The Staten Island grand jury’s decision not to indict the police officer who used a chokehold on Eric Garner has hit a raw nerve in the black and immigrant communities in Queens. Although many had hoped the white officer would be held accountable in the death of a black man arrested for selling loose cigarettes after a video captured the entire incident, most were not surprised he walked free.
Such is the level of distrust between the communities of color and the police that expectations justice will be served are very low for non-white residents, which is potentially destabilizing in the nation’s most diverse county.
Queens has been down this road in the fatal shooting of bridegroom Sean Bell and the wounding of his two friends by undercover detectives outside a Jamaica nightclub in November 2006.
Queens DA Richard Brown obtained an indictment from the grand jury, but the cops were acquitted after a nonjury trial. The NYPD held an internal trial and one officer was fired, while three others were forced to resign.
Justice was not perfect in this far less transparent case, but there were consequences for the four black and white officers, who fired 50 shots at three young black men.
The Justice Department is investigating the Garner homicide, the NYPD is undertaking its own probe and the state attorney general has asked to be named a special prosecutor in police killing cases.
Queens and the rest of the city are deeply troubled by the issue of race, the last taboo in our nation. Nonwhites have a different perception and experience of what it means to live in this city than white residents, who still turned out in droves to join the Garner protests.
The recent deaths of Garner and several young black men at the hands of police have brought race out of the closet and forced us to examine our views.
“This nation is not going to be able to sustain itself unless we invest in our black and brown boys,” David Banks, founder of the Eagle Academy schools for inner city boys, told a gathering in southeast Queens this weekend.
President Obama, who has lived on both sides of the racial divide, should lead a national dialogue on race. As our first black president, one of his most important legacies could be to set the agenda for America by talking frankly about his own deep struggles with race.
It’s time we all looked prejudice in the eye.
