Pubdate: Sat, 14 Jul 2001
Source: Weekly Planet (FL)
Copyright: 2001 Weekly Planet Inc.
Contact:  http://www.weeklyplanet.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/611
Author: Rochelle Renford
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)

BURNING QUESTION

A team of 10 police tactical teamed officers approached the house at 1341 
19th St. S., St. Petersburg, to execute a search warrant just the way they 
practiced it. Officer Brian Taylor was assigned to be third in the door. 
After hearing a teammate knock and announce, "Police, Search Warrant," 
Taylor and other officers heard what sounded like footsteps coming from 
inside the house. They concluded that it was probably the suspects inside 
running downstairs. When Taylor entered the home he stood at the top of 
those stairs behind another officer with a bulletproof shield.

Though he hadn't heard any gunfire, been attacked, or even seen any 
suspects at this point, Taylor decided that a bulletproof shield wasn't 
enough protection to investigate the lower floor of the apartment. He would 
have to use a distraction device that emits an intense burst of light and a 
loud bang to disorient suspects.

"For safety reasons it was discussed about utilizing a distraction device 
prior to team members going down into the bottom floor area, if the team 
was jeopardized prior to entering the bottom floor," he stated in a report 
following the mission.

Whether the hazard was obvious is up for debate, but no one is debating 
what happened next. Taylor lobbed the device. It exploded, caused a fire 
and burned the house down.

Judging by the tactics it would seem that the officers were entering the 
home to search for a stockpile of unlicensed weapons. Or maybe amounts of 
cocaine so vast the officers would put it in a big pile and take pictures 
standing next to it, showing the press and the public how hundreds of drug 
users wouldn't be getting high thanks to them.

Appearances can be deceiving.

The search was supposed to result in the seizure of some marijuana, and 
likely not in an amount worthy of photographs. What the search actually 
resulted in was embarrassment for the St. Petersburg Police Department. The 
house was destroyed and no one was arrested as the hypothetical evidence 
went up in smoke.

The incident could almost be funny. Picture the police "tactical" or TAC 
team exploding into the house like commandos then rushing back out, much 
like Keystone Kops, moments later when the fire they set raged quickly out 
of controlled.

What's not funny is that it didn't happen in some slapstick movie. It 
happened in a house where real people lived and worked, and it happened in 
the black community where police work too often resembles military occupation.

The police department defends itself by saying that it raided the house on 
legitimate police business. The fire is termed "unfortunate."

That doesn't play well with police critics. Chimurenga Waller, president of 
the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement called the incident an 
outrage. "Our whole community was attacked when they attacked that house," 
he said.

Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy, a Washington, D.C., 
group fighting for saner drug laws, said this attack is neither surprising 
nor is it uncommon. Police departments target poorer minority communities 
and use stronger tactics because it's relatively easy and consequence free, 
Zeese said. "It's less risky to go out to the poor communities, they don't 
have as much money for lawyers."

National statistics prove that in the war on drugs the black community is 
the top law enforcement battleground. According to research done by Human 
Rights Watch in 1996, blacks make up about 62 percent of prisoners 
incarcerated on drug charges, compared with 36 percent who are white. Black 
men are admitted to state prison on drug charges at a rate about 13 times 
that of white men, the study said. On average, 482 of every 100,000 black 
men sentenced to prison are sent there on drug charges, compared with just 
36 of every 100,000 white men.

Even if they can get a lawyer, Zeese said, prosecutors and judges harbor 
racist attitudes -- just like cops. Because more minorities are targeted 
than whites, more of them are arrested. This makes for a system that is 
harsher for minorities because the law enforcement players at every stage 
think black or brown skin is synonymous with criminal behavior.

The U.S. Department of Justice found that of the drug offenders appearing 
in state court 37 percent are white and 61 percent are black. The 
percentage of whites given probation or non-incarceration is 32 percent 
compared with 25 percent of blacks. The percentage of black drug felons 
sentenced to state prison is 43 percent compared with just 27 percent of 
whites.

This injustice caused by faulty perceptions is not likely to change under 
the Bush administration. President Bush's proposed drug czar, John Waters, 
was quoted in the Weekly Standard saying, "What really drives the battle 
against law enforcement and punishment however, is not a commitment to 
treatment, but the widely held view that 1. We are imprisoning too many 
people for merely possessing illegal drugs, 2. Drug and other criminal 
sentences are too long and harsh and 3. The criminal justice system is 
unjustly punishing young black men. These are the great urban myths of our 
time."

Waters has access to plenty of data that would show that the real urban 
myth of our time is that the war on drugs is effective and equitable. He 
just doesn't want to accept that reality.

