Living
and Dying In 'Zero Tolerance' Times
By Karen Saari
Nearly ten years ago,
there was a terrible outbreak of police violence in Sonoma County where 17
citizens, most of them young men, died at the hands of law enforcement in a
two-year period. The rate of police killings in Sonoma County exceeded that of
New York City. Public outcry and activist families brought about community
meetings, protest rallies, vigils, news articles, advice from many experts and a
grand jury investigation. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held public
hearings in Santa Rosa. Some groups repeatedly met with the leaders of the
several police agencies here in the county.
While we achieved minimal procedural changes, the public¹s focus on law
enforcement violence seemed to have an effect as the killings stopped for a year
or two. Since that time, the groups disbanded and leading activists have taken
up other causes. Regrettably, since 2000, law enforcement deaths are on the rise
again.
And this March, one of the most egregious cases I have ever heard of in my ten
years of investigating these events unfolded on a beautiful spring morning in
the residential countryside north of Sebastopol. 16-year old Jeremiah Chass was
shot and killed by county deputies minutes after they arrived on the scene,
responding to the boy¹s parents¹ call for medical help with a psychiatric
episode
The public is led to believe that when police use deadly force, it is because
some dangerous killer is on a rampage. Closer investigation shows that most law
enforcement killings involve either someone experiencing a psychiatric episode
or a racial dynamic between cop and victim. It has been this way for years, and
it is true all across the country.
Mental health professionals tell us that the way to deal with someone having a
psychotic break is to diffuse the situation. Did the deputies do this? Not at
all. They knew when they arrived that they were responding to a psychiatric
incident. In the space of a few minutes, they escalated the situation by
assaulting Jeremiah first with pepper spray and then with batons. Jeremiah was
only 16, that shaky space between child and man. He was having psychiatric
problems that had spiraled into an irrational break that morning. When he was
attacked, Jeremiah attacked back. It was a response that cost him his life.
Being afraid of being killed is not enough to justify killing. The situation has
be one in which a “reasonable” person would have an identical response. For
civilians this reasonability is determined by the district attorney, a judge or
a jury. For cops, it is assessed by the investigating organization (their
brother cops) and the DA (very friendly to cops). These incidents rarely go
before a grand jury and I know of no cases where cops have been found guilty of
manslaughter at trial. It is an all too common irony that the situation became
deadly as a result of police intervening and escalating the level of violence.
This common pattern is not punished by our legal system.
I hear the usual lamentations that always abounds in these situations: it’s a
tragedy for the family; it’s a tragedy for the police. The sheriff says this;
very sadly, the family has said this. In my opinion, the time for compassion for
the police is way down the road, if ever. We need evidence and witnesses to
corroborate the sheriff¹s version of events before we know if this is a tragedy
or a crime. The sheriff needs to be held accountable for inadequate training
with mentally ill citizens and for a law enforcement culture that accepts these
killings without consequences to the officers involved.
The community needs assurance that all of us, especially our most vulnerable,
will be safe from police violence. Perhaps the time will come when the family
can find the strength to pursue justice for their son. But, regardless of what
the family does, the community needs to demand evidence, accountability and
substantive change. Al Sharpton who, heaven knows, has known of plenty of police
brutality, says the only way you can make sure it doesn't happen again is to
punish it.
* * * * * * * * * *
Karen Saari, resident of Bodega, was head researcher for the Stolen Lives
Project, a national grassroots effort to document law enforcement killings in
the United States since 1990. Under the auspices of Project Censored she did
most of the research for the book Stolen Lives: Killed by law Enforcement
last published in 1999. She was a member of the coalition formed in Sonoma
County in the late 1990¹s to address issues of police brutality here in Sonoma
County and testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.