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The calmness with which police arrest attackers like the one in Buffalo contrasts with the deadly force they use against many unarmed black men.

2022-05-22T03:22:09.709Z


The officers convinced Payton Gendron, a young white man, to drop his weapons and arrested him without firing a shot. Many wonder why authorities don't follow the same protocol with black people who don't even pose a threat.


By Deepti Hajela and Claudia Lauer — The Associated Press

When police confronted the white man suspected of killing 10 black people in a Buffalo grocery store, the man was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and wearing a bulletproof vest and was considered dangerous.

However, the officers talked to Payton Gendron, convinced him to drop the gun, and arrested him without firing a single shot.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia praised the officers' training, calling it "a tremendous act of bravery."

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Yet in a country where Black people have been killed in police encounters for minor traffic violations, or no violations at all, the question begs: Where is that training, that protocol following, when it comes to those persons?

“It is important to emphasize that this is not about why the police are not killing white supremacist terrorists,” said Qasim Rashid, a human rights lawyer and radio host who was among those who weighed in on the issue online. social.

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"Why can't the same restraint and control be applied to a situation involving an unarmed black person?" Rashid asked.

He and others pointed to a number of examples of white men who have been quietly detained by police after shootings, including Dylann Roof, who killed nine black people at a South Carolina church in 2015;

Robert Aaron Long, who murdered eight people at a massage parlor in Georgia last year;

Patrick Crusius, accused of killing 23 people in a racist attack at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in 2019;

and Kyle Rittenhouse, whose attempt to surrender immediately after shooting three white people at a Wisconsin protest was rebuffed.

Meanwhile, George Floyd, Atatiana Jefferson, Tamir Rice, and scores of other Black people have perished in encounters with police when initial circumstances were much less volatile.

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"There's a stark contrast between how the system treats a Kyle Rittenhouse or a Payton Gendron in these incidents and how a black man is treated in general," said Insha Rahman, vice president of advocacy and partnerships at the Vera Institute, a national advocacy group. Nonprofit research and advocacy focused on criminal justice.

Rahman said there are many similarities in the public perception of the two cases.

Rittenhouse walked toward police with an AR-15-style rifle slung over his shoulder and his hands raised.

He testified at trial that the police told him to "go home" and he turned himself in the next day.

He was acquitted of all charges after pleading self-defense.

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"At the time, some people said that if Kyle Rittenhouse was a young black man, he would not have made it out of Kenosha that night. He may never have made it to trial," he said.

Rahman also cautioned against considering high-profile incidents because, he says, people need to consider everyday interactions with police, which along with arrests occur at a disproportionate and often more dangerous level for Black people.

The difference has been felt in Buffalo, said Jillian Hanesworth, 29, the city's poet laureate and director of leadership development at Open Buffalo, a nonprofit focused on social justice and community development.

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"We see how the police treat black and brown people," he said, commenting that the police

don't hesitate to "take deadly action against black and brown people."

Martin Sabelli, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said there has historically been a racial divide in the United States that affects all aspects of the criminal legal process.

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"The perception of racism is perpetuated because it is rooted in reality," Sabelli said, noting that the impact of implicit bias in surveillance has been extensively studied.

"Unfortunately we are in the process of trying to

reverse decades of explicit racism in many police departments

across the country and that is often compounded by implicit bias that exists at a subconscious level. And that contaminates these encounters by unconsciously making believe officers that a person of color is more dangerous than a white person," says the expert.

The perception of racism is perpetuated because it is rooted in reality."

Martin Sabelli

Frank Straub, director of the Center for the Prevention of Targeted Violence at the National Police Institute, said he hoped the way police respond to incidents would be reconsidered, in the wake of unequal treatment the public has seen in recent years. .

"Maybe the fact that these videos are out there ... hopefully it's changing the way officers are trained to respond to arrest situations," he said.

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Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, an organization dedicated to improving the professionalism of law enforcement, said Gramaglia asked his organization for help with last year's training.

Wexler's group trained Buffalo police trainers in February 2021, and Wexler said the department had not yet completed that training for all of its officers.

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"That gives you an idea of ​​how the department was thinking. It's about communication, slowing things down, using time, distance and coverage, rather than rushing into a situation," Wexler said.

"I think you have to look at the facts, the training and the tactics and realize that every situation is different," the expert said.

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He also noted that a security guard, who was a retired police officer, shot the gunman while he was stalking the aisles of Tops Friendly Market.

But the guard was killed.

"I don't know all the facts, but when the suspect came out, officers might have a different perception compared to an immediate threat," Wexler said.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2022-05-22

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