Police Report I

In the Sydney Lumet film “Prince of the City,” based on the novel by a former “prince of the city,” New York City police detective Danny Ciello admits to a special investigator looking into police corruption that officers lie under oath on the stand all the time. But what else do you expect? Prosecutors want convictions, and sometimes the difference between a flimsy case leading to an acquittal or one that leads to a conviction is a police officer fabricating a tale. Jurors will always believe a police officer over a defendant, particularly if the latter is a racial minority.

On Monday, a Seattle police officer fired four fatal shots into a Native American named John Williams, who had a “criminal” record of being inebriated and exposing himself to a staff worker at a home for chronic drunks. When he wasn’t drunk, he was described as “buoyant” and “compassionate.” He was also a wood carver, who whittled walking sticks and miniature totem poles. The police had two versions of the incident, which occurred in broad daylight on a busy city street. First they said that Ian Birk, a two-year “veteran” on the force, was sitting in his patrol car at a red light when observed Williams sitting on a short wall whittling on a small piece of wood. Birk got out of the car, advanced to Williams, demanded that he drop the knife, and fired his weapon when Williams allegedly “advanced” toward him with the knife. Now, the problem with this story for the police is that Williams was clearly not engaged in an activity that was in any way a threat to anyone; he was merely occupied in his trade. On Tuesday, the police changed their story to jibe with a video recording that showed Williams crossing the street in front of Birk, who decided that he needed something to do and chased after the apparently dangerous suspect. Birk demanded that Williams drop the knife (but not the piece of wood), and off camera the shots were fired in quick succession. The police claim that Williams turned toward Birk, although it wasn’t yet determined if he “advanced” toward the officer in a “threatening” manner.

But a witness at the scene told the Seattle Times that Williams had his back to Birk when the officer approached him, and Williams did not appear to respond to the Birk’s commands, or was even aware that Birk was talking to him. Williams didn’t appear threatening or aggressive. Birk was at least two car lengths away from Williams when he opened fire.

For me, the question is not who to believe, although I am inclined to believe the story of the witness, given the police habit of lying. The question is why do police have such a difficult time in sizing-up a situation before they start firing away. It is one thing for a man barricaded in a building exchanging gunfire with police; it is quite another thing to arbitrarily select a target who is not empirically engaged in a criminal act, try to prove to be the “tough” guy by intimidating the “suspect,” deliberately escalating an invented “confrontation” and finally “misinterpreting” body language as a “threatening” bodily harm—all within a span of a minute.

Every time a police officer is killed, it is as if the President was assassinated. But when a police officer kills an unarmed man, or deliberately creates a “threat” out of thin air that leads to a fatality, we are supposed to accept it as part of normal life. But for a few of us, the stench of hypocrisy is too powerful to overcome.