Calif Cops Indicted as Police Brutality Fight Continues Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit TWO COPS INDICTED AS INGLEWOOD POLICE BRUTALITY FIGHT CONTINUES By Jon Hillson INGLEWOOD, CA, July 19 (NY Transfer)--Scores of community residents announced a nightly vigil in this city of 113,000 flanked by Los Angles, vowing continued protests until all police involved in the beating of 16 year-old Donovan Jackson are suspended without pay and indicted for the July 6 crime. The demonstration took place July 17 in the Thurgood Marshall Justice Plaza as a Los Angeles County grand jury indicted two Inglewood cops for the assault, part of which was captured on video by a local disk jockey staying at a nearby motel. Its broadcast on July 7 has sparked street protests, mass meetings, and Sunday morning sermons at area churches, fueling widespread outrage and the appearance of rapid, official concern. An overwhelmingly working-class city, Inglewood is 46.4 percent Black, 46 percent Latino, and 3.5 Asian. The city police force is 43 percent white. "It is our position that they are just attempting to pacify us," with the limited indictments, Thandi Chimurgenga told the July 17 protest. Chimurenga, a cousin of Jackson, is a leader of the Donovan Jackson-Chavis Justice Committee. "But we aren't babies. We won't be pacified so easily." Six police, including Los Angeles county deputy sheriffs, were involved in the incident, which unfolded as cops stopped Coby Chavis, the teenager's father, for allegedly driving with expired license plates. Chavis and his son pulled into a gas station, where police began rousting the driver, whose son was returning with a bag of potato chips from the service center. The police accosted Jackson, whose family says he is "developmentally disabled" and has "difficulty" responding to "commands." "He could sit and have a conversation without you, but as far as learning he didn't catch on as quick as everyone else," said a former tutor, 17 year-old John Minor. "You'd talk to him and you tried to explain something and it would take a while for him to understand. When I heard about what happened [with the police], that's the first thing that came to mind." When the Black youth failed to heel to the cops' satisfaction, Inglewood cop Bijan Darvish punched him twice, driving the slender teenager to the ground. According to his attorneys and family, cops then dragged the limp Jackson to a waiting police car. The commotion caught the attention of Mitchell Crooks, who is white, and was staying at an adjacent motel. Crooks ran outside and began videotaping what transpired. Inglewood cop Jeremy Morse, who stands over six feet tall and weighs over 200 pounds hoisted the handcuffed youth in the air and slammed him face first onto the trunk of the car. Seconds later Morse landed a powerful right-hand to Jackson's head. On July 17, after hearing 13 witnesses, the grand jury indicted Morse, a three-year veteran of the Inglewood Police Department, with "assault by a peace office under the color of authority," a felony carrying a 36-month maximum jail term and $10,000 fine. Jarvish was charged with filing a false report, also a felony. Both were released on $25,000 bail. On July 18, the two pleaded not guilty. Morse claims that Jackson had grabbed him "by the testicles," compelling the cop to hit him. A review of the video shows no facial expression of the "extreme pain" that Morse supposedly suffered-offered by Morse and his partner, Bijan Darvish, in a written report as justification to superiors-or that the youth "was still attacking" Morse and required a blow to the head to subdue him. The two cops described the slamming of the teenager onto the car hood as how they "assisted Jackson to his feet." Morse has been the target of five previous brutality complaints, one of which is "under investigation," according to his bosses. On July 11, an employee of the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit in federal court against Morse and two other Inglewood cops for police abuse for an October incident in her apartment. Patrice Surje charged the police department and local government had failed to act on her earlier complaint against the three. A day earlier, Jackson's family sued the city for the July 6 beating. It subsequently retained noted attorney Johnny Cochran to pursue its legal case against the cops and the city. "It was Donovan [Jackson] today, it was Rodney King yesterday. It's untold people in the graveyard that cannot speak out and that have been abused by police and it's time to stop," Tabilah Shakir, a cousin of the Black teenager, told a news conference announcing the suit. Hundreds participated in street protests in the days following the broadcast of the Crooks video. Demonstrators chanting "no justice, no peace!" were joined by 1960s civil rights figure Dick Gregory; Martin Luther King, III, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and Rev. Al Sharpton, who is identified with anti-police brutality protests in New York City. On July 12, Crooks was seized by Los Angeles cops as he was about to enter the Hollywood studios of CNN for an interview for failing to appear to serve a seven-month jail term in Placer County, in northern California, for a series of minor 1999 convictions. A video of the arrest showed Crooks crying for help as he was hauled away. He was briefly hospitalized for minor injuries and released. Activists here have raised thousands of dollars for Crooks' legal expenses, and his defense was enthusiastically backed at a rally of 500 in Faith United Methodist Church on July 13. Cong. Maxine Waters (D-CA), urged donations to fund his legal defense. The spirited event filled the building, as the crowd