The Department of Justice collaborative review of the Memphis Department of Police Services is dead in the water almost a year after it was announced with much fanfare.
MPD has entered a downsized deal with the office of Community Oriented Policing Services as the Trump administration has neutered the DOJ's efforts to improve community policing in Memphis and 14 other U.S. cities.
AG Sessions: "Course Correction"
New York Daily News Photo
Attorney General Jeff Sessions last month declared that the COPS office would pull back its Collaborative Reform Initiative for Technical Assistance (CRI-TA) program which works with law enforcement agencies to recommend ways the agencies could improve policing practices and police-community relations.
What's left of the COPS office work with MPD is an offer of "technical assistance" --basically a menu of training that MPD may request -- such as police response to mass demonstrations, officer safety and wellness and problem-solving techniques. What's gone are the findings and recommendations that COPS was to present to MPD, then to follow through with monitoring and assistance during the two-year project. Toward the goal of preparing that report, the COPS team had worked hundreds of hours, including trips to Memphis, and time was invested by MPD and community organizations that had met with COPS. No such reports will be released to the public now, confirmed Valerie Jordan of the COPS communications division. "We're not going to give out that information," Jordan said.
SHIFTING INTO REVERSE, SEMANTICS AND ALL
Director of Police Services Michael Rallings on Oct. 12 signed a whittled-down "Memorandum of Understanding" between the COPS office and the Memphis Police Department for the “Collaborative Reform Initiative for Technical Assistance.”This document “supersedes and replaces” the "Memorandum of Agreement" executed by Mayor Jim Strickland on March 3, 2017. Notably, the city of Memphis itself is not a party to this document as the October MOU is not signed by Strickland.
Comparing the two documents simplistically -- beyond one being an "agreement" and the other an "understanding" -- the March agreement has a list of 17 commitments on the part of the city, and the October understanding has five.
Confusion and delay often are the tactics of an institution trying to resist change, and here are two pieces of confusion and delay we seek to clear up:
The City of Memphis request to remove the statue of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest will be adjudicated by a simple majority of the Tennessee Historical Commission -- not a two-thirds majority as citizens may have understood from recent media reports.
And, despite a letter from the Tennessee Historical Commission executive staff to city officials stating they would not be taking up the city's request at its next meeting, the commission members may do so if they please.
Will THC keep Memphis beneath the boot of the Rebel general?
The commission meets in Athens on Friday, and the first item on the agenda includes public comments, and the second item is to consider the city's request of a waiver of the 2013 Tennessee Heritage Act, which pulled authority from cities and into the state's hands on removing or renaming military-related artifacts. The commission is expected to hear from Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, #takemdown901 activist Tami Sawyer and citizens who may make comments. A provision of the Act allows for local jurisdictions to petition the commission for a waiver of its rules and permission to move or rename such artifacts.
Police Move in to Arrest Citizens who Oppose Confederate Statues in City Parks
Memphis city attorney Bruce McMullen's statement that officers did not arrest citizens for protesting but for "violating the law" at a Confederate statue protest raised eyebrows when he made the remark and has raised the hackles of those who were arrested Aug. 19.
After citizens sought to place a "Black Lives Matter" banner around the horse's feet on the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue in Health Sciences Park, police arrested seven persons. Five were charged with "disorderly conduct" and two with "obstruction of a highway/passageway." Those are typical "catch-all" charges officers use when no more specific violations have occurred.
At a panel discussing removal of this and one other Confederate statue in public parks in Memphis, McMullen, the city's chief legal officer, stated:
"I don't think the city has ever arrested anybody for engaging in public protest. People that were arrested were arrested for violating the law."
Which begs the question: What law?
Four of those cases have been dismissed in court -- two for "defective warrants," which in legalistic terms means the arresting officer made an error on his affidavit. It may be something simple, such as the wrong date or address was written down. In these cases, however, the flaw was more fundamental. The affidavits did not describe any behavior on the part of the citizen that was a basis for the charge. The remaining three cases are awaiting preliminary hearings.
