The parents' belief is irrelevent. They did not see it. If the son was truly
suicidal, he may (another guess) have decided to force the police to end his
life. We will never know. Wild guesses serve no purpose other than to inflame
people's emotions.
> The officers did not ask the Seviers if anyone else was in the house. In
> fact, Gregg's sister was in an adjoining room when the shooting occured, and
> a bullet entered her room near where she was laying. After the shooting, they
> did not let the Seviers go to their dying son. They did not respect the
> spiritual and emotional needs of the family by allowing the family to call a
> preacher to say a prayer for their son's soul. They took custody of the
> house, took the family to police headquarters, and did not allow them to go
> back to their home for twelve hours. Not a routine 911 call. But the officers
> testified that routine Lawrence Police Department procedures were followed.
They may have been telling the truth regarding the Department's policies.
There are still far too many wild guesses. It is correct that they could have
done more and probably could have diffused the situation using different
methods. But if these different methods are not taught by the department or
are unsupported after basic training the officers would, at the very best,
only briefly consider them. The methods they did use are standard para-
military methods and are used by many departments that follow the lead set
by the Los Angeles Police Department. Better methods AND Departmental
enforcement of the better methods are both required. Training alone is
never sufficient.
The presumption of alternate physical force methods is wrong. Any use of
force on a suspect armed with a lethal weapon is very likely to escalate
to a shooting. It's always better to talk the suspect into disarming on his
own. Even LAPD's SWAT team follows that paradigm.
The treatment of the family and their house following the shooting is a
standard. It is an ANNOYING standard for any shooting victim's family, but
the policy is to secure the area as a crime scene for the investigators and
move the witnesses to the station for interviews. This happens at all
homicides, not just police homicides.
(A homicide is the death of a human by the hands of another human. A murder
is a lawfully wrongful homicide.)
A more humane investigation method would be wonderful, but any department's
first responsibility after the shooting is the shooting's investigation, and
the best method is to leave the crime scene undisturbed until the homicide
detectives arrive and begin their investigation. That means no one goes near
the scene except one or two officers and the ambulance personel. The easiest
way to achieve that is to remove the family and witnesses from the scene.
> "COULD THIS HAPPEN IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD?"
>
> Can we trust local police to follow consistent moral and official guidelines,
> especially regarding the use of lethal weapons? Would the police have reacted
> to this situation in exactly the same way if they had been responding to a
> call from a rich, white family in Alvamar instead of a Native American family
> in East Lawrence? They may have shown more respect. Maybe not. Did classism
> or racism play any role in the outcome of this call for help?
Again more guesses. One cannot ignore Police culture in all this and it may
have far more influence than either 'racism' or 'classism'. If officers are
expected to 'Take Control of the Situation', thay will do so regardless of
the skin hue of the citizens. Racism may exist within the department, but
the power of Police culture is always far stronger. A more useful solution
would be to change the Police culture itself to allow other methods of
problem solving than than the now standardized Los Angeles Police Department's
para-military methods.
You may think that LAPD's SWAT team trying to disarm suspects without violence
is a contradiction. It actually helps prove the point. The SWAT team is the
regarded as 'best of the best'. It is insulated from the department in the
same way the department is insulated from the community. The SWAT team follows
official policy, because offical policy was made part of their training and
enforced by their superiors. This is not the case Department-wide and official
policy is not emphasized much past basic training (not even by the Chief of
Police). Thus only the SWAT team has overcome the traditions and pressures of
Police Culture and perform their duties as the department officially
proscribes and not how the traditions of Police Culture demand.
> Sadly, any stereotyping that may exist within the LPD is a reflection of the
> racism in our community at large. We like to consider Lawrence a tolerant,
> close-knit town, but racism is pervasive. If you don't believe this ask any
> of the 13% of the population that is non-white. If you don't find anyone in
> your neighborhood to ask, keep walking. Any person of color can tell you
> stories of racial antagonism. Haskell students report increasing harassment,
> and fear walking alone at night. We can't bring Gregg Sevier back to life,
> but we can work to alleviate racism. The first step is the hardest: Check
> your own heart. Anything missing?
>
> >From The Lawrence (Kansas) City Flyer, May 16, 1991, VOL. 1, NO. 3
>
No argument there...
So what is my point?
I don't think this is a Native American problem.
I think it's all our problem and will remain as such until we stop ignoring it
or continue to seek simplistic answers to complex problems. The problems can
be solved with better Police Department training and policies, BUT it must
be backed up and enforced, not merely verbalized. One cannot regulate opinion,
but in an organization like a Police Department, behavior can be regulated.
Concentrating on racism will achieve nothing in changing police behavior, but
targeting the undesired behavior itself will.
I must add that much of the official Los Angeles Police Department Policy was
never implemented without a major fight. It will be another major fight just
to get them to enforce those policies. I suspect that will be the same story
elsewhere.
Just in case you want credentials:
I spent four years as a police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department,
working the predominately Afro-American neighborhoods of South-Central L.A.
----
John R Veregge Section 348 - Flight Command and Data
Jet Propulsion Laboratory Management (Technology Development)
Calif Institute of Technology Mail stop: T1704, Office: T1704-J
4800 Oak Grove Drive Phone: (818) 354-0511, FAX: 393-4089
Pasadena, CA, USA 91109 EMail: john@triton.jpl.nasa.gov