spilled into a parking lot where dozens listened to speeches on a loudspeaker. Several speakers testified to acts of brutality and violence by Inglewood police, as well as murders by area killer cops who have never been subject to a modicum of justice. The meeting demanded suspension and prosecution of the police involved in the beating, dropping all changes against Jackson and Chavis, an independent prosecutor to investigate police brutality, and civilian review board of police "misconduct." Families of Latinos killed and beaten by cops also testified. Latino marchers and signs in Spanish have been present in demonstrations and vigils, as well. Many of those participating in the protests have first hand knowledge of how cops here "protect and serve." There were over 50,000 "contacts" between the Inglewood police and local residents in the past year-nearly half the entire population of the city. Complaints against the police document a variety of attacks under the heading of "excessive force." One cop destroyed photo evidence of a beating, according to the Los Angeles Times. Neither that cop nor the one who administered the assault was ever prosecuted. The officer accused of the beating remains on the force, further proof that so-called police abuse is standard racist operating procedure. In the media, Robert Barnett, the lawyer for Morse, has unconditionally defended the cop, who he said would be vindicated by the video. "I'll be surprised if every pimp and prostitute and robber that [Morse] arrested doesn't line up hoping to open the wallet of the city to get money because of this situation," Barnett said. The attorney praised the policeman. Morse arrested Jackson "without killing him. He could have shot him," Barnett stated. Barnett successfully defended Los Angeles cop Theodore Briseno, who was in the police gang who pounded Rodney King, a Black construction worker, to a pulp in 1991. The 1992 acquittal of police charged in that videotaped beating ignited the anti-police riot during which the forces of law and order unleashed a wave of terror that took over 50 lives and resulted in more than a billion dollars in damages. This explosive legacy fuels both the widespread outrage here, and the speed with which government officials have moved to still protests by ordering a series of investigations. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft-momentarily distracted from shredding the Bill of Rights-dipped a toe into the fray four days after the Jackson beating, stating that "the events caught on videotape in Inglewood, Calif., last weekend trouble me greatly, because they raise clear questions about that law enforcement mission was being served properly in Inglewood." Ashcroft dispatched the Department of Justice's top civil rights attorney to Inglewood to open an investigation. The New York Times editorially hailed Ashcroft's decision, chiding the Inglewood Police Department for failing to restrain its cops from engaging in "overly aggressive tactics." Many community activists have rebuked traditional Black leaders for the slowness to move, criticism that has appeared in the mainstream press and Black community media. Inglewood mayor Roosevelt Dorn, who is Black, initially urged that "due process" take its course, then suspended Morse with pay in the wake of protests, and denounced that such beatings would never again take place "in my city." Local Urban League president John Mack told the media "at the end of the day, some heads must roll." Heated debate has unfolded in the pages of local newspapers, with letters to editors polarized between backers of the cops, and those outraged by the beating of the Black youth. "Hmmm. Could you please help me in determining whom I should be on the lookout for-those terrorists with the turbans or the ones with the badges?" wrote Jeffrey Walker in the Los Angeles Times. "I was stopped for driving with expired tags and directed to correct the problem. There was no hassle. I guess 'driving while white' is a big advantage," Ann Bien wrote the Times from Anaheim. "I wrote that Officer Jeremy Morse should be fired and prosecuted for slamming a handcuffed Donovan Jackson onto the trunk and punching him in the face, and about half of the 300-plus readers who responded were in agreement," Times columnist Steve Lopez wrote on July 14. "But the mail from the other side included some of the most vicious reactions to anything I've written in 27 years at the keyboard." Lopez provided a sample-"I'll be you make a career about and defending minority criminals," one e-mail stated. "Look around you in Inglewood, Compton, and South Central L.A. It is a sewer, filled with sewage...You are pathetic." Other articles have described Morse in glowing terms, that he is not a racist because he has a "Latina" girlfriend and lives in a "mixed neighborhood." He wanted to an Inglewood cop, a friend told the Los Angeles Times, "to clean up" the city. Popular radio station KJLH will broadcast live a Town Hall meeting on July 20 from Morningside High School in Inglewood. On July 22 the Southern Christian Leadership Conference will host a public hearing on police brutality. Meanwhile, daily protests demanding justice for Donovan Jackson and prosecution of the thugs in blue continue at Inglewood City Hall. * [Jon Hillson is a member of International Association of Machinists Local 1932 at Los Angeles International Airport, whose union hall is a short distance from where the police assault of Donovan Jackson took place. He lives in Inglewood.] Copyright (c) 2002 by Jon Hillson. Non-profit redistribution, without alteration and with full headers and footers, is permitted. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrad-07.20.02-07:43:16-28100