Stop Killing Black People

"If that were happening to your community and it was your kids being depressingly killed every year by police that don't look like them or even live in their neighborhoods, would you be sitting silently on your hands about that injustice?"  
TransGriot, August 14, 2014
We have had in the last week three Black men killed by police officers in Baton Rouge, LA (Alton Sterling), a St Paul, MN suburb (Philando Castile) and in my hometown Saturday (Alva Braziel) mere hours after a Black Lives Matter rally that sought to bring down tensions between HPD and our citizens.

It's not like Death by Cop isn't a new problem for our community or the community's internal response to it.  One of the things I was told in 1978 after I'd passed my written test for my drivers permit by my parents was "Congratulations!  Now this is what you don't do in a traffic stop."

And two years later I violated one of those rules in a Highland Park, TX traffic stop because I was pissed off about being jacked with by the Highland Park PD for the crime of looking at Christmas lights while Black with my cousins.

Three years later I was dealing with the same crap again outside a then popular SW Houston nightclub called the Tyler Rose because my then homeboy's tail light on his car picked that moment to go out with two white male HPD cops in the mood to mess with some Black people.on our bumper at the Fondren and West Bellfort traffic light.

And once again I got snarky when I and my friends got asked why we all had South Park addresses on our drivers licenses when he and his partner saw us pulling out of the Tyler Rose parking lot.

My response to the question?  "Since when did it become a crime for people who live in South Park to be in Southwest Houston?"

I was fortunate that neither episode resulted in me or my friends dying because of my big injustice hating mouth, but that was the 80's.   Now it seems as though in the 2K16 white cops have a problem with Black people be they male or female no matter their age.   They are 'in fear of their life' so much when they encounter us they are straight up killing us and to our disgust not getting punished for it.

Black women not only have to be concerned during their interactions with police about getting shot to death or brutalized, they also have to be worried about being sexually assaulted or violently body cavity searched.

That crap needs to stop.  Today.

We are tired of having our humanity dismissed, ignored and being killed for BS reasons by police officers that are supposed to protect and serve our communities, and not getting punished for it. That's a major reason why you're seeing peaceful (for now) protests all across the country.

But if things don 't change for the better soon in terms of the longtime historically negative relationship between Black people and white police officers, then all bets may be off about those protests staying that way.

Race Wasn't Involved In NYPD Garner Killing? Yeah, Right

As my brother Dr. Kortney Ziegler pointed out, in a life imitates art moment, 43 year old Eric Garner's cause of death last Friday, like Radio Raheem in the Spike Lee movie Do The Right Thing, was death by po-po.

Spike Lee thought so as well.   He recently mixed the video of Garner's fatal encounter with the NYPD with the Radio Raheem fictional one from the film.

The father of six was killed by an illegal choke hold after being agitated about being harassed by NYPD police.

Eric Garner's funeral was yesterday, but the firestorm surrounding this latest episode of NYPD behaving badly when it comes to non-white denizens of New York  is just getting cranked up.  

You add to it the ridiculous statement by NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton. who is in his second stint of leading NYPD (1994-1996 was the previous one), that "race didn't have anything to do with the tragic death of Garner."

Seriously?  You may wish to rethink that based on the racist online comments of NYPD officers let loose in the wake of last Friday's murder by po-po of Garner and the negative spotlight once more being shined on the New York Police Department.

When now thirteen people of color have been killed in various ways over the years by NYPD officers, other non-white New Yorkers complain of harassment and less than respectful treatment, and the reaction you have to it is deny you have a race problem, not good.

It damned sure was about race.  It's about the vanillascented privileged mentality that too many white police officers have when they come into our neighborhoods from their gated suburbs and treat us as less than human.  

If you're a bigot with a badge and gun, that is destined to cause a problem sooner or later.       

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the comment of Eric Garner 'bringing it  it upon himself'   In what FOX Noise addled conservaworld did you come up with that specious crap? 

