His mother Diana Vann and sister Toya tried to visit him and were turned away each time. He was denied communication with his family. After nearly a month had passed, the complaint states that he was “transferred to another facility, where he was detained against his will for approximately four months.”

 

Diana Vann posted bail for her son and he was finally released in February 2016.

 

The cover-up

The complaint alleges a cover-up where evidence was manufactured or discarded, statements were coerced, and officers “testil[ied]” to “nullify constitutional deficiencies in their reasons for making arrests and using force against arrestees.”

 

After Mr. Vann’s arrest, investigator Tomesha Angelo and technician Stephanie Mintz (along with several other unidentified officers) reviewed the store’s surveillance camera footage and “failed to collect, copy and preserve” footage that vindicated Mr. Vann’s narrative of the facts. Angelo, according to the complaint, was the “case coordinator.” The complaint points out that both the investigator and the technician should have known that the video footage prior to “time stamp ’09-04-2015 11:35:00’” constituted Brady material (where the United States Supreme Court held that the prosecution must turn over any evidence favorable to the defendant) and should have been preserved. Instead, the video was discarded. Angelo’s supervisor, sergeant Daniel Zimmerman, should also have been aware of the pertinent laws and procedures. Instead of ordering Angelo and Mintz to retrieve the video prior to the time stamp, Zimmerman “reviewed and approved” of Angelo’s decisions as case coordinator.

 

The videos (the edited Enough Is Enough version and the full length surveillance camera videos) show witnesses at the scene. As investigator Angelo and technician Mintz were not collecting pertinent video evidence, unidentified officers and officer David Kephart “detained numerous witnesses at the scene—including D.A., D.M., A.M. and others.” The complaint doesn’t spell out the names of witnesses; it only offers their initials. Officers demanded IDs from all of the detained witnesses and then ran criminal background checks on the individuals. The complaint alleges that officers were fishing for criminal histories that the police could use to threaten and coerce witnesses to sign false statements of what they saw.

 

D.M.’s background check revealed that he was on parole, that a condition of his parole was that he had an 8:00 p.m. curfew, and that he was violating that parole condition by being out of his residence at the time of the incident. Unidentified officers, Mitchell, and Kephart “threatened that D.M. would be arrested for violating his parole unless he sign[ed] the false Supporting Deposition.” D.M. signed the statement, drafted by Kephart, which contained the following false statements:

 

a.     The officers told Mr. Vann he was not welcome at the store and gave him a chance to leave the location;

b.     Mr. Vann “[got] in one of the officer’s faces, approximately 3-5 inches from the officer.”

c.     Mr. Vann stood in front of the store and refused officers’ orders to leave;

d.     “[Mr. Vann] began to sway when the officers tried to place [him] in handcuffs. The officers then took [Mr. Vann] to the ground. One of the officers appeared to be injured once [Mr. Vann] was brought to the ground he just laid there on his back while two other officers proceeded to handcuff [Mr. Vann].”

e.     “The two officers then leaned [Mr. Vann] up against a police car. The male pushed backwards causing the skinny officer to take the male to the ground.”

f.      “The male repeatedly ignored commands by the police to stop resisting. The police commanded him to do so multiple times.”

 

The complaint alleges that D.M. knowingly signed a false statement under duress from the police who were threatening him with arrest for his violation of curfew.

 

Another witness, D.A., was also coerced into signing a statement. The complaint alleges that after running a criminal check, police observed that D.A. had an open criminal case and threatened him if he didn’t sign the statement prepared by investigator Angelo. The statement contained the following false statements:

 

a.     Mr. Vann entered the store and attempted to purchase beer without an ID;

b.     Mr. Vann refused to leave the store;

c.     When the cops arrived, “[Mr. Vann] was standing just inside our front door refusing to leave. The cops were real nice and tried to get him to leave. [Mr. Vann] got in one officers [sic] face. The officer warned him but he went after the officers again. The officers went to handcuff him and he began to fight the officers. He was thrashing and refused to keep his hands behind his back. The officers yelled over and over, ‘stop resisting! Put your hands behind your back!’ The guy continued to fight. He was fighting so bad he caused everyone to fall to the sidewalk. The guy fell on one officer, hurting the officer’s ankle. Another officer got him handcuffed and walked him to a cop car. He tried to search the guy but he just wouldn’t stop fighting, even in handcuffs. Another cop arrived and that made the guy fight and resist more. They fought so much they ended back up on the sidewalk near the store. That’s when the second officer got hurt.”

d.     “Like 5 more officers showed up. They were all yelling commands to him but he was still fighting. He was even fighting once he was in the back of the car, that’s when they threatened to spray him.”

e.     “I’m so thankful the officers came. I do not feel they were inappropriate whatsoever.”

 

The complaint alleges that D.A. knowingly signed a false statement, prepared by the police, under duress from the police in contradiction to the surveillance camera footage.

 

In the case of A.M., he had no prior or current criminal record that the police could use to coerce him to sign a fabricated statement. Instead, the police simply refused to take a statement from him in violation of RPD General Order 401. Sergeant Zimmerman, investigator Angelo’s supervisor, not only approved of the false signed statements, but of not collecting a witness statement from A.M.

 

Sgt. Daniel J. Zimmerman & Inv. Tomesha Angelo

 

A third element of the cover-up comes in the form of falsified police records and documents. Specifically, the complaint points to the felony complaints signed by officers Kester and Drake and drafted by investigator Angelo. The false statements below were found in the felony complaints:

 

a.     Mr. Vann “intentionally refuse[d] to put his hands behind his back” when the officers arrested him;

b.     Mr. Vann “twisted, turned, pulled away and thrashed around in a violent manner causing the defendant and three police officers to fall to the sidewalk”;

c.     Mr. Vann’s actions caused him to fall “on top of Officer Jeffrey Kester, breaking his right fibula bone”;

d.     Mr. Vann “continued to resist officers’ lawful arrest by continuing to twist and pull away”; and

e.     Mr. Vann “forced the officers to bring him to the sidewalk to get him under control” causing DRAKE [sic] to dislocate his right shoulder.

 

The surveillance camera footage appears to contradict the false statements filed by the officers in their felony complaints, yet none of the officers were disciplined for signing the false felony complaints.

Investigator Angelo signed a felony complaint, after reviewing the store surveillance camera footage, that Mr. Vann “refuse[d] the leave the A&Z South Market after being asked by the store employee … multiple times. The defendant then became combative forcing [D.A.] to physically remove the defendant by pushing him out the door.” Angelo’s complaint led to Mr. Vann being charged with misdemeanor assault in the third degree for allegedly assaulting the store clerk and a trespass violation for allegedly not leaving when asked. The complaint alleges that Angelo failed to collect video surveillance footage that would have vindicated Mr. Vann’s narrative of events. Angelo signed a statement saying that she knew about the incident through “personal knowledge” even though she was not present during the incident. Her knowledge, the complaint alleges, came from watching the store’s surveillance camera footage and reading the coerced statements of D.A. and D.M. Again, sergeant Zimmerman, investigator Angelo’s supervisor, approved of her decisions.

