By Jim Geraghty
Thursday, May 28, 2020
In 2016, another Minnesota cop killed an African-American
man and generated national headlines about police brutality and racism in
police forces. Officer Jeronimo Yanez shot Philando Castile during a traffic
stop, while Castile was following a police officer’s instructions. When
the officer who killed Castile were found not guilty on manslaughter and other
criminal charges, I thought back to the 1991 killing of Latasha Harlins,
which was a key precursor to the Los Angeles riots of 1992.
Latasha Harlins was a 15-year-old
African-American girl who got into a dispute with 51-year-old female
Korean-American store owner Soon Ja Du. As seen on the store’s security tape,
Du accused Harlins of shoplifting. Hu grabbed Harlins’s sleeve; Harlins punched
Hu. They continue to exchange words, then Harlins turned away, and Du pulled
out a gun and shot Harlins in the back of the head from a distance of three
feet. The video can be seen here and is . . . grim
viewing.
Between the videotape and the
witnesses in the store contradicting Du’s claim it was an attempted holdup,
this was an open-and-shut case. The jury found Du guilty of voluntary manslaughter,
an offense that carries a maximum prison sentence of 16 years. But trial judge
Joyce Karlin sentenced Du to five years of probation, 400 hours of community
service, and a $500 fine. No jail time.
Shocked and enraged protesters
scuffled with police outside the courthouse, a precursor to the riots that
would arrive less than a year later. Rioting is wrong, but it’s not hard to
understand the seething outrage of African Americans in Los Angeles at that
moment. If a person casually executes someone who looks like you, and the
system treats it like a minor crime, do you feel like your rights are being
protected? Do you feel like the justice system cares about you? Do you feel
like society at large believes your life matters?
The people who came out to riot in Minneapolis last night
did something egregiously wrong, and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent
of the law. There is no way to justify their violence against anyone, but
especially not against people and institutions who had nothing to do with the
Minneapolis police department or the killing of George Floyd. And last night
was a horrifically violent one for the city:
Early Thursday, city and law
enforcement officials were still tallying the full toll of the night, which saw
at least five people struck by gunfire, one fatally when the owner of a pawn
shop opened fire on a man he believed was burglarizing his business. Dozens of
businesses were either looted or torched, or both, mostly in the area of
Minnehaha Avenue and E. Lake Street, but also along business corridors on the
city’s North and South sides.
Perhaps most dispiriting was the sight of those who took
pleasure in seeing other
people’s livelihoods destroyed:
Vandals broke into Chicago-Lake
Liquor, and also shattered a few windows at the Midtown Market down the block.
They also targeted businesses along W. Broadway Avenue, north Minneapolis’ main
commercial drag, and in the Uptown area. Several pharmacies were reportedly
burglarized, with suspects fleeing with handfuls of prescription pill bottles.
A Target and Cub Foods anchoring
the corner of E. Lake Street and Hiawatha Avenue were looted, along with other
small businesses, including Minnehaha Lake Wine & Spirits. Flames and smoke
shot into the air when a nearby AutoZone auto parts store was set ablaze. As
some protesters tried to put out the fire, others danced gleefully in front of
it, snapping selfies.
In the coming days, a lot of people will seek to conflate
the public anger at the Minneapolis police department with the rioters and vice
versa. Those who want to excuse the inexcusable rioters will insist that their
actions were an unavoidable natural reaction to outrageous police conduct.
Those who wish to nullify the arguments of critics of the police — and perhaps,
in their minds, partially defend the reputation of the officers, or just police
forces in general — will paint the Minneapolis African-American community as
inherently violent, enraged beyond reason, a group that requires particularly
rough tactics in enforcing the law. Both of those arguments are nonsense. Don’t
let one person’s wrong action justify another.
One last thought: Philando Castile was killed in Falcon
Heights, a suburb of St. Paul, in 2016. In 2017, Justine Ruszczyk, an unarmed
woman who had called 911 seeking help, was shot and killed by Minneapolis
police officer Mohamed Noor. (Noor was sentenced to 12 and a half years in
prison.)
Are the police forces in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area
particularly troubled?
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