How does breaking up a fight justify death by po-po?

All y'all had to do was let Garner off with a warning and let him go on his merry way. home   But y'all couldn't resist the temptation to go into Officer Oppressor mode, and one of you went too far with the fatal choke hold which BTW, is illegal under NYPD policy..

Meanwhile we people of color keep finding ourselves in the situation of having to bury our loved ones after negative and deadly interactions with predominately white cops fir trivial crap..   

And we're sick and tired of it.

Chief Lanier, Looks Like You DO Have An MPD Transphobia Problem

While I was in DC for the LGBT Media Journalists Convening last week,  I was having such a good time with the ladies of Casa Ruby Friday night I almost blew off the reception and stayed for the group meeting they were having there.  

Had I done so, I would have had a ringside seat for the latest incident of transphobia breaking out in the Washington Metropolitan Police Department

Seems like one of those officers racistly thought that Casa Ruby shouldn't have a blue BMW Z3 to take their clients home in, much less that vehicle was too good for transpeople in a service organization to be in.

For those of you not inside the Beltway, last Friday night after I got dropped off near the Capital Hilton by her executive assistant Caprice Williams, around 10 PM EST she was driving Ruby Corado and some of the attendees of their group meeting home that night.   They were followed for ten blocks after leaving Casa Ruby's Georgia Avenue location  by an MPD unit and pulled over by the Washington po-po's. ostensibly because the vehicle was overcrowded.  

The traffic stop quickly devolved into an ugly incident in which Williams was yanked from the car, the other traumatized passengers were ordered out of the car and made to stand outside in below freezing temperatures, transphobic and homophobic slurs were uttered by the gaggle of officers gathered there, and Williams was arrested and taken to jail and held there until 4:30 AM 

The incident comes on the heels of a recently released 41 page report in which an independent task force created by the Anti-Defamation League of Washington found shortcomings in the way that Metro PD interacts with the DC transgender community. 

It also fits into a pattern of previous incidents involving transpeople of color and MPD on and off duty officers.

From Chloe Moore to Patti Shaw to the carload of transwomen fired upon by drunken off duty MPD officer Kenneth Furr, trans women, and especially transwomen of color in the District find themselves not feeling protected and served by the police officers in the city they live in.

In fact, the incident Shaw endured made it into the Amnesty International 'Stonewalled' report that details abuses of TBLG people aimed at them by the police. 

It also led Shaw in July 2012 to file a lawsuit against MPD and the US Marshal's Service. 


According to the Hate Crimes Assessment Report, it stated there is a belief in the Washington DC LGBT community that “homophobia and transphobia are widespread within MPD, with several describing it as rampant.”   That community mistrust was also reflected in MPD oversight hearings testimony  on February 27, 2013.

Interviews with members of the DC community for the Hate Crimes Assessment Report revealed that the hostility toward transgender people, especially transgender women of color, is common among many MPD officers.

“Virtually every transgender person who spoke to us at the four community meetings reported that they had been harassed or mistreated because of their gender identity or expression, ranging from acts of ignorance and insensitivity to outright hostility and overt expressions of bigotry and harassment,” the HCA report says.

And you'd be hard pressed to believe with all the transphobic incidents currently plaguing MPD that I've talked about on this blog since 2010, that once upon a time, Officer Bonnie N.Davenport was the MPD's first trans cop in 1979.

I repeat what I said in the post discussing the Kenneth Furr incident in August 2011. 

Something transphobic has been brewing in the MPD police culture for some time and Chief Cathy Lanier needs to get to the bottom of it. 

If she can't or she's getting resistance, then maybe the Department of Justice needs to get busy taking a look at what's going on in MPD and start cleaning out the transphobic rotten apples.

Transphobia is bad enough in the general population.   It's even worse and can have potentially fatal consequences when it's hiding behind a badge.