 

Officer Mitchell, the complaint alleges, “drafted an incident report that contained a fabricated narrative” that accused Mr. Vann of crimes he did not commit. Specifically, the statements in the incident report that are false include:

 

a.     D.A., “an employee of the store … stated that [Mr. Vann] entered the store and wanted to buy beer” but that Mr. Vann “did not have identification” so D.A. refused to sell him beer;

b.     D.A. “told [Mr. Vann] to leave the location several times, but [he] remained in the store for approximately 45 minutes;

c.     Mr. Vann “told me that he did not have to leave the store and argued with me.”

d.     That Mr. Vann “almost bumped into Officer Kester” when he existed the store to the sidewalk;

e.     That Mr. Vann “did stop at the side walk,” and then “turn[ed] towards officers and [D.A.] and began to argue with [D.A.] again”;

f.      That, “as I began to handcuff [Mr. Vann, he] refused to keep his right arm behind his back and pulled it away from officers. This action forced officers to bring [Mr. Vann] to the ground for stabilization, where [Mr. Vann] was handcuffed.”

g.     “As [Mr. Vann] was brought to my patrol vehicle, he immediately pulled away from me. [DRAKE] [sic] ran over to assist me in controlling [Mr. Vann]. [Mr. Vann] was told multiple times to get on the ground and would not comply. [Mr. Vann] was thrashing and pulling his body away from officers. The actions of [Mr. Vann] once again forced [DRAKE] [sic] and I to bring [Mr. Vann] to the ground.”

h.     Once on the ground, “[Mr. Vann] continued to roll around on the ground and reached with his hands in the area of his waistband … and I did fear that [Mr. Vann] had a weapon on his person.”

 

The complaint alleges that the above statements were false based upon review of the surveillance camera footage and yet the officers moved forward with the filings. This led to the malicious prosecution of Mr. Vann based on the “City and RPD’s policy, practice and custom of manufacturing false evidence and ‘testilying’ to nullify constitutional deficiencies in their reasons for making arrests and using force against arrestees.”

 

Failing to secure evidence, coercing witness statements, and falsifying police reports are the foundational elements of the cover-up. How these documents and the officers’ falsified testimony were used constitutes the second half of the cover-up. Mr. Vann was held in Monroe County Jail while the officers testified to the grand jury in an effort to secure an indictment against Mr. Vann “on two counts of assaulting a police officer.” The assault charge against the clerk and the trespassing charge were dismissed before the officers testified at the grand jury.

 

Officer Mitchell, according to the complaint, falsely testified to the grand jury that:

 

a.     Mr. Vann entered the store and attempted to purchase beer without an ID;

b.     Mr. Vann became upset and refused to leave the store when they refused to sell him beer because he did not have an ID on him;

c.     When MITCHELL [sic] informed Mr. Vann he had to leave the store he refused and stated “it’s a free country”;

d.     After several minutes, “he finally started to walk out the door” but then he “turned back around” and “be[gan] to walk back towards the store, and balled—he actually balled his fists up as he turned toward the officers. And he yelled out something, I can’t remember exactly what it was.”

e.     While attempting to handcuff Mr. Vann, he pulled his right hand forward to the front of his body, preventing them from securing the handcuff on his right wrist;

f.      The officers had to bring Mr. Vann to the ground to complete handcuffing Mr. Vann;

g.     The officers did not finish handcuffing Mr. Vann until he was on the ground;

h.     MITCHELL [sic] was not able to search Mr. Vann where he was first brought to the ground;

i.      After he was first brought to the ground, Mr. Vann “had been reaching for part of his waistband”;

j.      Mitchell brought Mr. Vann to the patrol vehicle to try and complete searching him, but “he bumped his chest off the patrol vehicle” causing MITCHELL [sic] to lose control of him;

k.     Mr. Vann then stood in front of him “and kind of came at me”;

l.      “[Mr. Vann] was told to get on the ground,” but he refused, so DRAKE [sic] and MITCHELL [sic] brought him to the ground again;

m.   After Mr. Vann was brought to the ground the second time, Mr. Vann reached for the same spot on his rear waistband area one or two times, which was the same spot he’d reached for previously. At this time, MITCHELL [sic] still had not searched Mr. Vann;

n.     MITCHELL [sic] pepper sprayed Mr. Vann because he refused to stop reaching for his waistband.

 

The complaint alleges that Mitchell’s testimony to the grand jury was false based on surveillance camera footage. His partner, officer Drake also testified:

 

a.     Defendants did not handcuff Mr. Vann until he was taken to the ground the first time;

b.     Then, “as Officer Mitchell is taking the suspect to the vehicle, somehow there’s another altercation and the subject is not wearing two handcuffs, so I go back there to effect that arrest. Again, we have to re-handcuff the defendant.”

 

The complaint alleges that Drake’s testimony is false based upon the surveillance camera footage. Kester testified that Mr. Vann had caused “him to break his leg.” The video demonstrates that claim is false, as it was actually the actions of Kester, Mitchell and Drake that caused Kester to break his leg. Because of the false testimony offered to the grand jury by the officers, Mr. Vann was charged with two counts of felony assault against a police officer and “maliciously prosecuted for over 17 months, and was forced to endure a three-day trial on serious felony charges for crimes he did not commit.”

 

The officers also gave false testimony at Mr. Vann’s criminal trial. The complaint points out that the initial written statements regarding the incident were inconsistent with their grand jury testimony as well as their criminal trial testimony. Officer Kester falsely testified at trial that:

 

a.     When he arrived on the scene, Mr. Vann was actively arguing with Rafiq and/or D.A.;

b.     Mr. Vann was pacing back and forth and ignoring the officers;

c.     Mr. Vann actively resisted arrest, by, for example, attempting to bring his hands to the front of his body to avoid being handcuffed;

d.     As KESTER [sic] and MITCHELL [sic] were handcuffing Mr. Vann, KESTER [sic] told Mr. Vann to relax, but instead he tensed up even more and “ball[ed] his fist up and [brought] his arm closer into his body”;

e.     KESTER [sic] and MITCHELL [sic] were unable to secure handcuffs upon Mr. Vann’s wrists while they were standing;

f.      KESTER [sic] stated to MITCHELL [sic] and DRAKE [sic] that they had to bring Mr. Vann to the ground in order to secure the handcuffs on his wrists;

g.     The handcuffs were not secured upon Mr. Vann’s wrists until the officers brought him to the ground.

 

Officer Mitchell falsely testified at trial that:

 

a.     He told Mr. Vann to leave the store multiple times, but Mr. Vann refused;

b.     In response to telling Mr. Vann that he needed to leave the store, Mr. Vann replied, ‘it’s a free country” and that he did not have to leave the store;

c.     He and KESTER [sic] were unable to handcuff Mr. Vann’s right hand because Mr. Vann was “trying to move his arm forward.”

d.     That he did not secure the handcuff on Mr. Vann’s right hand until after they brought him to the ground;

e.     After they brought Mr. Vann to the ground, he was unable to search him because Mr. Vann “reached for the right side of his pants pocket or pants waistband.”

f.      He feared that Mr. Vann had a weapon in his back right pocket or waistband;

g.     After he brought Mr. Vann to the car, Mr. Vann “kind of bumped off the car [and] he pulled away from me. I told him to get on the ground several times, and he did not.”

h.     When Mr. Vann refused to go to the ground, MITCHELL [sic] used a “distractionary [sic] technique” that “was a jab with my right hand”;

i.      MITCHELL [sic] pepper sprayed Mr. Vann from a distance of one to two feet;

j.      After MITCHELL [sic] pepper sprayed Mr. Vann, he again reached for his right waistband area, which MITCHELL [sic] had not yet searched.

 

The complaint alleges that the statements made above by officer Mitchell were false and are contradicted by surveillance camera footage.

 

Officer Drake testified at the trial that:

 

a.     After Mr. Vann walked out of the store onto the sidewalk, he chose not to disperse from the area;

b.     Mr. Vann actively resisted arrest;

c.     Mr. Vann resisted being handcuffed by moving / turning his body;

d.     Before DRAKE [sic] and MITCHELL [sic] took Mr. Vann to the ground the second time, MITCHELL [sic] told him Mr. Vann slipped out of one of his cuffs and was reaching for his waistband;

e.     DRAKE [sic] and MITCHELL [sic] took Mr. Vann to the ground the second time in an attempt to re-handcuff hm.

