l*h
发帖数: 4124 | 1 黑人sheriff: Black LIES matter
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-milwuakee-unrest-david-clarke-edward-flynn-20160820-story.html
A controversial black sheriff clashes with the city's white police chief in
Milwaukee
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke was one of the few black speakers at
the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. (Dominick Reuter /
AFP/Getty Images)
Jaweed Kaleem Jaweed Kaleem Contact Reporter
Los Angeles Times
As riots raged in Milwaukee, the county sheriff took to Twitter.
"Black LIES matter," David Clarke wrote to his quarter-million followers,
ridiculing the Black Lives Matter movement.
The protesters, he tweeted later, were part of a “culturally dysfunctional
underclass” and were responding to “inane provocation.”
His taunts stood in sharp contrast to the message being sent out by the
Milwaukee police chief. Speaking on local television, Edward Flynn laid out
the facts of the shooting that had ignited the unrest, then said he was
heading to a meeting with local black pastors to plead for their help.
It was "very important that those people that are in the neighborhood are
constantly giving a message of peace and civility," Flynn said. "Nothing is
being accomplished through acts of violence."
In racially charged Milwaukee, the two most prominent law enforcement
officials — whose jurisdictions overlap — are proving that race is
anything but simple. Clarke is black. Flynn is white.
Black officer in Milwaukee shooting joined force as teenage cadet in program
with diversity recruiting goal
Black officer in Milwaukee shooting joined force as teenage cadet in program
with diversity recruiting goal
They have clashed with each other for years over the roots of mistrust
between police and black residents and how to quell increasing violence in a
city with some of the deepest racial inequalities in the country.
Clarke, a conservative, argues that downtrodden blacks are largely to blame
for their own plight and that “black-on-black violence” is a bigger
problem than mistreatment of blacks by police. In turn, he has taken a get-
tough, lock-em-up approach to policing, including the use of military
equipment.
He has blamed Flynn for increases in violent crime in Milwaukee, saying the
city's police force should hire more officers to crack down harder on crime.
Clarke has also encouraged citizens to arm themselves.
Flynn, a liberal, sees the anger of the black residents as a product of
poverty and decades of official neglect and believes the biggest gains will
come from increased cooperation between officers and the community. He has
belittled Clarke’s proposals and argued that allowing people to carry
concealed weapons has increased deaths from gun violence.
Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn speaks at a news conference Oct. 15,
2014, about the fatal shooting of a mentally ill black man, Dontre Hamilton,
by a white officer.
Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn speaks at a news conference Oct. 15,
2014, about the fatal shooting of a mentally ill black man, Dontre Hamilton,
by a white officer. (Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Their disagreements have come to a head on a national stage this week as
Milwaukee grapples with the aftermath of the police killing of a 23-year-old
black man, Sylville Smith, a case that itself complicates the narrative
that has dominated a national debate over policing and race.
Authorities say Smith had taken off on foot after a traffic stop and turned
toward an officer while raising a gun. Mayor Tom Barrett says he has seen a
photograph showing that Smith was armed. Smith's family says he sometimes
carried a gun but doubts that he would have raised it at an officer.
The officer who fired the fatal shots was also black, and according to Smith
’s family, the two men knew each other from high school.
Grandfather says Milwaukee police shooting victim had mental health issues
Grandfather says Milwaukee police shooting victim had mental health issues
The state justice department is investigating the shooting and plans to
release a video from the body camera of the officer, according to a
spokeswoman, though she said there was no timeline for making it public.
In interviews, the two law enforcement leaders had little nice to say about
each other.
"He's not from here," Clarke said of Flynn, calling him “political” and “
arrogant.”
"Nobody has got more to say about law enforcement and less to do with it,"
Flynn said of Clarke, calling him a self-serving man who seeks “celebrity.”
Clarke, who describes himself as the “people’s sheriff,” rarely leaves
home without his cowboy hat and likes to ride his horse through the city.
A frequent guest on conservative talk shows and a Donald Trump supporter, he
was one of five black speakers at the Republican National Convention in
Cleveland, where he denounced Black Lives Matter as “anarchy.”
On the day Smith was killed, Clarke tweeted that the reaction was overblown
and misguided: “Four murdered, 9 shot in Milwaukee Fri night/Sat morning.