So yes Chief Lanier, you not only have a transphobia problem in MPD, it's past time to acknowledge you do and root it out.  I think the best way to start besides admitting you have a problem is to actually have some trans police officers on the MPD force again for the first time since Bonnie Davenport retired in 1991. 

Naw Don Lemon, I'd Rather Not Be Harassed By The Po-Po's Period

Don Lemon must either love getting called out by Black Twitter for the problematic crap he says, is  angling for a contract on Fox Noise when his current CNN one is up, or is spending too much time after work hanging around with SE Cupp and Erin Burnett.  

In his TJMS radio commentary about today's New York City mayoral election that was also posted on Blackamericaweb.com he parted his lips to say that the choice facing New York City voters concerning the hated stop-and-frisk policy is would you rather be politically correct or safe and alive?

Naw Don, the answer to that question is I'd rather not be harassed by the po-po's period. 

Lemon asserted in his TJMS commentary that there are many among the minority community who believe “in theory” that “we’d rather be inconvenienced by being stopped by police than shot by gun-wielding criminals on the street.” However, Lemon said, it’s become too easy for police to become “so drunk with power that they abuse it.”

If NYPD was searching white people in their neighborhoods the same way they do non-white people, that's the only way I and other African-Americans wouldn't have a problem with Stop and Frisk.   But we know what the reality is.  These stop and frisk searches you're so gung ho about aren't happening in New York's predominately white neighborhoods. . 

But you had a different reaction to stop and frisk in 2001 when it happened to you. You also admitted in the TJMS commentary the other downside to the policy in terms of the all too tempting ability of police officers to abuse it.       

It's obvious to every African-American in New York City and this country except you that stop-and-frisk needs to die.  It was obvious to Federal District Judge Shira Scheindlin who declared it unconstitutional. 

Don, it's not being 'politically correct' to be upset at being unconstitutionally harassed by the police in your own neighborhoods because of a policing strategy that does nothing to lower the city's crime rate, but everything to raise your level of animus and hatred toward the police.   

Trans Woman Accuses El Monte, CA Police Officer Of Sexual Assault

One of the depressingly consistent stories I've chronicled since I started this blog in 2006 is the long and sometimes ugly history of police misconduct aimed at transwomen that is sadly widespread across the nation in red and blue states. 

The root cause of the May 1959 Cooper's Donuts Riots in Los Angeles, the August 1966 Compton's Cafeteria one in San Francisco and the June 1969 Stonewall Riots is trans and gender variant people getting fed up with police harassment of them.

We have had far too many cases of trans women disrespected in their own homes, having their human rights violated, messed with in jails by guards and prisoners alike, physically and sexually assaulted , subjected to stop and frisk tactics and even shot at by a drunk off duty cop pissed off because a trans woman rejected his disrespectful sexual advances.   And in far too many of those cases the police disrespect of trans women and disregard for their human rights has been aimed at Black and Latina transwomen. 

Now comes word from the Left Coast concerning a transwoman who filed a federal lawsuit on October 18 under a pseudonym that seeks unspecified monetary damages and names as defendants the city of El Monte, CA and an unnamed police officer she alleges sexually assaulted her.

According the the complaint, plaintiff  'Jane Roe' alleges that in the early morning hours on October 23, 2012.she was crossing Garvey Avenue at Central Avenue (map) on the way to a friend's house between 4 AM and 6 AM PDT when a uniformed El Monte police officer pulled up in a marked patrol car and demanded to know what she was doing, according to the civil complaint. 

The officer ordered her to lean into the driver's side window of the patrol car and "Because she feared for her safety if she refused, (she) leaned forward and (the officer) groped her breasts," the complaint says. "He then asked (her) if she was 'a nasty she-male.' (She) responded that she was transsexual."

The officer then allegedly ordered Roe to walk into an alley behind businesses in the southeastern corner of the intersection, and into a secluded parking lot behind 10052 Garvey Avenue in which upon arrival he ordered her to perform oral sex on him, the complaint says.

After several minutes, the officer raped her on the trunk of his patrol car while calling her demeaning names.