The reality is that whites use drugs at a higher per capita rate than 
blacks, said Zeese, and they tend to buy from other whites. College kids 
sell and use marijuana in their dorm rooms and wealthy whites sell and use 
marijuana in their homes or at their place of business.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the chances 
of a white person ever trying an illicit drug is 42 percent compared with 
37.7 percent of blacks. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control 
conclude that the number of white high school students currently using 
cocaine in the U.S. is 4.1 percent compared to 1.1 percent of black high 
school students.

That last statistic is worth repeating: White high school kids are almost 
four times more likely to use cocaine than black youths.

Waller wants to create an outcry about police tactics in St. Petersburg. He 
wants an apology from the city of St. Petersburg and a commitment to deal 
with the problem. "I think it (the apology) would send a signal that the 
city of St. Petersburg is interested in economic development and not in 
criminalizing a community and carrying out military activities in a 
community that has been traditionally oppressed, not just in St. Petersburg 
but in this country."

By remaining silent, Waller said, the message is that the answer to 
oppression is a full-scale raid by a SWAT team on an alleged search for 
marijuana. "And then the police just say, "Oops we made a mistake, we can't 
arrest anybody because we burned up the evidence.'"
There are a lot of theories about why so many more blacks are arrested on 
drug charges than whites, but one that few dispute is that it's because the 
police can use heavy-handed tactics in poorer black communities that they 
wouldn't dream of using in more affluent white communities. The result is 
that prisons fill with low-level drug dealers and users, while the flow of 
drugs into the minority community continues virtually unchecked.

The St. Petersburg police claim they employ the same tactics in the black 
community that they do in the white community. Since many of their tactics 
are not available for public scrutiny, it's hard to say whether that's 
true. But it's difficult to imagine a SWAT team showing up in Coffeepot 
Bayou looking for relatively small amounts of marijuana -- as the police 
did on 19th Street South.

The investigation that led to the search warrant at 1341 19th St. was 
typical of the way drug investigations are handled in most minority 
communities, said Zeese. Poor minorities tend to take more risks, selling 
drugs on the streets and in other open areas. Because they're visible, they 
get arrested more often and are persuaded to turn informant. Who do they 
inform on. Typically the only people they know, said Zeese, other blacks. 
This is one reason why it's easier to arrest people -- even ones who aren't 
selling drugs openly -- in minority communities. It's much harder to get 
into that college dorm room or into that Bayshore Boulevard mansion.

According to police reports, a confidential informant purchased $40 worth 
of marijuana from Craig Johnson, a resident at the house on 19th Street, on 
three separate occasions. The identity of the informant is, of course, 
under wraps but he or she reported seeing "several cigar boxes" and a paper 
bag containing weed. Marijuana is illegal in any amount but this was hardly 
the mother lode. The police used these buys to obtain a search warrant of 
Johnson's house. The informant did not indicate that there were any weapons 
visible or that there were any hostages tied up in the living room, but the 
search was considered "high risk." For police, high risk is supposed to 
mean dangerous, but it often means black. Ultimately what it meant was that 
a tactical team of 10 officers would be deployed to execute the search. 
They arrived armed with bulletproof shields and flash-bang devices the 
manufacturer claims are " designed to be deployed by tactical teams during 
high-risk warrants, hostage rescues and barricaded-subject situations."

After the spark given off by the flash-bang turned into an inferno, two men 
fleeing the house were stopped by the police. The interviews were also 
typical of the kinds of liberties cops can take with minority suspects. 
Police asked the dreadlocked men irrelevant questions like, "Are you a 
Rastafarian." Rastafarians are a religious group out of Jamaica that claim 
late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie as a spiritual leader and are 
generally stereotyped as marijuana users. Asking a suspected marijuana user 
if they're Rastafarian is like asking a suspected drunken driver if they're 
Irish -- it plays to a negative stereotype and doesn't prove anything one 
way or the other.

Even if the two had smoked marijuana, and one man admitted that he had 
before coming to the house that evening, it doesn't mean that he was 
selling it or that he would possess quantities it would take an army to 
confiscate.

More than $300 in cash was taken from another man as evidence, even though 
he was never arrested for anything.

It's possible that the police did have a valid reason for using a 10-man 
team and a distraction device meant for crisis situations to subdue two men 
suspected of selling $40 bags of weed. We'd all like to hear it. Probably 
nobody more than Craig Johnson and the group called Lion Face who lost 
their investment of reportedly more than $100,000 in recording equipment 
and master recordings of more than 300 songs, intellectual property that's 
irreplaceable and could have been worth millions.

Police spokesman Rick Stelgis said he is unable to comment on matters of 
police tactics. He did however comment on the fire. "It's very unfortunate 
that this occurred," he said. "But I don't think we should lose sight of 
the fact that the officers were there in a legitimate capacity."

Members of the group have retained an attorney, Waller said, and are 
refusing interviews while the incident is still under investigation. Waller 
is not a spokesman for the group. However, he has spoken with them and said 
that members of the group are fearful of the police. They fear that the 
police will want to file charges that are just as heavy-handed as their 
tactics.