 

Officer Drake’s testimony to the jury, according to the complaint, was false and contradicted the store’s surveillance camera footage.

 

The last element in the cover-up alleged in the complaint has to do with a “longstanding, entrenched policy, pattern and custom of deliberate indifference to RPD officers’ use of excessive force.” Essentially, the City of Rochester has known, for decades, about officers’ bad behaviors and failed to intervene and discipline officers to prevent them from using excessive force in the future, and/or prevent them from lying in their paperwork and testimony about the reasons force was used. A report issued jointly by Enough Is Enough and the Rochester Coalition for Police Reform in February 2017 titled The Case for an Independent Police Accountability System: Transforming the Civilian Review Process in Rochester, New York looked at 15 years of data from both the Professional Standards Section (police internal affairs) and the Civilian Review Board. According to the PSS annual reports, the report found that of the nearly 1,200 civilian-generated use of force allegations against RPD officers, 5% were sustained by the Civilian Review Board, 3% were sustained by the Professional Standards Section, and the Chief of Police, who has final discretion over all complaints, sustained only 2% of allegations. That’s literally 23 allegations of excessive use of force sustained over 15 years by the Chief. Of those 23, only 13 led to discipline, the harshest form of which were suspensions. The Rochester Police Department does not hold its officers accountable for their misconduct. (The percentages remain the same (the numbers are different) up to 2016 according to annual reports from the CRB and PSS. Of course, both the CRB and the PSS are supposed to be looking at the same numbers according to the CRB ordinance passed in 1992. New 2017 annual reports from both the CRB and PSS have not been issued as of this writing.)

 

Infographic breaking down the proposed Police Accountability Board

 

In Mr. Vann’s case, Mitchell was identified in the complaint as a “municipal policymaker” because of his roles as a Field Training Officer (who train new recruits who just graduated from the police academy on police policy and procedure in the field) and a Defensive Tactics Instructor (who teach new recruits at the academy everything from handcuffing to when it’s appropriate to use force and what level of force). The complaint alleges that Mitchell is a “municipal policymaker with respect to the RPD’s use of force and training” and because of his role as a "policymaker," and the fact that he was not disciplined in any way for the abuse leveled against Mr. Vann, the city is condoning his bad actions as well as his techniques to train new officers. The complaint further alleges that Mitchell, Drake, and Kester should have been investigated and disciplined for their “use of force and/or failure to intervene to stop or prevent the unlawful use of force against Mr. Vann” because the officers “admit to using force against Mr. Vann; because Mr. Vann was acquitted by the jury, and because the security camera video recovered from the store on the night of the incident clearly demonstrates that the officers fabricated their account of their interaction with Mr. Vann in their arrest and charging paperwork, and testified falsely at the grand jury and petit jury.”

 

One is left to wonder why Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley doesn’t hold these officers accountable and bring criminal charges against them not only for the horrifying abuse they inflicted on Mr. Vann but also for their clear perjury at the grand jury and at the criminal trial. In the ongoing everyday injustices in Rochester’s criminal justice system, plenty of attorneys know that police lie on the stand and they also know that there is zero accountability for their violations of the law. The District Attorney’s refusal to prosecute officers for their criminal acts is a key element to why the RPD continues to violate civilians’ rights with impunity.

 

Mr. Vann’s criminal trial

On Tuesday, February 14, 2017, David Vann went on trial for two felony counts of assaulting an officer. He had been offered five years of probation by Monroe County Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Michael Harrigan, but he knew he was innocent, so he refused the offer. In his criminal case, Mr. Vann was represented by Michael Doran of the Monroe County Public Defender’s Office. Supreme Court Judge Melchor Castro presided over the three-day trial. Twelve jurors were selected on the first day: six white women, two Black women, one Latina woman, and three white men.

 

The opening statement by Harrigan on Wednesday revealed that the DA’s argument was going to be that the police officers were engaged in their lawful duty to arrest Mr. Vann, and in the course of this effort they were injured. The law states that if an officer is injured while engaged in lawful duty, the person who caused that injury may be charged with assault on an officer, even if the person did not actively assault the officer.

 

Assistant Public Defender (APD) Doran’s opening argument was that the video showed what actually happened and that the jury should listen to what the witnesses were saying and compare it with what they actually saw on the video. Mr. Doran told the jury that Mr. Vann was innocent until proven guilty and that the DA would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Vann caused the officers’ injuries.

 

ADA Harrigan called seven witnesses over the next two days: two video technicians, three police officers, the store clerk, and a store customer. The RPD’s video technician, defendant Stephanie Mintz, testified that she retrieved the only the portion of the store’s video surveillance recording that defendant investigator Tomesha Angelo told her to collect. Angelo instructed Mintz not to collect the video from the beginning of the incident. Thus, the video that was produced by the RPD to the District Attorney’s Office, which was later played by the ADA at Mr. Vann’s criminal trial, did not include the portion of the incident prior to the police arriving, including the conversation between Mr. Vann and Algazali or the section where Mr. Vann is pushed out of the store by Algazali. The DVD also did not include the end of the encounter with Mr. Vann; it ends with Mitchell holding Mr. Vann’s arms above his head behind his back, his hands still handcuffed together, for nearly a minute.

 

All three police officers involved in the incident testified: Kester, Mitchell, and Drake. They stated that Mr. Vann was argumentative; the video shows him calm. The officers stated that Mr. Vann was trespassing; the video shows him voluntarily leaving the store. The officers stated the reason they took Mr. Vann down was because he was resisting and wouldn’t let them get the handcuff on his right wrist; the video shows that Mr. Vann was fully handcuffed on both wrists prior to the officers deliberately pulling Mr. Vann’s arm up at an awkward angle after putting on the handcuffs, then officer Kester grabbing him around his neck and pulling him to the ground.

 

Mitchell testified that when he picked Mr. Vann up (after Kester allegedly broke his leg) and walked him over to stand against the police car, Mr. Vann pushed himself off the car and resisted him; the video shows that Mr. Vann did not push off the car or resist Mitchell in any way. Instead, the video shows Mitchell attempt to throw Mr. Vann on the ground, spin him around, then haymaker-punch him in the face.

 

Drake testified that he ran over to help Mitchell who informed him that Mr. Vann had slipped out of one of his handcuffs, and so they had to throw him onto the ground to rehandcuff him. However, the video shows both of Mr. Vann’s hands clearly handcuffed behind his back. Mitchell said he gave Mr. Vann a “jab” to “distract” him; the video shows Mitchell delivering a haymaker punch to Mr. Vann’s head.

 

The store clerk and store customer did not add much to the case either way. The ADA’s closing statement focused on how badly the officers were hurt and how they were justified in their actions because Mr. Vann was fighting them; he “caused” their injuries. The APD reminded the jury to look closely at the video, ask to see it, and stop it at significant moments. Judge Castro gave instructions to the jury that emphasized the parts of the law most favorable to the ADA’s case.

 

This image & related video of Mr. Vann handcuffed is one the jury kept reviewing

 

The jury deliberated for about two hours. Three times they asked to view the video, especially the part where Vann is being handcuffed. In the end, the video carried the day, and they acquitted Mr. Vann based on the fact that he was handcuffed before the officers brought him to the ground and did not resist arrest in any way. The jury trusted their eyes, they asserted their right to see what happened for themselves and to make the judgement that ADA Harrigan had not proven his case. David Vann was declared NOT GUILTY by the jury on February 16, 2017!

 

David Vann Circa Feb. 2017 after he was found NOT GUILTY

 

Mr. Vann is now suing the city in federal court for damages directly stemming from the unlawful police assault against him: “physical pain, permanent physical injuries, mental injuries, emotional distress, embarrassment, humiliation, lost income, loss of liberty, and deprivation of his common law and constitutional rights.”

