San Francisco
Police brutality: ignored when it victimizes African community; exposed
when it touches white community
SAN FRANCISCO — The San
Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is currently under unusual public scrutiny
as a result of an incident of police brutality. On the night of
November 20, 2002, three young off-duty San Francisco police officers
led by Alex Fagan Jr. were returning from a night of drinking and celebrating
with their peers. They stopped at a local tavern and severely beat up
two citizens for no apparent reason.
The beating and the subsequent
cover-up at the highest levels of the SFPD resulted in a significant grand
jury indictment on February 28, 2003, against the police chief, three
deputy chiefs, three command officers and the three brutes who carried
out the attack.
Liberal District Attorney Terrance
Hallinan presented the case of the attack and cover-up to the grand jury
— made up of 19 citizens, half appointed and half pulled from the
voter registration rolls — and instructed them to do a thorough investigation.
The grand jury interviewed and investigated over 42 members of the SFPD
from the lowest patrol officer to the police chief himself.
Their presumably thorough investigation
resulted in the indictments on basically two counts. The three officers
who carried out the assault were charged with felony assault. The command
officers were charged with felony conspiracy to cover-up the incident
and the mishandling of the investigation of the incident. The cover-up
occurred because Alex Fagan Jr. is the son of the powerful Deputy Chief
Alex Fagan Sr. who also has a history of misconduct. Fagan Sr. was also
indicted.
SF police officers reprimanded
because victims were white
This appears to be a serious response to the brutal attack, but after
a long history of unfettered brutality by the SFPD, we have to ask
"Why, why now?" The two citizens who were attacked were
white. As did the German government dealing with Jewish citizens in the
second imperialist war (WW2), Officer Alex Fagan Jr. and his drunken buddies
"crossed the line" by attacking fellow whites.
Like many SFPD officers, Officer
Alex Fagan Jr. "cut his teeth," as a patrolman, by brutalizing
the African population of the Hunters Point/Bay View district. These attacks
on Africans are mandated by the counter-insurgent practice of police containment,
which is the nationwide public policy for black communities. Two incidents
shortly before the beating of the two whites clearly illustrate this policy:
On the night of January 20,
2002, approximately 20 San Francisco police officers attacked four young
Africans. It was the night of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and with
no school the following day, the youth were hangin' out in their Hunters
Point/Bay View neighborhood. As usual the police concocted a phony pretext
for their action but the real reason for the attack is stated clearly
in Point #8 of the Working Platform of the African People's Socialist
Party: " the police are an occupying army of the State."
As word spread of the police
attack, parents came out to support and defend their children. The police,
with guns drawn, threatened the parents with being shot if they made any
attempt to aid or assist their children.
The parents and other residents
were kept at a distance and forced to watch helplessly as their male children
were beaten and their female children were sexually assaulted by inappropriate
"frisking and searching." One resident made it clear that the
purpose of the incident was "a show of force" and intimidation.
As you can imagine, there was
no grand jury indictments and no criminal charges filed after these events
even though the families protested and filed complaints. It is now
15 months later, and the scandal over the beating of two white citizens
and the subsequent grand jury indictments have created enough democratic
space for the just demand of the African families to be recognized and
acted upon. Consequently, five of the officers involved in the attack
have now been criminally charged.
The second illustrative incident
of normal anti-African police behavior happened at Thurgood Marshall High
School. Thurgood Marshall, also located in Hunters Point/ Bay View, has
a predominantly African student body.
The school had a high academic
standard, which was mandated by the black community. On October 11, 2002
a fight occurred on campus. Sixty baton-wielding police responded and
created chaos and a police riot. Many students were hit by clubs. A police
officer threatened one student with his gun. The brave and always struggling
African youth confronted the police with their voices and their unity.
In this case, charges were brought against some of the students and one
teacher. Eventually the bogus charges were dropped, but no charge was
ever brought against the SFPD.
Attacks on the SF black
community have historically been a strategy of State oppression
For Burning Spear readers to more clearly understand the context of these
events, a little San Francisco history is necessary: In the late1940’s,
the SF Fillmore District was a thriving commercial and cultural hub of
the African community, similar to Tulsa, Oklahoma and Rosewood, Florida.
Approximately 20 years later,
at the height of the Black Power Movement and during the political reign
of the Black Panther Party, the Fillmore District was attacked by the
SF Redevelopment Agency and literally razed to the ground. For decades
the heart of the once thriving Fillmore District remained dozens of empty
weed-filled lots. Some of the African community was dispersed out of San
Francisco and some concentrated in the Hunters Point/Bay View neighborhood.
Hunters Point/Bay View has
little commercial activity beyond the usual liquor stores and chicken
houses. However, it does have sunny weather, easy access to downtown and
the recreational activities of the SF Bay.
Consequently the City of San
Francisco, led by the neo-colonialist Mayor Willie Brown, has a grand
plan to "redevelop" Hunters Point/Bay View. One of the white
police officers involved and charged with brutalizing the African youth
on Martin Luther King Day alluded to this plan when he said "As long
as you [African] people are here [in Hunters Point] we will act like this."
The SFPD has a long history
of violence against the Africans and the colonized communities of SF.
No attack on the black community has ever resulted in grand jury indictments.
Indicted commanders — Chief Earl Sanders, Deputy Chiefs Suhr, Alex
Fagan Sr. and Captain Corrales — have long histories of brutality
and misconduct. Most recently Deputy Chief Suhr has authorized illegal
spying on antiwar demonstrators. For their various misdeeds, these men
have all been promoted.
As The Burning Spear goes to
press, the dates of the court hearings for the three officers charged
with felony assault on the white citizens, and the five officers who assaulted
the African youth have not been made public. The indictments against the
top command officers for conspiracy have been dropped. While it is obvious
to everyone that a cover-up took place, the DA was unable to prove the
more technical charge of "conspiracy." A police cover-up
is a common occurrence, but since the charge of conspiracy does not revolve
around African militants or other radicals challenging the State, it requires
definite proof that the individual officers met and talked and planned
to conspire to protect some of their own. To any thinking person, it is
obvious this happened.
Consistent with the colonial
history of "the good old white boy" network at the SFPD, Alex
Fagan Sr. has been rewarded for his history of misdeeds, the most recent
being the cover-up of his son's crimes. Neo-colonial African Chief Sanders,
who has a long history of brutality against the residents of Hunters Point/Bay
View and is currently out on disability leave, has paid homage to white
power by promoting Alex Fagan Sr. to be the acting police chief.
The actions of the San Francisco
Police Department are consistent with the actions of police departments
throughout the U.S. when it comes to African people. The police are arms
of a colonial State. They function as the first line of defense of the
oppressive status quo. They are there to crush the revolutionary aspirations
of the people to be free and independent even when the people are not
conscious of their own interests in striving for freedom and independence.
It is the task of our Party
and of African militants in general to expose the real nature of our relationship
with the police and to organize to build the African People's Socialist
Party as the political army of the oppressed African masses.
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