Silence. 1 cop kills an ARMED black guy & riots break out?”
The son of an Army paratrooper-turned-postal-worker and a secretary for the
city’s public schools, Clarke grew up in one of the two black families in a
white community about a 12-minute drive from Sherman Park, the black
neighborhood where rioters burned buildings and smashed police cars over the
weekend.
He's not from here.
— Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, on city Police Chief Edward Flynn
He joined the city’s Police Department at 21 and rose through the ranks for
more than two decades to become the head of its intelligence division,
earning a reputation as being loud and flashy.
Clarke left the city police after the governor appointed him sheriff in 2002
to fill a vacancy. With wide support from the mostly white, mostly
Republican Milwaukee suburbs, he has kept the job through four elections.
Now 59, he oversees about 350 deputy sheriffs and 500 corrections officers
in a jurisdiction that stretches 1,190 square miles and includes about a
million people. His deputies are responsible for patrolling county parks,
highways and the airport in the city of Milwaukee. A sheriff would typically
oversee everyday policing in unincorporated areas. Milwaukee County has
none.
Clarke called poverty a “major issue” in Milwaukee but blamed liberal
politicians, social welfare programs and black people for it.
Flynn, in contrast, expressed empathy for blacks who say they are angry
about police shootings and living conditions. “The neighborhoods that
depend on us the most” and where officers end up the most, he said, "are
also the ones that have been the most historically ignored.”
The son of a paralyzed World War II veteran and a library worker, Flynn was
23 when he joined the police force in Hillside Township, N.J. He went on be
police chief in several East Coast cities and later served as secretary of
public safety in Massachusetts.
He arrived in Milwaukee in 2008 after being recruited by a Democratic-
appointed city commission. His responsibilities include street policing,
traffic enforcement and responding to crime across the 96-square-mile city
of 600,000 people.
Nobody has got more to say about law enforcement and less to do with it.
— Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn, on county Sheriff David Clarke
The 68-year-old chief pointed to large racial disparities in income and
education levels and suggested that such factors, coupled with loosened gun
laws, played a role in a rising homicide rate. There were 145 murders in the
city last year, a 69% increase over 2014 and the most since 1993.
“If you are a city police chief, you know all racial and social classes
commit sin at the same rate…,” he said. “But public violence belongs to
the poor.”
While the animosity between Clarke and Flynn has largely been a war of words
, it spilled over this week into heated debate over how to respond to the
riots.
Clarke asked the governor, Scott Walker, to call in the state's National
Guard. Flynn, who said he was offended he wasn't consulted, pushed back. He
worried that a military presence in the city would increase tensions between
protesters and police.
The guard was not deployed, but 123 guard members were in the region this
week awaiting commands. On Wednesday, Clarke told the governor to send them
home.
Clarke also drew scorn from Flynn for his decision to close a popular county
-run park near the protests. Clarke said rioters were using it as a staging
area. Flynn said the move alienated the community.
With Flynn’s agreement, Clarke had already sent 100 deputies to the
neighborhood, joining 150 city police officers already there.
The differences between the two leaders were evident on Tuesday night. Some
of Flynn’s black officers were out chatting with residents who attended a
vigil, while Clarke’s deputies patrolled the streets in armored trucks.
Many black residents express disdain for Clarke. Flynn gets better reviews,
but he has also faced serious criticism for the deaths of several black men
in shootings by his officers or in their custody. The best-known case
involves Dontre Hamilton, a 31-year-old mentally ill man who was shot in a
park in 2014 by a white officer, who was later fired but not prosecuted. His
death has become a rallying point in the Black Lives Matter movement.
As the rioting subsided this week, residents gathered in Sherman Park to
mourn and talk with each other about how to improve a neighborhood where
conflicts with law enforcement had become common.
Gary Conner, who is 28 and was friends with Smith, said he would start by
reducing the police presence.
“This is our neighborhood,” he said. “If we are not causing violence, why
are you here bothering us? If there’s none of that, you don't need to be
in the neighborhood.”
Milwaukee protest aftermath
Community members react Aug. 14, 2016, after several buildings in Milwaukee
were destroyed during protests a day after a fatal police-involved shooting.
(Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune) |
