Where Is The Outrage?

Home

Status Quo

It was nearly 10 years ago when Eric Garner was selling loosies (individual cigarettes) on the streets of New York. Eric Gardner was a man who was barely getting by. He was in poor health. He was morbidly obese. He had been arrested multiple times for minor infractions. He was selling individual cigarettes in order to make money. On this particular street corner, he was actually known as a peacemaker.

On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner, a Black male, had just broken up a fight. The police were called. They saw Eric Gardner. They confronted him with regard to the sale of individual cigarettes. (This is illegal because it is not taxed.) Officer Daniel Pantaleo tried to handcuff Eric Garner. Mr. Gardner resisted. The police officer then wrestled Eric Garner to the ground using an illegal chokehold. Mr. Gardner was allowed to lie on the ground for seven minutes. Motionless. He was completely unresponsive. He was declared dead several minutes later on arrival at the hospital. No one went to jail.

In July 2016, Philando Castile was pulled over by police because he (and his girlfriend, who was also in the car) “look like people that were involved in a robbery.” It was 9 o’clock at night. Maybe, the police officer, Jeronimo Yanez, had x-ray vision. Maybe he had one of those biotic implants that the television character, Steve Austin, had in the hit show the $6 Million Man. In what can only be described as the worst misunderstanding of all time, Yanez asked for Castile’s license and registration. Castile mentions that he has a gun in the car. He reaches for his license and registration. He states that he is not pulling a gun out. Yanez repeats, “Don’t pull it out.” “I’m not pulling it out.” Then Yanez fires seven shots at close range. Mr. Castile is killed on the spot. Although Yanez was indicted, the jury voted to acquit.

Tyre Nichols was a 29-year-old Black man. He was stopped for reckless driving. Exactly what this means is unclear. Without any explanation, you know what happened. Basically, there is a confrontation with Black police officers. Mr. Nichols tries to run away. There is another confrontation in which it appears that all five Black police officers beat Mr. Nichols. Mr. Nichols is declared dead at the hospital hours later. After an investigation, the police officers have been fired. They have also been arrested on multiple felony charges.

A video has been released by the Memphis Police Department. This shows the death of Mr. Nichols. I will not be watching the video. There is nothing in that video that’s going to calm my nerves or change my mind. An unarmed American should not be beaten to death because of reckless driving. It is that simple.

Change, Reform
It has been almost 10 years since the Eric Gardner tragedy. Yet, I’m hard-pressed to think of any major reforms that we’ve seen over the last decade. We’ve had protests. We have had heated rhetoric in State Capitols. At the end of the day, not much has changed.

Many Americans were shocked that Mr. Nichols was beaten and killed by Black officers. While race may play a minor part in many of these tragedies, I believe that the majority of these incidents revolve around respect and authority. The police officer desperately wants to be treated as a respected member of our society. At the same time, the person of color, who is usually a person of color, wants to be treated as an American citizen. How do we fix this problem?

We must recognize that we are all human. I know this sounds corny. It sounds like a cliché. But I don’t think it is. Instead, we must recognize that humans act differently in intense, high-pressure situations. Once our brains perceive that we are in a life-and-death situation, rational thought is shut off. We have now initiated the “fight or flight” response. Neurochemicals are released, which cause us to act differently. We are now in survival mode. In my opinion, this is why these five police officers acted like a pack of animals. (Arthur McDuffie was a Black man and ex-marine who was pulled over for speeding. He led the police on a high-speed chase. When he was caught, he was beaten to death by four police officers. This occurred in 1979!) This is why officer Yanez shot an unarmed man. As soon as he heard there was a gun in the car, he perceived a serious threat. His ability to rationally take in stimuli, verbal stimuli, was gone. So, the answer to this puzzle is to avoid putting police officers in these positions where they think they are in mortal danger. Allow them to retreat to their police cars and call for backup. As they’re waiting for backup to arrive, the immediate threat lessens. Their blood pressure and pulse will slowly return to normal. Their ability to think rationally will return. Police officers must be better trained to de-escalate situations.

These “elite” police squads are a huge red flag to me. On TV, these police officers always make the right decisions. They never go over the line unless it is absolutely necessary to apprehend the bad guy. These squads have been the source of intimidation, fear, abuse, and lawlessness in the real world. In Detroit, in the 70s, there was an elite squad that was given leeway to clean up crime. They abused citizens, and they planted evidence. Their low point was when they raided a “drug deal.” The drug deal turned out to be a card game between off-duty Black police officers. Several officers were shot. One was killed. This squad was disbanded. There are examples of these squads across the country – from LA to New York to Memphis. Memphis had its own elite unit called SCORPION, from which all 5 police officers were members. All of these elite units end the same way, with mixed results in combating crime but a clear history of abuse and killing American citizens at an alarming rate.

But we know this. Right!?!? We know that if you give humans control of another group of humans without oversight, abuse will occur. In a simple psychological experiment performed at Sanford in the early 1970s, volunteers were randomly assigned to be prisoners or guards. Within days, the guards were treating the jailed as lessors. The experiment was stopped on day 6 because the guards were inflicting extraordinary abuse on these prisoners. The lesson from this experiment is that we as human beings can be cruel and inhuman if we are not given supervision. Now, let’s give a group of police officers – super status. District attorneys and judges will look the other way just as long as these super cops are getting results. This is not a formula for community trust. It is a formula for disaster.