"I think they fear that the police and the city of St. Petersburg want out 
of this situation. This was a terrible situation that the police created 
and they want out of that. And there are a number of ways that the police 
may feel that the way out is," said Waller.

One way is through intimidation. Waller claimed that a resident of the 
house is being followed by police. "I don't understand the reason for that, 
if you burned up his house, why are you following him."
Stelgis contended that while investigation of the incident is still 
ongoing, there's no intimidation going on.

Waller is not asserting that the rap group was made up of choirboys. 
They're a group of young men with some interesting motivations for making 
music. "There was a young man named Marcus Toots. He was killed four or 
five years ago and he was a very good friend of Craig Johnson. That was the 
turning point for them," says Waller.

The group was involved in "some things" that weren't correct, Waller said, 
and with the death of their friend they decided to turn their lives around 
and do music. They pooled their money and saved for years to accomplish 
their goal.

"I think that that should be rewarded but apparently the city of St. 
Petersburg doesn't feel that way," said Waller.

According to the police department, both the owner of the residence and the 
renters have filed claims seeking reparations. As for an apology from the 
city or the police department, Stelgis said it's just too early to 
speculate on whether that will happen. The police department is being 
cautious in its statements probably due to pending legal issues, but the 
department's silence on its tactics in black neighborhoods is upsetting 
some members of the community. Following the incident about 60 people from 
various neighborhood groups protested outside the police department. A 
similar demonstration was held at the burned-out house.

By demonstrating, Waller said, protestors are trying to show the community 
that what happened was wrong and encourage citizens to speak out against 
heavy-handed police tactics. "If you want to serve a warrant and search the 
property you knock on the door and say, "I want to search the house.' 
That's what they do in the white community," he said. Waller and others in 
the community would like to see the police department lose what critics 
feel is a look-down-the-nose attitude toward blacks. According to Randall 
Marshall, state legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in 
Miami, it's this superiority bias that causes most problems in the first 
place. "What people are offended by are the disrespectful attitudes that 
officers can bring into a minority community." It's been nearly five years 
since riots were sparked by the police slaying of TyRon Lewis. Riots don't 
occur because of a single police action. Rather, the police action is a 
spark that ignites to a long fuse. The fuse is made up of a string of 
incidents: the traffic stop that turns into harassment, the questioning of 
a black man's right to drive a nice car, the fear and resentment of hostile 
police presence and leadership that refuses to address the minority 
community's concerns.

For that reason, someone has to be accountable for the charred remains of 
Craig Johnson's home and dreams on 19th Street. People are waiting for the 
city to step up to the plate. The incident occurred in the city's District 
6, but the area's council member Earnest Williams hasn't made a public 
statement about a situation that many find appalling and frightening. 
Williams is concerned about the incident, he said, but he's waiting for the 
investigation to be complete before he makes any comment.

"I'm concerned about whether the (distraction) device should be used any 
further," he said.

Williams claims he hasn't gotten a single call from the community about the 
fire, not even from Waller. "But I'm sure there are people out there who 
are concerned just like I'm concerned." At a recent City Council meeting 
community members who spoke up on the issue were met with an attitude 
varying from indifference to boredom. Some were upset that Williams left 
the meeting before his constituents even got up to speak. He had returned 
from vacation at 3 a.m. and was at the meeting until 10 p.m., he said. He 
left because he was ill.

Williams said he does not agree that the police unfairly target those in 
his district. In fact, he believes that what's needed is more enforcement. 
He thinks that more community members should report drug activity in their 
neighborhoods, more drug marches should be done, and more drug prevention 
programs should be targeted at the city's youth.

When it comes to drug sales and use, Williams said that money isn't an 
issue. "What do economics have to do with drugs." he asks. "For some, they 
make it an economic issue."

People have a choice to get an education and avoid the pitfalls of the drug 
trade, he said.

Waller doesn't believe it's that simple and would like to see departing 
Police Chief Goliath Davis replaced with someone who can take a more 
community-sensitive approach to enforcing drug laws.

"The people are being terrorized and this can't go on," Waller said.

The Uhuru group intends to hold a public meeting to discuss the way that 
the new police chief will be chosen and to consider how the community can 
influence the process. They feel it's important that the new chief see the 
importance of economic development in high-crime areas. The activists 
contend that crime flourishes in poverty and the solution to poverty is not 
to build more jails so that police can arrest more poor people.

The new chief should also continue to enforce Davis' edict that officers 
treat everyone in every community with respect. Davis' attitude has gone a 
long way to improve tension between the black community and the police, 
said department spokesman Stelgis, and few in the community would dispute 
that. Most would like to see that progress continue.

"Davis went a long way into cutting off some of the kinds of activities 
that he's now saying is OK," Waller said, referring to statements Davis 
made to the press supporting the police in the house torching. "I think 
he's in a difficult position because the police have done something wrong 
and he is the police." 
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager