Why White Cops Kill Black Cops: Debate over Edwards’ Dead Body

A team of New York police were lurking through East Harlem and saw a young Black man with a gun running down 125th Street. They shot him dead. However this killing has been hard to cover up or justify because the dead man was Omar J. Edwards, a fellow New York cop assigned to patrol the housing projects. [Sequence of events]

This is hardly the first killing of Black police by their white colleagues. And it is certainly not the first time New York cops have simply executed a Black man on the streets on suspicion of being “an armed criminal.”

Immediately a debate broke out about why that happens. The official story is that the police need more “confrontation training” — apparently to explain that when NYPD shoot down a Black man they should first make sure their target isn’t a cop. And this explanation and proposed solution was (uh….) unsatisfying to anyone with a brain and a heart – and to many Black cops. Then it became a debate within the New York political establishment.

Three days after the shooting, Harlem Congressman Charles B. Rangel was asked what President Obama should do on his brief visit to New York City that afternoon.

Rangel quipped “Make certain he doesn’t run around in East Harlem without identification.”

That made headlines on Sunday — the Daily News blared: “Even Bam May Not Be Safe, Sez Rangel.” The rightwing Post called it: “Rangel’s Sick Joke.”

Mayor Bloomberg, marching in a Salute to Israel parade, rejected Rangel’s remark, saying: “Sometimes things happen and they’re inexplicable. There’s no reason to suspect this had any racial overtones.”

The shooting of Black men (including Black cops) is “inexplicable.” They just “happen.” Sure.

Just take a moment and think about the cynicism, deceit, and raw appeal to white racism embedded in Bloomberg’s remarks. He is basically saying that the killing is understandable — and more, that it is not in the interests of his government to question the motives behind police killings. And one more Black body does not compell him to speak the truth.

Think about it: It was Rangel’s remark that stirred the most public controversy and criticism, NOT the racist street execution of a 25-year-old Black man.

And what does it mean when a Black congressman says Obama should be careful on the streets of Harlem?

It means the reality here is obvious and known to all: Cops think they have a license to kill in Harlem and other Black communities — and you may be President or a Black cop or an immigrant returning from work or a student leaving class, but on the streets of Harlem you are just a target.

http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/why-white-cops-kill-black-cops-debate-over-edwards-dead-body/#more-10404