On october 18th Dallas Police officers responded to a request for a mental health intervention. Joyce Jackson, the mother of the victim: Bobby Bennet, called police when her son became agitated after being told that he couldn't go to his grandmother's house to give her a picture he'd just drawn.
When officers Cardan Spencer and Christopher Watson arrived at the scene, Bennet pushed backwards in the rolling chair, stood up, and was shot while his hands were resting by his side.
Most of the media has focused on the legality of the actions of those involved. Most have examined the peculiarity of charging the victim with aggravated assault, while the shooter remains free, as a district judge refused to sign an arrest warrant. Though the Jackson family is empathetic, sympathizing with the fact that Officer Spencer's family will suffer, the situation raises larger questions concerning how society views the victim and the police officers who shot him.
To what extent should we believe science?
To begin, pertaining to the unwarranted stigmatization of those with mental disabilities: the afflicted, a gross lack of empirical data about the rates of violent crime committed by this group necessitates reconsideration of the verbiage our country uses when discussing the rights, or lack thereof, for the afflicted. As I will explain within the context of my own detention and interrogation, what evidence exists seems to show that the afflicted actually account for a proportionally lower percentage of murders than the rest of society, whom we'll call "the normal ones". From this evidence, in a national security law class which dealt with the extent to which one person's rights can be revoked in the name of national security, I attempted to better understand the changing situation within the state of New York, which in January passed the NY SAFE Act.
My thesis, after being detained and interrogated, became that if laws are established that push the afflicted outside of the mental health system, then some measurable proportion of those who left, who stopped receiving therapy and medication for their ailments, would respond negatively to the cessation of their treatment.
If this thesis is correct, then considering the time periods before and after the implementation of NY SAFE ACT, the consequences of the new act can be measured in the difference between the rates of prosecution of violent crimes that were found to be the result of an underlying mental disability. If in hindsight we can see that the law is not based on empiricism, and that it is ineffective, than we must question the assumptions which supported the separate and unequal laws governing the afflicted. And if we can accept that empiricism: scientifically derived data, has some place in the national dialogue about the afflicted, than there is hope that we can first address the ugly resurgence of Massive Resistance, and then come to terms a form of discrimination which renders its victims unable to advocate for their rights. The old saying concerning addiction appear apropos, "How do you know when an addict (the afflicted) are lying? When their lips are moving."
Beyond empathetic, William James said that 'it is the mark of true genius to hold a fact in ones mind without passing judgement.' Similarly, Jaques Derrida believed that we should, for as long as is possible, consider a situation without saying that we know the "Truth"; that that impulse: to say that we know and understand something in its entirety, should be withheld for as long as is possible because by doing we may come a more intimate understanding of the universal truth of a situation. Indeed, as we should not refute a statement based simply on the race of the commentator, so too should society be weary of restricting constitutional rights based on the contents of one's medical records, and not the contents of their actions. When a massive group of people are targeted, but have not committed a crime and do not receive due process a tension is created; and where that tension confronts the presumption of innocence for officers, whose actions are so clearly and grotesquely displayed for all the world to see, conflict exists.
It is impossible to assert that what those officers did was in anyway acceptable, and while the family of the afflicted victim show empathy towards the officers, one need only consider stories like "12 years a slave", wherein at one point the protagonist argues that he is not appeasing or acquiescing to his illegitimate masters, rather wearing "the mask" for long enough that he may one day find freedom. It is not uncommon for the victims of violent tragedy to turn their cheek; whether called battered woman's syndrome or, according to Nietzsche in "Beyond Good and Evil", a slave mentality, when the courts prosecute the victim and release the attacker after an incident of violence, a deeply seeded instinct for survival often prevails over even the strongest of wills, and the victim empathizes with the attacker.
Mr. Bennet empathized that officer Spencer's family would suffer the consequences, while his Mrs. Janet expressed that she feels bad about what happened. Whatever the origins of this empathy, would society be better to take after the actions of the afflicted and his family, or the officers in question? In our pursuit of peace, we attempt to rationalize tragedy by attributing to it some cause: depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and bi-polarity, some origin against which "the normal people" can take action in the media, courts, and streets, but as we sow, so too shall we reap; soon enough those who supported revoking the rights of the afflicted might realize the ubiquity of the disease: gift or curse, depending on perspective, and might remember with comic tragedy that at first they came for the afflicted, and they have no one to blame besides themselves.
Next in my consideration of the current climate is the question of Capital Punishment, and whether the pendulum swings both ways. How does/should society see the rights and responsibilities of the officers within the context of Capital Punishment?