By |2023-03-21T12:43:37-04:00March 21st, 2023|Civil Rights, Legal, Race|0 Comments

Southwest Airlines, George Santos, Clear Secure

Happy holidays to everyone! I hope everybody survived. I hope that tons of snow (Buffalo, New York), bitterly cold wind chills, and subzero temperatures didn’t freeze out your holiday spirit.

Just before Christmas, a large cold front moved across the country. It brought severe winter weather to most of the country. Besides the freezing cold temperatures, wind gusts in the 40- to 50-miles-per-hour range made this a severe winter storm. On December 23, as winter storm Elliott hit the Midwest, over 4,500 flights were canceled. With Christmas just around the corner, this was disastrous for holiday plans. Over the next two days, Americans seemed to figure out how to get where they were going.

Unfortunately, that’s not true. Tens of thousands of Americans were stuck. They had no way to get to where they needed to go. While major air carriers like American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines managed to get their planes back on schedule relatively quickly, Southwest Airlines continued to struggle. A week later, Southwest Airlines continued to cancel more than 2,500 flights a day. Passengers were stranded hundreds of miles from home. Southwest had no answers for them. Why? Why was Southwest Airlines so out of step?

Let’s remember that we, the taxpayers, bailed out Southwest Airlines early in the pandemic. We handed them over $7 billion. Billion. This was done to prevent massive layoffs in the travel industry, which would have crippled our economy. So, I think that we should be able to ask Southwest for some customer service for our money.

A failed business model

Some of the problems lie in Southwest Airlines’ business model. Major air carriers like American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines use a hub and spoke model for their flights. For example, American Airlines has five or six major hubs throughout the United States. To get almost anywhere on American Airlines, you need to go through one of those hubs to connect to a remote location. For example, if you wanted to fly from Asheville, North Carolina, to Miami Beach, you have to fly into Charlotte, a major hub for American Airlines.

Southwest Airlines is different. They have a point-to-point model. For example, you can fly on Southwest Airlines from Oklahoma City directly to Phoenix. If you are flying on a major airline like American, to get to Phoenix, you would have to fly from Oklahoma City to Dallas (a major hub) and then Dallas to Phoenix. So, besides the cheaper fares, you also save time at the airport with Southwest.

The point-to-point model works great until you have a major weather event like winter storm Elliott. Now you have airplanes scattered all throughout the country, but they’re not in the right location at the right time. This makes logistics extremely difficult. One would figure that Southwest Airlines would have a sophisticated employee tracking system. This system would tell them where their pilots are as well as where their stewardesses (flight host/hostess) are located.

Unfortunately, they don’t. Southwest pilots have been sitting in airports waiting on assignments right beside angry passengers waiting on planes. To get this complicated system back online, Southwest Airlines must cancel thousands of flights to get their airplanes, pilots, and crew back in the right locations. It is still unclear to me why it takes nearly 10 days to make this happen. This is a huge failure of big business. The next time someone tells you about how great business is at efficient use of resources, point to Southwest Airlines.

By |2023-03-21T12:25:16-04:00March 21st, 2023|Business, Congress, Party Politics|0 Comments

American Democracy and Justice

What is this American experiment about? Is it a tale about big business? Or is America a tale about the little guy, the average Joe, or the average Sally? Is the United States of America about the Rockefellers, Carnegies, and the Elon Musks of the world?

America is about both. America is very much about how one man or woman has overcome enormous odds to become incredibly successful. But America is also about how one man or woman fought to keep their head above water.

Two Tales of Justice

Baithe Diop was shot twice in his cab. He was left to die. Unfortunately, his story of being an immigrant trying to overcome the odds ended in the Bronx in 1995. Eric Glisson and four other defendants were convicted of his senseless murder. Eric Glisson maintained that he was innocent. Glisson did everything he could from behind bars to legally free himself from prison.

Seventeen years later, as a Hail Mary, he writes a letter to a prosecutor in the US attorney’s office. He reiterates the details of the case and states that he is innocent. The prosecutor he wrote the letter to had retired, and somehow the letter ended up in the hands of John O’Malley, an investigator and former Bronx homicide detective.

In what can only be described as divine intervention, O’Malley was a former Bronx detective who helped take down the street gang, “Sex Money, and Murder.” He was personally involved when two of the gang members, as part of their plea deal, confessed to shooting a cab driver in 1995.

So, while reading the letter from Glisson, O’Malley remembers this confession from over a decade before. O’Malley takes it upon himself to reinvestigate the murder. The original case against Glisson was flimsy at best. With increased scrutiny, the case falls apart.

The conviction was overturned. Eric Glisson and his four co-defendants were finally freed. They received a $40 million judgment from the city of New York. It took over 17 years, but ultimately, justice was served.

By |2023-02-02T00:39:04-04:00February 2nd, 2023|Civil Rights|0 Comments
Go to Top