 

Rochester needs a Police Accountability Board now

Since February 2017, activists have pushed with renewed vigor to force the passage of legislation that has been demanded for well over a half century in Rochester, NY. Police violence plagues Rochester and a true Police Accountability Board (PAB) is one answer to the problem: put the power in the hands of the community.

 

The campaign to pass the Police Accountability Board is over a year old

 

The PAB would be an independent agency of city government separate from the Rochester Police Department. The PAB would be composed of 11 members: one Mayoral appointment, four City Council appointments, and six community appointments. All appointees must be city residents; they would serve staggered three-year terms; and the PAB would represent Rochester’s diversity. The Police Accountability Board Alliance is the community mechanism that would vet and propose potential PAB members. The PAB would have a civilian agency attached to it that would conduct parallel and independent investigations from the RPD of allegations of police misconduct. The agency would have subpoena power. After their investigation, the PAB would determine if there was enough cause to proceed to a hearing. The hearing panel, composed of three members of the PAB, would review the investigation and be able to conduct further investigation. If they find that there was police misconduct, the panel using a disciplinary matrix, would issue recommended discipline.

 

The disciplinary matrix is a predictive, consistent, progressive tool that can be used by the PAB to determine discipline. It would have buy-in from the community, the City, the RPD, and the police union. It would give a clear indication of what officers could expect for their misconduct and could be issued publicly increasing departmental transparency. Currently, the Chief has sole discretion over discipline. A disciplinary matrix would be a way to undercut favoritism as well increase fairness of the disciplinary process for rank and file officers. (This mechanism was developed from the academic work of a former Newark, New Jersey police commander.)

 

Should the Chief of Police accept the PAB’s recommendations and implement the discipline, the complaint process ends. If the Chief disagrees, then he would be required by the law to send a letter explaining in detail his objections and rationale. The PAB could accept or deny the Chief’s explanation. If they denied the Chief’s reasoning, then they would have the legal power to force the Chief to impose the discipline.

 

The police cannot police themselves. History informs us (see THE ROCHESTER POLICE ADVISORY BOARD: A COMMUNITY RESPONSE TO RACIAL UNREST (Oct. 1967); Final Report of the Citizen's Committee on Police Affairs (1976); PATHWAYS TO BETTER POLICE-COMMUNITY RELATIONS IN ROCHESTER (2004); Public Safety Chair says "The City of Rochester has lost control of its police force." (June 2011); A Brief On The Proposal for a Civilian Review Board for the City of Rochester Police Department (May 2014) and The Case for an Independent Police Accountability System: Transforming the Civilian Review Process in Rochester, New York (Feb. 2017)) that the Chief rarely uses his disciplinary power. Over the 15 years studied, not one officer was fired for a sustained complaint of use of force against a civilian. It’s time to put a 50+ year demand into action. Nothing legally prevents the Police Accountability Board from being established by Rochester City Council. The collective bargaining agreement between the city and the police union (including the Taylor Law) cannot be used as obstructions to the legal establishment of a PAB, according to two New York State Court of Appeals cases: Patrolmen's Benevolent Assn. v. New York State PERB, 6 N.Y. 3d 563 (2006) and City of Schenectady v. New York State PERB, 30 N.Y. 3d 109 (2017).

The PAB would not have to be under the control of the Mayor and would not require a referendum to pass the proposed ordinance. The only thing that is needed is the political fortitude of our City Councilors (council@cityofrochester.gov or (585) 428-7538) to pass the proposed Police Accountability Board ordinance NOW!

 

According to attorney Dolby-Shields, Mr. Vann’s complaint has been filed and the City just filed a motion attempting to dismiss some of Mr. Vann’s claims, or alternatively, requesting the Court order the plaintiff to file a new complaint, removing some of the most damning allegations.

 

Aside from Drake, Mitchell, Kester, and the City of Rochester, officers Christopher J. Barber and David E. Kephart; investigator Tomesha Angelo; technician Stephanie Mintz; Sergeant Daniel J. Zimmerman; and police officer John Does 1-6 and 7-12 are also named as defendants.

 

Enough is Enough.

 

Raw A&Z Market Suveillance Camera Footage:

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 1

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 2

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 3

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 4

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 5

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 6

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 7

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 8

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 9

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 10

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 11

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 12

 

A&Z Market Surveillance Camera Footage 13

 

Related: 16 arrested during peaceful demonstration during Black Lives Matter Rally | Charges dismissed against Ms. Bonner; will RPD officer McNees be disciplined? Who knows... | A critique of "The New Guardians" by Cedric Alexander | Community Forum: Police Accountability Board Update & Action | Panel on the overhaul of bail, speedy trial & discovery laws in New York State | Community demands Police Accountability Board with discipline | The Intersection of Black Lives Matter and Palestine | The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost; Another Rochester, NY Cop Shot

On June 15, 2018, Catherine Bonner was in state Supreme Court Justice Charles Schiano Jr.'s court regarding a menacing a police officer charge stemming from the allegation that she pointed a gun out of a broken window of her home at an officer–after the officer told her ex that it was OK to break into the house.

Assistant District Attorney Michael Bezer began the proceeding by telling the judge that after review of the case against Ms. Bonner, the Monroe County District Attorney's Office was submitting a motion to withdraw and dismiss the charge.

Press Conference

According to David Pilato, Ms. Bonner's attorney, the ADA did not cite explicitly why they were making a motion to withdraw and dismiss the charge, but he did speculate that it may have been because the evidence that the prosecution needed to convict Ms. Bonner was suppressed, by Judge Schiano on May 21, because of the egregious behavior of officer McNees as well as RPD policy and procedure.

Apparently, the officers not only wrongly informed Ms. Bonner's ex of the law and did not have a search warrant when they found a weapon, but never read Ms. Bonner her Miranda Rights.

Ms. Bonner's ex-boyfriend came to the house to get some belongings on November 13, 2017 and when Ms. Bonner told him he couldn't come in, he  called the police. Rochester Police Department officer Korey McNees told Bonner's ex that he could break into the home for over 20 minutes, according to reporting by the Democrat & Chronicle. The confrontation was caught on body worn camera video and released by the Democrat & Chronicle earlier this year.

RPD officer Korey McNees body worn camera footage

Upon Bonner's ex breaking the window–all caught on body worn camera–it appeared Ms. Bonner stuck a rifle out of the window saying, "Get outta  here! Get the fuck out!" and "I'm protecting my home!" RPD officers then broke down her door and arrested her.

Her ex claimed he had lived at the hous for months but the RPD never checked his ID: his address is in Livonia, NY. Ms. Bonner, through the door, told the officer about an alleged domestic violence incident the previous night, and officer McNees disregarded this statement and continued to tell her ex that he had the right to break into the home.

It is currently unknown what, if any discipline officer McNees has faced since the incident last November. If history is any indication, based on the data provided in the report The Case for an Independent Police Accountability System: Transforming the Civilian Review Process in Rochester, New York, the public can expect that there was little to no discipline of officer McNees. (And is yet another incident and reason for why there needs to be a Police Accountability Board in Rochester, NY.)

After the charge was withdrawn and dismissed, Ms. Bonner sat down and put her head into her hands and wept tears of joy. She smiled at her family, friends, and supporters from the anti-police brutality organization Enough Is Enough.

Ms. Bonner is considering filing a civil lawsuit against the Rochester Police Department and the City.

After the appearance, Ms. Bonner and her attorney held a brief press conference. Ms. Bonner told media, "I want to say that I believe the decision was right," and "I'm glad I can put this part behind me." She thanked her mother, family, friends, and supporters.

Congratulations Catherine!

Enough is enough.