This instance brings to light the humanity of the involved officers. Judges consider the enormous struggles and vulnerability of police officers, and grant them the benefit of the doubt because of the promises they made to uphold the law. And when an officer is killed in the line of duty, the courts can use Capital Punishment to prosecute his killers because of they are attacked more than a man. When an officer wears the shield, he is a the personification of the very moral fabric holding society together, he is the representation of law and order; when someone kills an officer the effect rips at the intangible fabric that preserves social order, which is why officers are protected by the threat of capital punishment for those who would seek to destroy social order. So when as officer knows that what he did is wrong, as is the case with these officers; yet hides behind his badge, manipulates the truth, and abuses the trust that a culture place in him to preserve law and order, which is the case here as Officer Watson lied in a sworn affidavit to insulate himself and his partner from the punishment commensurate with their crime; than in addition to being an accomplice to attempted murder, the effect of Officer Watson's actions is the erosion of public trust, resulting from a criminal conspiracy on behalf of the officers to hide the nature of what happened.
In a violation of standard operating procedure, Officer Spencer picked up the shell casings before attending to the victim: Mr. Bennet. Ms. Jackson claimed that, "those two officers stood in the cul-de-sac, the shooter picking up the shells, which is a crime scene... They were walking around the cul-de-sac before they ever attended to my son, picking it up, putting it in their pockets, walking around like they're dazed."
One of the officers lied in his sworn affidavit to not only protect himself, but also place blame on the victim, thereby justifying their use of deadly force. The other officer, after shooting a non-threatening man, attempted to conceal evidence. If Officer Spencer felt that it was a justified shooting, why did he feel the need to pick up the shell casings? Similarly, if Officer Watson also thought it was a justified shooting, why did he lie about Mr. Bennett's actions and comments in his affidavit?
In deference to Nietzsche's notion of the illegitimacy of a slave mentality, what more does society owe these officers besides the punishment commensurate with their actions? Where it would seem obvious that the officers realized they had committed a crime, when the video clearly shows evidence that contradicts their sworn statements, why is Mr. Bennett being charged with aggravated assault, while they are allowed to walk free? And if capital punishment exists to protect the integrity of law and order; where is seems obvious that those officers, during the commission of a crime, consciously acted with callous disregard for the consequences of their actions on the preservation of law and order; should the pendulum of capital punishment also swing the other way?
This is not to say that they should be executed, as is the precedent for every other criminal convicted of such egregious crimes against humanity: like capital murder, but to call into question the apparent double-standard of allowing them to receive preferential treatment. Had a civilian been caught on video shooting another civilian in cold blood, I question whether a district judge would have trouble issuing an arrest warrant. Indeed, concerning the peculiarity of that judge refusing to issue an arrest warrant, former State District Judge John Creuzot said, "I don't think I've ever really seen it. It's pretty easy to get an arrest warrant signed. All you're submitting is that there is cause to believe that a person probably committed a crime, and that's a very low standard. It doesn't mean the person is guilty."
The case remains open, while painfully obvious questions linger. The judge recommended that a grand jury be convened, but for now the officers are free men, while it is still unclear whether Mr. Bennett will face criminal charges.
Next, I'll discuss my own personal situation of being detained by the threat of deadly force, as an officer grabbed his gun and verbally detained me, which is to say he prohibited me from sitting in a chair that was three feet away. I think about what made the officer reach for his weapon, what made him feel justified in doing so, and what might have happened had I sat down.
It's not absurd to think that officers would shoot a suspect during the course of an investigation; Igbrim Todashev was shot six times in the chest, and once in the back of the head, while being questioned with regard to his connection to the Boston Marathon Bombings. As far as has been ascertained to date, he knew one of the brothers more than three years earlier, but did not have any connection to the bombing, or to the Tsarnaev brothers during the years of their radicalization.
The issue I raise will be one of what rights the afflicted have with regard to mental health interventions. The question I raise will be one of our capacity for retrospectively considering a situation. Tragedy exists. I do not blame or hold ill will against anyone involved in my own situation, as I recognize that my school had a responsibility to ensure the safety on campus; however, in light of the fact that I was detained because of the caustic nature of my speech, and then released because I wasn't deemed to be a threat, what right do I have to expect that my voice will be heard?
When I know that I could have been killed, what right do I have to be heard after everything I went through? After being detained at gun point and interrogated for an hour and a half without representation: a dorm parent, a teacher, an advisor, an attorney, a mental health professional; after being sexually harassed and threatened in retaliation for attempting to simply let one of the involved schools know what happened to me and why I saw it as a problem; after living through 10 months of hell, the loss of two jobs, and having to move off campus because I no longer felt safe; after being unable to fully participate in my classes, volunteer work, and research, and after the torment that my family went through as a result of the entire situation; what rights, if any, do I have?