The officer then allegedly threw his used condom on the ground and told the trans woman to leave. After a few moments, she returned to retrieve the condom for use as evidence, according to the complaint.

That condom she retrieved was turned over to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department as evidence.  The officer was placed on leave as the El Monte Police Department launched an internal affairs investigation and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's launched a criminal investigation into the matter.

Jane Roe's federal lawsuit is a reminder of how many times the police officers who are sworn to protect and serve us have forgotten or ignored the fact that we transpeople are part of the community and we have human rights that you violate at your peril.

NYPD Stop And Frisk Policy Ruled Unconstitutional By Federal Judge

US District Court Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled yesterday in Floyd v. City of New York that NYPD’s controversial stop and frisk tactics were an unconstitutional violation of the rights of people of color in New York City.  

Judge Scheindlin went on to find that top New York police officials have ignored the practice and treated racial profiling as “a myth created by the media,” ordered the NYPD discontinue it, and called for a federal monitor to supervise related reforms.

Duh!  We could have told you without a law degree that Stop and Frisk was unconstitutional.   Trans and gender variant New Yorkers can tell you along with other non-white New Yorkers racial profiling is most definitely isn't a myth especially since it happens to them far too often. 

85 percent of those stopped and frisked are Black or Latino. Among all people stopped and frisked, only 1 out of 10 of the stops results in an arrest or summons.

While Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly predictably hated on the ruling, New York's non-white population, the TBLG community (that is disproportionately targeted by and resent the tactics) and human rights advocacy groups hailed it.

Judge Scheindlin's (appointed by President Clinton in 1994) ruling in the Floyd case comes on the heels of the New York City Council passing and Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoing the Community Safety Act, bills that would prohibit profiling based on race, sexual orientation, gender identity and other identities, and would have establish an Inspector General to oversee the NYPD’s practices.

As I've said more than a few times on this blog, Black trans community issues are also Black community issues and vice versa.  

The odious NYPD Stop And Frisk policy is one of those issues in which the interests of the Black community as a whole and Black and Latin@ trans people are symbiotically aligned in wanting a deleterious policy ended as quickly as possible because it also affects our trans sector of it.

Under Stop and Frisk, Latina and Black trans women were selected by NYPD for search under the  suspicion they were sex workers and harassed in many cases.  If officers found more than one condom during the search, they were arrested for solicitation.

The city of New York says it will appeal the ruling, but they would be wise to just cut their losses and come up with a common sense based policing strategy that doesn't involve jacking up and searching non-white New Yorkers just to make white New Yorkers feel safe.

Jury Selection Starts In Kenneth Furr Trial

I been keeping up with the ongoing case involving former Washington Metro PD officer Kenneth Furr.

You'll recall TransGriot readers that back in August 2011 an off-duty and inebriated Furr got pissed because a trans woman ignored his disrespectful proposition to her at a NW Washington CVS store.

He chased them down, jumped on the hood of their vehicle and used his service revolver to fire shots at them.  Furr was iindicted on March 7 for that incident which left two trans women and their male companion with thankfully non-life threatening injuries.

Furr's trial started on Monday.   He plead not guilty and jury selection is happening now.  Will keep you posted on what happens in it and if the transwomen and the male friend involved get justice.  

NY Trans Community Speaking Out Against Stop And Frisk

The NAACP is planning a silent march tomorrow against the odious racial profiling  stop and frisk policy that the New York po-po's are using in a way to disproportionate manner against now white people in the Big Apple.

87% of the people being stopped and frisked are non-white, with a large chunk of those non whites being  stopped and frisked are you guessed it, non-white trans people.

Check out Agnes Chung's report about transpeople in the Jackson Heights area calling out the NYPD stop and frisk policy and how it is deleteriously affecting them.

There was also a meeting at the historic Stonewall Inn involving Rev Al Sharpton and Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP.discussing this issue as well that reported in the Village Voice.