'No one took us seriously': Black cops warned about racist Capitol police officers for years

[marmar]

When Kim Dine took over as the new chief of the U.S. Capitol Police in 2012, he knew he had a serious problem.

Since 2001, hundreds of Black officers had sued the department for racial discrimination. They alleged that white officers called Black colleagues slurs like the N-word and that one officer found a hangman's noose on his locker. White officers were called “huk lovers" or “FOGs" — short for “friends of gangsters" — if they were friendly with their Black colleagues. Black officers faced “unprovoked traffic stops" from fellow Capitol Police officers. One Black officer claimed he heard a colleague say, “Obama monkey, go back to Africa."

In case after case, agency lawyers denied wrongdoing. But in an interview, Dine said it was clear he had to address the department's charged racial climate. He said he promoted a Black officer to assistant chief, a first for the agency, and tried to increase diversity by changing the force's hiring practices. He also said he hired a Black woman to lead a diversity office and created a new disciplinary body within the department, promoting a Black woman to lead it.

“There is a problem with racism in this country, in pretty much every establishment that exists," said Dine, who left the agency in 2016. “You can always do more in retrospect." .................(more)

https://www.rawstory.com/racist-cops/?

[dalton99a]

1. A spear is not a weapon

Last month, days after a bloody clash on Dec. 12 between militant Trump supporters and counterprotesters, Melissa Byrne and Chibundu Nnake were entering the Capitol when they saw a strangely dressed man just outside the building, carrying a spear.

He was a figure they would come to recognize — Jacob Chansley, the QAnon follower in a Viking outfit who was photographed last week shouting from the dais of the Senate chamber.

They alerted the Capitol Police at the time, as the spear seemed to violate the complex's weapons ban, but officers dismissed their concern, they said.

One officer told them that Chansley had been stopped earlier in the day, but that police “higher ups" had decided not to do anything about him.

We don't “perceive it as a weapon," Nnake recalled the officer saying of the spear.

[littlemissmartypants]

6. Wow! That's serious gaslighting.

spear
/spir/
Learn to pronounce
See definitions in:
All
Weapons
Military History
Angling
noun
a weapon with a long shaft and a pointed tip, typically of metal, used for thrusting or throwing.
verb
pierce or strike with a spear or other pointed object.
"she speared her last French fry with her fork"
Definitions from Oxford Languages

And did you see the sharp point on the one he was carrying? I thought it was scary.

❤ lmsp

[IronLionZion]

10. A peaceful spear, kind of like a smart bomb or compassionate napalm

A spear could be used for fishing to catch food, or to defend against bears trying to eat you.

[BobTheSubgenius]

25. That was one of the tickling spears.

Not one of the stabby ones.

[exboyfil]

2. Three white guys oversaw the most embarrassing security lapse in Capitol history

[Bluethroughu]

3. It's a couple centuries over due

This event gives our Country the opportunity to immediately change and implement policies our all people in our Country will be safer for.

[mopinko]

4. i seriously want to know how the roster for that day was decided.

was the number of cp officers so small because they couldnt send officers who they knew would join the fray?
we black cops sent in hopes they would be injured or worse?

[exboyfil]

5. When the woman got shot

There appeared to be cops all around her doing nothing to stop them from breaking the window and climbing through. Then the tactical team magically appeared as soon as she was shot. We had a Congressman "blame" a black officer for the shooting (if you can imagine). We know a black officer risked his life to misdirect the crowd.

How deep does this go. Where the officers on the other side of the barricade trying to protect their charges thinking WTF, why aren't they doing something on the other side. At the point that Congress is threatened you should start shooting people. It is totally justified.

[StarfishSaver]

17. I don't think that's what happened

That was a case in which the officers performed perfectly.

If you watch the video from different angles, the officers were blocking the door as officers on the inside were moving Members of Congress from the chamber to safety. They couldn't shoot because drawing a weapon in a close confrontation with a mob like that where the officers are so outnumbered would only have resulted in the gun being taken away and probably used to shoot the officers before they could even use it. All they could do at that point was try to shield the door with their bodies, even if that would only slow them down.

