The cops and the district attorneys want people to see what we are going through — the conditions of our arrests, our experiences in jail, and our legal battle — and to think that this is what you risk when you stand up against them. – Lillian House, Aurora Activist and Defendant
by Alan Macleod
Part 3 - A vindictive police response
To this day, Aurora Police classify McClain as a “suspect” in a case, meaning that his family cannot seek compensation, even for funeral costs. At the height of the Movement for Black Lives last summer, activists organized a mass protest for McClain, including a somber violin vigil in the city’s Center Park. Musicians (including children) from all over the city and further afield congregated to mourn the death of one of their own. The event was broken up by masked, black-clad police in full riot gear, wielding batons and pepper spray.
“We challenged their impunity, we challenged their ability to kill without consequence, and the protests we led brought thousands of community members together in a city that had never witnessed a mass protest movement before” House said.
For young Black men like McClain, police violence is a gruesome fact of life. Around one in every thousand Black men and boys can be expected to die at the hands of law enforcement. According to the Mapping Police Violence project, cops killed 1,127 civilians in 2020. Indeed, there were only 18 days last year when cops did not use lethal force.
The Aurora Police Force has developed a reputation for being particularly ruthless. Since 2013, it has been responsible for killing 20 people. Nearly half of those have been Black, despite African-Americans constituting just 16.5% of the city’s population.
Last month, one police officer was fired for “excessive use of force” after he punched then tased a man for 27 seconds in a supermarket over a minor incident. The same week, three Aurora officers lost their appeal against their sacking after photos emerged of them mocking the killing of McClain near a memorial set up in his memory. A fourth resigned over the incident. Erica Marrero, Kyle Dittrich, and Jaron Jones were on duty at a memorial for McClain when they decided to pose for photos, placing each other in mock choke holds like the one used on McClain. They sent the pictures to Rosenblatt (an officer involved in McClain’s killing) and others in the department for their own amusement. Rosenblatt responded with laughter.
For eight months, police authorities knew of the incident, but took no action. Only after the pictures were leaked did it become a scandal. House calls laughing about killing a man right outside the house he lived in “disgusting and outrageous.”
Comments
Post a Comment