Community Activist Calls New Orleans Police Beating "Typical Behavior"

When New Orleans resident Robert Davis returned to the city last week to check on some homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina, the devastation inflicted by the storm to his family’s property was not the only shock awaiting him. Davis, a 64-year-old retired school teacher, would become the victim of a brutal beating by New Orleans police officers that was videotaped and broadcast both across the US and worldwide.

Last Saturday evening at about 8 p.m. Davis, who is black, was walking on Bourbon Street in the New Orleans French Quarter. He approached an officer on horseback to inquire about the city’s curfew. “I’m talking in a nice, cordial way to a black officer on a horse,” David told the press on Tuesday. He said another officer on foot then “interfered and I said he shouldn’t.”

As he crossed the street, Davis said, “All of a sudden, the white officer hit me in the eye and dazed me and threw me up against the wall.” A cop yelled, “I’m going to kick your ass,” Davis recounted. He was then hit and pummeled to the ground, face down, suffering fractures to his cheek and eye socket. Two white officers were involved in the beating.

A crew from Associated Press Television News (APTN) was on the scene, taping the confrontation. A third cop shouted out to the APTN crew, “I’ve been here for six [expletive] weeks trying to keep [expletive] alive ... Go home!” This officer is accused of then grabbing and shoving APTN producer Rich Matthews.

Two volunteer relief workers from Florida witnessed the assault on Davis and approached and told a cop that they wanted to give a statement about what they saw. One of the volunteers, Calvin Briles, said a man in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vest grabbed him, threw him against a car and told him, “It’s none of your business.” The two were then handcuffed and held facedown on the pavement until they were released.

The cops involved in beating Robert Davis claimed he had been drinking. Davis, who maintains he hasn’t had a drink in 25 years, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday morning to charges of public intoxication and resisting arrest. He was released on bond and a January 18 trial date has been set.

The three police officers were suspended without pay. They have pleaded not guilty to battery charges and will stand trial at the beginning of January. The US Justice Department opened an investigation into the beating on Monday.

Had the assault on Robert Davis and the news producer not been captured on videotape, the incident would have received little if any coverage in the mass media. Without this visual record, the vicious beating would have taken its place alongside similar instances of police brutality that are all-too-common, occurring on virtually a daily basis—whether in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston or another US city.

But the videotaped police beating, and subsequent interviews with its battered victim, put a face on one of the most barbaric aspects of contemporary life in America—the pervasiveness of police brutality and intimidation meted out against the working class, young people and the most oppressed sections of society.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/nola-o13.shtml