Read the documents: state Supreme Court Justice Charles Schiano Jr.'s Decision and Order regarding suppression of evidence and dismissal of the case; dated May 21, 2018:

Rochester Police Department training bulletin regarding civil matters (this was generated out of what happened in November 2017 to Catherine Bonner):

Related: David Vann's 130 page complaint of police brutality against City and police | Charges dropped in case in which police advised man to break into home | A critique of "The New Guardians" by Cedric Alexander | Community Forum: Police Accountability Board Update & Action | Panel on the overhaul of bail, speedy trial & discovery laws in New York State

Catherine Bonner

This is a book review of Cedric Alexander's The New Guardians: Policing in America's Communities for the Twenty-first Century. Alexander was Rochester's Interim Chief of Police in 2005 and recently became Rochester's deputy mayor.

The Good:
I appreciate the fact that one of Rochester’s former police chiefs and the current deputy mayor wrote an autobiography. It gave me some insight into his career in Rochester (and elsewhere). Some of the highlights for me were: 1) he introduced Tasers into the Rochester Police Department; 2) he crafted the Disturbed Person Emergency Response Team (now called the Emotionally Disturbed Person Response Team (EDPRT) in Rochester); 3) he offered a snap shot in time of the politics between the department and the decision-makers in Rochester; 4) he offered clear definitions of police legitimacy and community policing; and 5) he tells a good story and offers plenty of anecdotes. Honestly, his own progression through his law enforcement career was kind of interesting reading. It’s the other stuff that was disconcerting about his book.

The Bad:
I’ve selected four issues that need unpacking: Alexander’s treatment of Plato’s Republic, individual experience vs. systemic patterns and practices of abuse, trust the state, and war / no war.

1. Plato’s Republic:
I urge everyone to read the Republic before reading, or while reading, Alexander’s book. The theme of the guardians from the Republic is sprinkled throughout Alexander’s book. However, Alexander never really defines who the guardians are, except in broad and un-nuanced ways, such as on pages xii – xiii, “…as a Guardian, endowed by the community with the power and authority to heal, protect, build, and generally steward it. A leader and mentor, the Guardian is not a dictator or tyrant, but a servant of his or her neighborhood, city, and nation.”

On pages 197 and 198, he writes that, “Plato gave [them] a leadership role, entrusting them with the greatest authority in the republic because their character was worthy to ‘bear the responsibility of protecting the democracy.’ It was a ‘character’ built on the physical attributes of speed and strength as well as the intellectual qualities of ‘a spirited philosopher.’”  There was no discussion of Plato’s totalitarian ideas nor any discussion on how a totalitarian utopia leads to preserving(?) democracy.

So, as I said above, everyone should read the Republic. After I finished Alexander’s book, I picked up Plato’s book because I had an unsettled feeling that didn’t jive with my rudimentary philosophical understanding of the Republic. In short, my bullshit detector started going off. As I read through Plato, I wrote my old philosophy professor to share my reflections of both Plato’s and Alexander’s work as well as my concerns. Two central questions that emerged for me as I read Plato: 1) was the utopia constructed in the Republic a totalitarian form of governance? And, if so, 2) do we really want to model the institution of policing off of a model that called for the complete control of society? Is this really what Alexander imagines as an ideal democracy?

My former professor responded quickly and confirmed that my bullshit detector alerts were legitimate:

“Regarding Plato's Republic, you're right to raise your eyebrows at the suggestion that a police force might be viewed as similar to Plato's ‘guardians.’  Here are my thoughts on that.

“1. In certain respects the comparison is unobjectionable.
- The guardians serve the city, not their own interests.
- Their relationship to the population who they govern is not antagonistic.
- They are highly educated, and their very extensive education, culminates in many years studying philosophy (Yeah!!).

“2.  In other respects the comparison is questionable.
- The guardians govern the city in a non-democratic manner. The society Plato describes is separated into distinct classes. The guardians are not accountable to anyone below them.
- Plato explicitly justifies lying to the population in order to maintain the stability of the hierarchical society. E.g. The lower orders are fed the "noble lie" that people are born with souls of a certain kind, and that fixes where they belong in the social order.
- The defining excellence of the city--it's "justice"–in Plato's view lies in the way everyone knows their place and their function, and sticks to it. Rulers rule; workers work; etc. (just as the heart pumps blood, and the lungs breathe).
- Plato is very keen on censorship. Any kind of art, literature, or speech that might rock the boat (i.e. threaten the rigid social structure, or inflame people's emotions, or make them suspicious of what they've been taught) is banned. Only what serves what the guardians deem to be in the interest of the city is allowed.
- And one other thing. To make sure that they are not corrupted, the guardians have to live frugally and simply. They don't get big houses, or lots of money, or fancy foods."

To the last point of my professor’s email, I must point out a chilling passage from the Republic that seemed to portend the reality of the institution of policing in America today:

“’To them alone in the city it is forbidden to touch or handle silver and gold, to go under the same roof with it, to wear it or drink from it. Thus they will be preserved as they preserve the city. If they ever possess private land and houses and money, they’ll become farmers and landowners instead of guardians, despots and enemies instead of allies to the citizens, and they’ll live out their lives hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, fearing citizens within more than enemies without, and even then skirting the brink of destruction for both themselves and their city. For all of these reasons,’ I said, ‘let’s legislate that the guardians’ houses and everything else be arranged as we’ve said. Do you agree?’
“’I certainly do,’ he said.”
(page 86 of my version of the Republic)

The police in Rochester, NY do not live frugally or simply. In Rochester’s case, the majority of the members of the Rochester Police Department (RPD), 90%+, live outside of the city. They also get substantial amounts of money to buy land, houses, and all the food that’s fancy (that they want). Fear drives their need to control, here and around the nation: a fear of citizens, a fear of being plotted against, and a fear of being hated. That fear transforms into aggression and barbarity directed at vulnerable individuals and communities that they target. (Sorry, this is in some ways hyperbole and in some ways not. In Rochester’s case, you just have to compare how police treat white folks vs. Black folks.) Rochester police get virtually no cultural competency training and little if any local history, according to a member of the Rochester Police Training Advisory Committee (2018). PTAC is a group of civilians that are informed about the training that officers go through in Rochester by the department. Structural and institutional racism provide the needed foundation for officers to determine, without evidence, that a person of color is a criminal, even if it’s not the person who’s committed the crime. (Not hyperbole. There are several documented cases of police misidentifying and hurting people who are not the suspects they are seeking or have completely different appearances than the people they are seeking. The common denominator was that the people they hurt were Black.) This leads to two different kinds of law enforced by the RPD: one for Black people and one for white people. The very foundation of policing in this country comes out of slave patrols and repression of the labor movement. To presume that the uniquely American institution of policing can be reformed with a shift in perspective is, perhaps, hubris. If Plato’s words above are a warning to us about the corruptibility of guardians, then I can only imagine what he would think about the institution of policing, re-framed in the language of guardians, today.

Another aspect of Plato’s Republic that is concerning is the totalitarian nature of the “just” society he envisions. His call for absolute control of all aspects of society, down to the artistic license of chair makers, is horrifying. All human creativity and free will becomes predetermined and at the will of the state. Any deviation is grounds for immediate censorship and punishment. It sounds like an ideal command and control situation for police, under Alexander’s re-framing, transforming police into the enemies of the people (even the “good” ones), and certainly not allies. This does not bode well for Alexander’s ideal of guardians, unless of course the populace is ready to abdicate its rights. And civilians have rights (theoretically) in order to protect themselves against the tyranny of the state.