Then, partway through, you see that tactical officers arrived and one of them drew a high powered weapon from behind pillar and aimed it at the rioters. At that point, the officers on the door slowly moved out of the way. They were no longer needed to hold the door because there was firepower on the other side and they needed to get out of the way so the tactical officers had a clear shot. And the minute one of the rioters breached the door by climbing through the window, she was taken out. And because the shots came from far away and the officers firing couldn't easily be overtaken and disarmed by the rioters, the rioters stopped surging and backed off.

I know it looked bad and I also initially thought those officers were derelict or complicit. But several friends in law enforcement and Secret Service explained to me that this was actually textbook and those officers at the door did exactly what they were supposed to do, did it perfectly and likely saved who knows how many lives by doing it that way.

That doesn't mean that other officers weren't complicit. But that wasn't the case here.

[renate]

18. Thank you

That’s very illuminating. I’d jumped to the same conclusion most people did.

[StarfishSaver]

20. I certainly jumped to conclusions before getting more information and insight

Another example - the officer whom we initially thought had run away from the mo but now we know had actually purposefully, bravely and brilliantly led that mob away from the Senate chamber and into a more heavily-policed area.

[Jack from Charlotte]

19. That's about what I saw......

Yes. That's about what I saw. The guards were just stalling the Republican Party Terrorists while some people way down the hall on the other side of the glass doors could be removed. The unarmed police doing the stalling tactic moved away. Then you saw a pair of hands with a pistol appear pointed at the terrorists. The terrorists continued attempting the attack until the person with the gun fired hitting a terrorist in the face apparently. The face was blurred on the video so you could not see detail. Instantly after the shot, the terrorist mob backed off.

[StarfishSaver]

22. Exactly

We saw the same thing.

[TheRickles]

23. This is important enough to be a separate OP, IMO.

[niyad]

7. A spear is not a weapon????? That is insane, but not surprising, given what we have observed.

[Joinfortmill]

8. Enough if this shit. Just enough.

[Joinfortmill]

9. Enough if this racist shit. Just enough.

[llashram]

11. it has been this way

in American police forces for generations. But the 'revelations' coming out now, to me, stink of the American hypocrisy that has perpetuated racism and hate since the first slave stumbled from the slave ship unto these shores. The racism is so systemic now, even the military has to start sweeping its ranks top to bottom for KKK and any other racist element(s).

The institutionalized rot that keeps on giving...trump-pests the "wind beneath their satanic wings".

[Crowman2009]

14. I think their should be yearly maximum state/county quotas as far as military recruiting...

...is concerned. Doing so would partly help limit the amount of racist trying to join. Especially from red states, who seem to take up a large percentage of the military disproportionately. Also if they can't get enough from one state, they should allow E-3 with excellent records the option to sign up for another term if their MOS has been closed for promotion.

[Crowman2009]

12. Part of D.C.'s long history of racism and Jim Crow.

The stink of the racist south still lingers in D.C. How much do you wanna bet that a large percentage of these white police officers don't even live in D.C.? The Washington Redskins also forced their black football players to sing "Dixie".

[iluvtennis]

13. KnR. nt

[radius777]

15. The only way to change this issue

is to break the backs of the police unions which shields them from accountability while they continue to bilk the cities and towns they work for.

The problem is that the typical American (especially typical white American) worships the police, but really don't understand who or what they really are. Even the Dem party has historically turned away from wanting to confront this issue, as most politicians of any stripe are fearful of the police unions.

[StarfishSaver]

16. Par for the course - this has been happening in police departments across the country

And when Black police officers raise the issue, they are shut down and marginalized.

[BainsBane]

21. No, every establishment doesn't have people

who say those kinds of things. In fact, they get fired if they do.

[Tommymac]

24. I beleive every Police Dept has "Show Officers"

They may be persons of color, or they may be officers who happen to be white and are actually good people.

They are used to provide public cover for the White Racists in Blue when needed. To cover up the rot.

These good cops are trotted out every time a maskirova is needed to be the 'face' of the Police, to reassure the public, to cover up the systemic racism that is at the core of EVERY Police Dept in the country.

This has gone on for 400 years. It's time to finally clean house.