Jack & Jill Politics

Ramarley Graham 19, was shot dead in the bathroom of his home in the Bronx on Thursday afternoon, the victim of a home invasion. The invaders were a group of NYPD officers who chased the unarmed Ramarley into his apartment building. At the time he was shot Ramarley was trying desperately to flush a small bag of marijuana down the toilet. Police claim they suspected him of possessing a gun (when haven’t we heard that excuse?) but there was no gun anywhere around the victim or any weapon that could be considered dangerous – just a small amount of marijuana in the toilet……….. Lest you think I exaggerated or left something out below is the account of the events leading up to the shooting as reported in the New York Daily News:

Moments before the shooting, officers from the NYPD’s Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit — who were conducting a drug operation at a bodega on Whiteplains Road and E. 228th St. — spotted Graham adjusting his waistband and thought he had a gun, a police source said. The cops began to follow Graham and two others when they walked out of the store and into a building on E. 229th St., Kelly said. As Graham crossed the street to enter the building, the cops reported over the radio that they saw “the butt of a gun” on the teen, Kelly said. Cops approached Graham a short time later when he exited the building, Kelly said. “Police — stop! Don’t move!” one officer shouted at Graham, but the teen continued to walk hastily into his apartment building, according to Kelly.

The door locked behind Graham and four officers, including their sergeant, tried to break it down, Kelly said. Two of the officers went to the rear of the building, where the first-floor tenant let them inside. Those two officers returned to the front to let the others inside, before they went to Graham’s second-floor apartment, Kelly said. The officers knocked at the door, but there was no answer, Kelly said.“They kicked the door in,” Kelly said, and two of the officers burst into the apartment. As they went down the hallway, Graham emerged and ran toward the officers before turning into the bathroom, where he was shot.

Graham’s 58-year-old grandmother was close behind him when the officer shot him with his Sig Sauer .9-mm, Kelly said. The victim’s 6-year-old brother was also in the apartment, but he did not witness the shooting. “They chased him into the house,” said the teen’s mother, Constance Malcolm, 39, soon after the shooting. “Nobody deserves to be shot in their own home.”

Although police initially reported that there was a struggle before the shooting, statements made by the second officer and the victim’s grandmother indicated there was no contact between Graham and the officer who shot him, Kelly said. “He had some weed on him,” said a family friend. “It wasn’t a big deal. They shot him inside the house. … He didn’t have a gun.”

Now let’s break down what happened. The cops are engaged in an activity that’s become a regular practice in low-income neighborhoods – a practice referred to by police officers as ‘fishing’ – that’s when police stake out a known storefront where small amounts of marijuana are sold. Instead of busting the sellers or closing down the shop, the police wait to arrest people once they’ve left the shop who they now have reason to suspect may have marijuana on their person. According to the police account the only evidence to support the theory Ramarley had a gun was an officer observation that he adjusted the waistband on his pants as he exited the store. Given the circumstances the most reasonable explanation of Ramarley’s action was that he had placed the bag of marijuana in his waistband, not a gun. But, here’s the rub, under New York law it’s not illegal to be on the street with less than an ounce of marijuana on your person as long as it is not in public view. In order to go after him they would have to convince themselves he was committing some other unlawful act – like, um let’s see…..gun possession.

Up until a few months ago, NYPD officers engaged in ‘fishing’ expeditions would routinely stop the person on the street and during the course of a ‘stop-and-frisk’ would either remove the marijuana from the persons trousers or pockets or induce the person to reveal it – then they would be arrested and charged with violating NYS Code Sec. 221.10 – having marijuana in ‘public view’.

In 2007 I co-authored a report on racial bias in NYPD marijuana law enforcement and its impact on poor Black and Latino youth. In the report we discussed ‘fishing’ as a common practice described to us by officers, defense counsel and arrestees. We asserted that NYPD officers routinely manufactured these arrests to keep their statistics up and to earn more overtime pay. For years, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and other officials denied the practice existed, much less contributed to the high numbers of arrests. Then last September, in response to mounting public criticism, Kelly issued a directive to his officers containing the following admonition regarding marijuana possession arrests:

“A crime will not be charged to an individual who is requested or compelled to engage in the behavior that results in the public display of marihuana.” The act of displaying it, the order continues, must be “actively undertaken of the subject’s own volition.”

After the directive marijuana arrests declined dramatically, but not enough to offset the increase during the previous eight months that resulted in NYPD officers making more than 50,000 marijuana possession arrests, mostly of young Black men like Lamarley Graham. This practice has been going on in poor neighborhoods in New York City since 1997, the number of arrests during this period is approaching 500,000 with more than 85% of the arrestees being young Black or Latino men.

I spent a good part of my early life in Ramarley Graham’s neighborhood, my grandmother owned a home on 222nd Street and I attended grade school at P.S. 21 on the corner of 225th Street & White Plains Road. I know the area very well, it is a mostly working class community, many folks from the Caribbean living in two or three family houses. I feel confident that Ramarley was not unfamiliar with NYPD marijuana law enforcement practices. We know from the police account what was going on in their minds when they saw Ramarley and his comrades. What do you think was going on in his?

Ramarley had a split second to decide as the police approached him whether he was going to stop and take a pat down that could lead to arrest for marijuana possession (he probably didn’t know about the September directive) or take a chance he could run and make it home to safety. So he ran and he did make it inside his home with a locked door between him and the police – normally a safe outcome. But that’s where he miscalculated – the rules of engagement for our domestic ‘war on drugs’, whether in Bloomberg’s New York City or Obama’s America allow the police to break into the homes of people they suspect of selling or possessing drugs. Unfortunately, the encounters often end in death, sometimes of the officers but more often of the suspects.

No matter how you look at it, it’s a total waste. There’s no way you can justify anyone dying over a bag of weed.

When will we DEMAND AN END TO THIS MADNESS???

HOW MANY MORE BLACK YOUTH HAVE TO BE SACRIFICED IN SERVICE OF THE ILLUSION THE DRUG WAR PROTECTS KIDS FROM DRUGS?

QUERY: What’s more harmful – young people smoking marijuana or catching a record or a bullet for smoking it?

Please sign our Petition asking President Obama to initiate a national conversation about alternatives to the drug war.