There is a certain logic that dictates why a former police officer might identify the utopia(?) outlined in the Republic is an ideal to strive for in a democratic society. I am not insinuating that Alexander is a totalitarian monster out to destroy democracy. I think he, like so many people, have a certain nostalgia for the (false) ideal of police. Alexander wants to take that ideal and pair it with an idea (police and community relations) that appears to put civilians and police (guardians) on the same footing, thereby creating/attaining/increasing respect and legitimacy of police officers. Of course, the police retain all power in the police and community relations equation and use civil society to expand their social control, sometimes through informal channels, throughout society. Obviously, this is all speculation. The ideal, perhaps, of total control of society through some kind of formal or informal democratically-driven decision-making process between police and civilians, could appeal to individuals who have led departments or who have done their jobs as police officers. But I think it's a disingenuous ideal that actually hurts democracy and civil society.  To me, it sounds like totalitarianism and it is really scary. Again, I urge you to read the Republic and make your own decision. I will say that Alexander doesn’t even consider this point in his book (even though there has been an ongoing, international debate about Plato and his totalitarianism) and that omission is certainly for me, a red flag.

2. Individual experience vs. systemic patterns and practices of abuse:
Alexander’s narrative uses a lot–A LOT–of personal anecdotes to make his argument, while explicitly NOT focusing on the systemic violence of the departments he was a part of or oversaw. Cue the ever classy “it’s just a few bad apples” argument, while dropping the second part of that phrase “spoils the bunch”.

Kristian Williams, in his Our Enemies in Blue offers a wonderful critique of the "few bad apples" argument that focuses on individuals rather than systems and institutions:

"Given such pervasive violence, it is astonishing that discussions of police brutality so frequently focus on the behavior of individual officers. Commonly called the 'Rotten Apple' theory, the explanation of police misconduct favored by police commanders and their ideological allies holds that police abuse is exceptional, that the officers who misuse their power are a tiny minority, and that it is unfair to judge other cops (or the department as a whole) by the misbehavior of the few. This is a handy tool for diverting attention away from the institution, its structure, practices, and social role, pushing the blame, instead, onto some few of its agents. It is, in other words, a means of protecting the organization from scrutiny, and of avoiding change."

Here’s an example of how I’ve experienced the individual experience vs. systemic patterns and practices of abuse when it comes to the RPD. Enough Is Enough was invited to participate in a focus group conducted by the Center for Public Safety Initiatives (CPSI), which is a part of the Rochester Institute of Technology, regarding how people felt about the police department. The focus group was a part of a broad effort to include voices that, in the past, were generally left out of these "feel good" surveys. It was a bit nerve wracking to sit and respond because each question asked by the research assistant focused almost exclusively on our specific and individual interactions with police officers. The questions asked of the focus groups refused to acknowledge that my individual experience with a police officer (or non-experience based on my perceived race and gender as a white man) would completely skew the data and that the targeted enforcement activities in primarily poor communities that were coded racially as Black or Hispanic would be discounted or omitted because that information was systemic (not individually-based experience) and not within the scope of the survey. (It may have also been the case that the researchers weren’t able to gain access to police records, which would severely stymie their efforts at exposing systemic police violence. Of course, assuming that was their goal, which it didn't seem to be.) We raised these concerns with each question presented to us and each time the research assistant would make a note about our objection to the question, the line of questions, or the limited—even cosmetic—kinds of questions that were driving the survey.

This kind of focus, an individual’s interaction with law enforcement (rather than how violent the department is and what its goals/targets are and why—and further—who decides what those goals and targets are) becomes the litmus test for how well a police department functions and how much it is “liked” by the community (which community?) it “serves.” It is rare for systemic violence in a police department to be reported on in a longitudinal study where actual use of force complaints are tracked for one department over the course of decades. Some of that may have to do with who’s contracting with who (in the above example, the RPD contracted with the CPSI to do the study) or the barriers to getting actual information on topics, cases, and outcomes for situations that led to police violence because of transparency laws, such as New York State Civil Rights Law Section 50-a.

Alexander’s book is autobiographical. Therefore my argument that Alexander focuses entirely too little on systems may be an unfair critique. That said, I’ve chosen a few examples where Alexander is telling his personal story and then extrapolates that experience to everyone. The insidiousness of that tactic in his writing is that he’s floating assumptions past the reader, which may or may not be caught because the reader is trying to move forward with his personal narrative. Alexander’s experience and the assumptions he makes (and is asking the reader to accept) are contained within the perspective of a law enforcement officer, which brings its own set of assumptions to the table, assumptions that average civilians or targeted civilians might vehemently disagree with.

Page 12 is one example. Alexander is discussing his entry into law enforcement and how his whole career was held in the balance by a presumably racist, white, southern sheriff. (Alexander is Black). He writes, “Whatever else he did for me that day—and just by signing his name in green ink, he did everything—Sheriff Raymond Hamlin taught me that people are just people, and most people have a surprisingly powerful and resilient need to do the right thing, especially if you give them a good reason to.” It’s an emotional hook meant to lay the groundwork for Alexander’s storied career. It’s simply people being people, one individual to another. Institutions and cultures play no role. There are simply too many variables that Alexander sets aside in his narrative. He may have just got lucky. I’m speculating. There’s a similar instance of this on page 17. Here Alexander talks about there being a lot of distrust between him and other officers because of his race and his co-workers’ “redneck ways.” But this, Alexander tells us, was overcome overtime as they started to see each other as “brother officers.” That terms evokes for me the “thin blue line,” the line that demarcates the boundary between the public sphere and the police sphere; the line that establishes opacity to patterns and practices of abuse; it’s a line not to be crossed. I met a retired RPD officer a few years back. He was also Black. Until he and several other officers of color brought a suit against the department for racial discrimination, he had been treated like a second class officer. He could not arrest white people, he was forced to sit in the back of the police car, where arrested suspects would sit, on route to crime scenes. If he spoke up, he would be retaliated against by the super majority white police department. (Mind you, this was the late 1960s and 1970s, not today). However, at the same meeting, there were two current Black police officers as well (2014) and they spoke about how their union represented white officers and not Black ones, at least that’s how it felt to them. They also talked about the ongoing racism within the department and how negative the environment could get. These examples are a tiny piece of the systemic and institutional factors that are not addressed by Alexander in his writing. It seemed to me that, whenever he could, Alexander would talk about a personal experience and then quickly extrapolate that experience into something societal.

One last example: on page 205 Alexander writes, “…crime in the Scott Projects, the kind of subsidized public housing that became infamous in the 1980s as incubators of gang violence, drugs, and what we would today properly call domestic terror.” In this section of the book, he’s talking about how community policing positively impacted the residents of low-income public housing but lumps them and their sometimes desperate situations (with utter government mismanagement, racial discrimination, displacement, and corruption) with domestic terrorism. It’s not the white kids in the suburbs with guns who are the focus and potential domestic terrorists, but the poor and working people of color who are the targets. In this section, Alexander isn’t so much talking about personal experience, but rather trying to make an abstract point about community policing and inadvertently(?) calls vulnerable populations of Americans domestic terrorists. The assumptions he’s been floating by the reader throughout the book go part and parcel with the assumptions he makes about the people in the Scott Projects. It’s an example of his personal experience (and success?) with community policing being used to paint whole populations of people as terrorists. The residents become a foil to his policing.

3: Trust the state:
“We all need to do the simple but harsh math: either a community supports law enforcement or accepts lawlessness,” (p. 89) writes Alexander. And a few pages earlier, he reminds us that “The police are not going away.” Trust is built upon mutual respect, consent, communication, and action. It is not something that can simply be imposed on people. The very idea of a former law enforcement officer is telling folks that there is no alternative (TINA! Thanks Margaret Thatcher!), the police are here, accept this or declare chaos, means that trust was never the intention, but rather compliance. In fact, Alexander’s writing throughout his book gives me the creeps. There is absolutely no consent at all in his plea for community police relations. It is simply, you’re with us or against us. You love us or hate us. There is no nuance, no complexity, and no choice. Civilians are expected to fall in line and trust the police… or else. And it’s the latent threat he deploys (along with false equivalencies) that paint Americans as either with the good guys, the poli—I mean, guardians—or the bad guys, the terrorists.

Folks, we have rights. Those (theoretical) rights were established at the founding of this country. Those rights have expanded and remain flexible to some degree. We can use these rights to protect ourselves from the tyranny of the state. (All the absolute goddamned injustice scrolled out in the original document, accepted, of course.)  By the word “state” I mean the territory of the US (or any country) and it’s culture, politics, economics, and decision-making and law enforcement apparatuses. The state has vast resources and when it targets an individual, it can be a terrifying and life changing situation. The rights established in the Bill of Rights, give us some protection (theoretically) from the tyranny of the government. It’s good to have and exercise rights (when one can within the specific racial, cultural, political, and economic spheres of life around the individual). Police are bureaucrats (with guns) who represent the state and they happen to have the most exposure to civilians. We, as civilians, can be civil (or not), cordial (or not), kind (or not), but there is no law or provision that calls for us, as civilians, to allow the state (e.g. police) into our homes or compels us to trust them (or be civil, cordial, or kind). In fact, based on the last 200+ years of this country, a good case can be made for why, say, Black Americans might have no interest in trusting a state that enslaved their bodies for free labor and once freed from bondage created other oppressive systems (Black Codes, Convict-Lease, Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration, etc.) to condtinue the legacies of slavery as well as hinder their advancement.

That all said, Alexander would like us to consider the virtues of professional accountability. He writes, “Non-punitive peer reviews are not intended to take the place of legal and administrative inquiries and investigations. But such reviews do introduce another level of accountability. Call it professional accountability. It requires everyone participating to have a commitment to improving the systems within which they work.” (p. 207) Alexander suggests we allow the department to conduct these non-punitive peer reviews in order to improve the department. The problem of course is that over 15 years (in Rochester), internally, the department has failed to hold its officers accountable administratively or otherwise. Why, with such a horrible track record, would civilians accept their terms of accountability through the adding of another layer of bureaucracy that is in no way transparent or accountable to the public? Why would civilians desire to allow the department to do this? There’s little trust. Unless of course it’s one of those compelled trust ideas that doesn’t really mean trust but is rather a way of securing some kind of compliance. At this point, any attempt at "professional accountability" that cuts out actual transparency and accountability is just a public relations stunt.

4. War / no war:
Throughout the book Alexander does this obnoxious thing where on the one hand he claims that the police and community must work together to become some kind of ideal society. At the same time he seems to dismiss the idea of systemic violence (poverty, racism, red lining, lack of affordable housing, lack of quality education, lack of jobs, police violence, etc.) in favor of police/military solutions to crime. And beyond that, he defines the people who struggle daily with systemic violence as domestic or international terrorists.

On page 118, Alexander writes, “On October 1, 2015, a six-month old girl was shot on Cleveland’s East Side. She was being driven by her grandmother, strapped safely in an infant car seat. She was the youngest of three children shot and killed in that neighborhood within a month’s time, collateral damage in a perpetual gang war. This is domestic terrorism. [his emphasis]”

There are requirements for a federal domestic terrorism charge. It can't only mean the act of ending life or attempting to end life. It must also:

(i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping. (see: https://www.aclu.org/other/how-usa-pa...)

If the crime doesn’t meet the elements of the charge, then it isn’t domestic terrorism. This is why there are murder and manslaughter charges. If Alexander means terror in the dictionary sense of causing extreme fear and distress, then he might have a case. Based on other references he makes for the necessity of militarized police, my guess is he is trying to tie his argument to a legal standard, in which case he fails. (Mind you I’m not lawyer, just a critical reader.)

Further, look at Alexander's use of language in the above example. He calls the infant who was killed, "collateral damage" in a "perpetual gang war." He then calls this act domestic terrorism. This is the muddying of terms and communities I've been discussing. The language he uses implies warfare. "Collateral damage" is what happens to civilians when states engage in their own kind of terrorism: war. Mass casualties are collateral damage. "Perpetual gang war" is language that very closely mirrors the language used by many U.S. administrations when discussing the current Global War On Terror. Instead of a perpetual war on terror, Alexander refashions the phrase to suit his purposes, transposing the language of war and terror onto some of the most desperate communities in the country and then labels them domestic terrorists. This is horribly offensive and again asks readers to take a side: the cops or the terrorists. There. Is. No. Alternative.

On page 123, Alexander writes, “Communities cannot do this alone [creating a strong and secure community], police agencies cannot do this alone, even working together, they cannot achieve the level of solidarity, security, and value that will trump the hollow, lethal, and fraudulent value propositions of the local street gang or the global terrorist organization.”

Quotes like the above, with their false equivalences and muddying of terms and communities, is why I feel like Alexander is trying to make a legal argument when he talks about the shooting of the infant and how that is domestic terrorism with the insinuation that street gangs in America are somehow the same as international terrorist organizations like ISIS. Alexander wants to have his cake and eat it to. Or perhaps, he wants to be so inconsistent that anyone can draw any conclusion from his writing, And since he’s a former Chief of Police and now a deputy mayor, his writing has the imprimatur of the state. It’s official. Whatever it is he’s trying to convey.

Now, when I say Alexander wants to have his cake and eat it too, there’s a great example of this on page 135:

“When police act like the Redcoats at the Boston Massacre, citizens have both the right and the responsibility to hold them accountable to the same laws to which they themselves are held accountable. They are justifiably enraged even by the appearance that brutal officers are being unfairly shielded or when attempts are made to justify a militaristic response by claiming that ‘it’s a war out there.’ Make no mistake, the level of violence in some of our most troubled communities does at times approach a level resembling warfare. It is also true that, post-9/11, police departments do have to be prepared to handle potential terrorist situations, battles in a ‘war on terror’ that can break out on any street corner, any building, any neighborhood any time. But it is a catastrophic error to confuse either of these warlike scenarios with an actual state of war in our communities. To do so, transforms the metaphor of war into something very like the reality of war. Treating a community as enemy territory creates a community of enemies.”

The first section of this paragraph appeals to American sensibilities of fairness, justice, and accountability. On the face of it, I agree. Of course, the caveat is that while Americans have a sense of justice and fairness, make no mistake that there is a level of violence in some “troubled communities” that pales in comparison to whatever the Redcoats did during the Boston Massacre. Now, spinning this doubt, Alexander takes us down the rabbit hole and equates the violence he mentions in those “troubled communities” with that of the events from 9/11/01. And then to rub in the fear, he tells us that at any moment, anywhere, terrorism could happen. AND then he back peddles and begs us not to confuse these war-like scenarios with actual war and that treating communities (perhaps “troubled communities”) as enemy territory creates enemies.

This fear mongering and intentional conflating of international terrorism with the everyday struggle to survive in America is disgusting. Alexander doesn’t consider alternatives to reducing systemic violence or inequality. He makes justifications for militarized police. He also refuses to give any kind of analysis of terrorism or why it happens. He simply shoves fear in our faces and asks readers to use their imaginations as to what that random terror event could be. It’s such base and hollow writing. It preys upon the prejudices, fears, and assumptions of people without offering any kind of actual, critical analysis. In short, it’s enraging.

On page 139, Alexander assures us that militarized police and police using military tactics is nothing to be feared because there is appropriate use and inappropriate use: “[Radley] Balko’s book [Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces] is perhaps most valuable not so much for criticizing the militarization of the police, but for exposing and exploring the inappropriate militarization and the inappropriate use of military-grade tactics, weapons, and force.”

There are other pages beyond this one where he states that 21st century policing must use community policing strategies and military SWAT-style weapons and tactics simultaneously (page 179). And then on page 188, to muddy the waters some more, he claims that a “good officer must be both local and global in focus. The fight against local crime is, in the broadest sense, part of the fight against terrorism (page 188).” What does “in the broadest sense” mean? He elucidates this farther down on the page: “It takes an educated, curious, disciplined imagination to see such links between ‘common’ criminality and terrorism.” If the fight against local crime is also the fight against terrorism, then a special group of people (guardians?) who are “educated” and “curious” with a “disciplined imagination” (doesn’t that sound like any oxymoron?) are the only people who can see the “common” links between criminality on a daily level and terrorism. Those special people? Law enforcement. And he suggests all law enforcement go to college to discipline their imaginations so they too can see the “common” linkages. Ugh. This book. And his use of language. It's all so problematic.

The Ugly:
There's lots of ugly here too. For instance, Alexander tries to float a lot of underlying assumptions by readers that I’ve outlined above. One of my favorites is the presumption that people want the police. Alex Vitale in his book The End of Policing critiques the mission creep of police into civil society. So instead of communities being given resources and using their collective consciousness to find solutions to problems that actually addresses the day to day struggles of individuals, these communities are told horrible things that could happen to them and thus they need the police. Vitale’s argument is that over the last 40 years, police have moved into all facets of civil society. Officers will never get enough training to handle every issue. They will never be everything to everyone. And at worst, they resort to force and hurt people. Vitale argues instead that the mission of police should be severely scaled back and those saved resources be poured back into targeted communities. He also calls for resources to be allocated toward people in professional capacities who have expertise and knowledge on childhood development, mental health, and social work, etc. He suggests that dumping resources on a crime-fighting institution that is then expected to solve societal problems with those resources is unrealistic and has not happened.

There is also the assumption that “Police are not going away (page 84).” Now, with what Vitale argues in his book and with what contemporary abolitionists have been saying for decades–that if priorities in society were changed and resources went to places of need, then the assumption that we need police might in fact evaporate. What if we start from the assumption that we as a community get to decide if we need or want police and in what capacity? That’s a different approach but it might actually lead to some honest conversation and problem solving rather than to immediately take that possibility off the table.

“The prevailing anonymity is incompatible with trust. And if residents and police do not feel they have a mutual stake in the community whose very space they share, trust will never develop (page 85).” Here again is the insistence that we need the police and that there must be trust. In Rochester, NY, over 90% of our police force does not live in our city. They are not people of our community. They are outsiders who come into the city to police neighborhoods, some more aggressively than others. They have a limited stake in the community: they get paid by the tax payers of Rochester (the lowest paid officer got over $50k, not counting benefits or overtime), they over and aggressively police the most vulnerable people in our city (those that tend to be poor and people of color); they use force if their aggressive demeanor doesn’t immediately get compliance, and then they go back home to the suburbs or outside of the metro area entirely and get zero discipline for their misconduct.

Another ugly thing about this book is Alexander’s self-aggrandizement. He can talk to anyone. (Doesn’t necessarily change the system, though.) He’s improved Rochester’s department and moved onto bigger and better opportunities in his career. (No looking back, no reflection, no doubt. He can do it and we just need to try harder.) I know it’s a partial auto-biography, but still. Good autobiographies usually include some doubt and reflection from the author. Not Alexander.

Along with the underlying assumptions and self-aggrandizement, I must have ticked off several places in the book where I was asked to accept Alexander’s personal knowledge of an incident or issue with no corroborating information or evidence. That was really frustrating. Here’s one example: “Moreover, many years of law enforcement experience, bolstered by research, demonstrates that informal social control, inculcated within the community, is often more effective than formal punishment, at the hands of the justice system, at reducing crime in a neighborhood.” What research is my first question. There is no footnote telling me where to look. I’m expected to believe his statement because he has experience. I have no doubt about his experiences, and he’s free to share them, but I want to know what research specifically he is thinking of when he writes that. A second, telling statement is that informal social control, presumably inculcated in the community BY THE POLICE, offers a more effective way of dealing with crime than by just using police directly. This is a great expression of the failure of what’s called police-community relations. The police have an agenda, they hold a community meeting, listen to neighbors, the neighbors listen to the cops, and the cops have the power to implement their agenda, hopefully after inculcating some support via neighborhood leaders. It’s really quite insidious. Williams talks specifically about third-party policing. Basically, the police put pressure on, say, a neighborhood association because the police see an issue with a business. The neighborhood association then writes to the zoning board, the liquor authority, the neighbors, etc. telling them all about this problem place as well as informing them of what the police think. Perhaps then neighbors get upset at the business or the neighborhood association starts putting pressure on the business to change its behavior. It’s not the police doing it directly, but it is the police working civil levers for their own agenda.

In Rochester, the strategy of police-community relations has been bandied about for over a half century. It hasn’t led to constitutional policing. It hasn’t led to an end of police brutality or murder. It hasn’t ended what’s called crime. It is a failed strategy that needs to be replaced with a strategy of actual police accountability. This strategy would give the community the power to hold officers accountable for their misconduct and the institution for its policies. Concurrently, the community could articulate how political and economic priorities within the municipality could change to work for people and help lift them up rather than have those same resources be use to further pound them into the ground.

There are plenty of issues with Alexander's book. Some of them are outlined above. It's important to keep these issues in mind and critically listen when we hear him on the media, lecture to groups of people, and deploy policy from the Warren administration. But don't take my word for it. Read Alexander's book. Read the Republic. Don't buy the hype (or the book, unless you can get it from a local used bookstore or the library.) Anything less is a threat to democracy.

Related: Community Forum: Police Accountability Board Update & Action | Panel on the overhaul of bail, speedy trial & discovery laws in New York State | Community demands Police Accountability Board with discipline | The Intersection of Black Lives Matter and Palestine

On March 19, 2018, members of the Police Accountability Board transition team, members of the PAB Alliance, and supporting organizations held a community forum meant to update the public as well as offer actions to take in support of the campaign.

Full video of forum above.

The event took place in the evening at the Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word with the help of Pastor Doug Stewart. The event was wheelchair accessible and had ASL interpretation.

Source documents pertaining to civilian review and police accountability

The Police Accountability Board proposed legislation demands five items be included in any City Council ordinance: 1) the creation of an agency of the city, independent of the Rochester Police Department; 2) independent investigative authority; 3) subpoena power; 4) the power discipline officers who are found to have committed misconduct; 5) assess and review RPD policy and procedures and make recommended changes.

The next community forum will take place in mid-late April at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church. Details are being sorted out now. Check EnoughIsEnough.rocus.org for details as they become solidified.

This forum gave a chance for the general public and PAB-endorsing organizations to learn and talk about the Police Accountability Board. There was also an update on the status of the PAB with City Council. Action items were discussed. The coalition pushing this proposed ordinance has momentum, but are calling for the community to come together and mobilize in order to push it through.

Rochester Police Department documents obtained through Freedom Of Information Law requests

Speakers included: Pastor Wanda Wilson (ROC/Acts), Betty Hancock (ROC/Acts), Barbara Lacker-Ware (Enough Is Enough), AJ Durwin (Rochester Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild), Ted Forsyth (Enough Is Enough), Matt DeLaus (Flying Squirrel Community Space) and Chris Amato (Rochester Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America). Scean Gordon and Jessenia Edgeston shared their personal experiences with police violence.

Remember: justice requires accountability and accountability requires independence.

Donate to the PAB Legal Fund!

Enough is enough!

Related: Panel on the overhaul of bail, speedy trial & discovery laws in New York State | Community demands Police Accountability Board with discipline | The Intersection of Black Lives Matter and Palestine