Besides officers and command staff from the Memphis Department of Police Services, also present and participating in arrests were officers from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center Campus Police and Parking Services. An officer who swore to two charging affidavits stated: "An unlawful protest was underway."
Those are two of the cases still pending.
Some of those arrested have posted on Facebook, asking the city to explain what laws were violated. That's a good question which deserves a good answer, doesn't it?
Officers take Scott Prather to the ground after he walked away from the NBF monument Aug. 19
Prather's charge of "disorderly conduct" was dismissed in court
Below is a video clip that includes McMullen's remarks on that panel, held Oct. 3, 2017, at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. Other videos and stories from Citizens Media Resource, Daily Kos and Who Will Watch the Watchers? are linked at the bottom.
Before police swoop in to make arrests, statue opponents unfurl a Black Lives Matter banner
State Sen. Lee Harris says the city of
Memphis could apply political pressure to get Confederate statues removed from
city parks by putting a fence around the parks or by not cutting the grass.
“That would create national news,” Harris
said. “I don’t know any politician who does anything unless you box them
in.Politicians are not as courageous as
you think.”
Harris made the remarks at a forum, co-sponsored
by the Black Law Students Association,at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law yesterday.
Harris was joined on the panel by City of
Memphis Chief Legal Officer Bruce McMullen; private attorney and attorney for
Memphis City Council Alan Wade, and private citizen Tami Sawyer, who has
spearheaded the #takeemdown901 people’s movement to remove a statue of former Confederate
President Jefferson Davis and a statue of former Rebel General Nathan
Bedford Forrest from two city parks.
As Bruce McMullen explains how the city has never arrested anyone for protesting, Tami Sawyer goes from eye roll...
To amused...
To miffed...
To, Whatever
The Tennessee General Assembly passed
laws in 2013 and 2016 which shifted power from municipalities themselves to the
Tennessee Historical Commission when it comes to renaming city parks and
removing Confederate monuments. Gov. Bill Haslam, who appoints THC members, had officially implored the commission to vote at its Oct. 13 meeting on the city's request to remove Forrest’s statue in Health Sciences Park,
formerly Nathan Bedford Forrest Park.
However, the THC recently said that matter would not
be on its agenda.City of Memphis Mayor
Jim Strickland and McMullen have said they will attend the meeting and
encourage the THC to grant the city’s request.
McMullen and Wade said the mayor and city
council are committed to removing the statues, but they want to exhaust all
administrative and legal measures, including taking the matter to the Tennessee
or U.S. Supreme Court if necessary – rather than the city simply taking it upon
its own authority to remove them.
Above: We go all C-Span Lite, with minor editing, to bring you a video of the panel discussion at University of Memphis law school.
CITY MOVING WITH DELIBERATE SPEED
Sawyer expressed skepticism of the city’s
level of commitment to get the Rebel monuments out of public space, and at times
tensions rose between Sawyer and city attorney McMullen.
McMullen said public sentiment was part
of the city’s appeal to the Tennessee Historical Commission, which prompted
Sawyer to ask if the city would acknowledge that about 5,000 citizens had
signed a petition that has been delivered to the mayor.
McMullen started, then appeared to be searching for an answer, as
Sawyer reframed her question and pressed, “Will you acknowledge publicly that we sent to the mayor a
petition with 5,000 signatures in support of the waiver?”
Rev. Earle Fisher rallies the crowd at Aug. 19 rally to oppose Rebel statues
“You said that four times, “ McMullen
retorted, before agreeing they had received the citizens’ petition.
At one point Sawyer outlined the
timetable of the THC’s quarterly meetings and noted that the matter would still
not be acted upon by the THC when national attention came to Memphis April 4,
2018, upon the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.
“Let me correct one point,” McMullen
said.
“You can’t correct me; you may edit,”
Sawyer replied.
ARRESTING TAKE EM DOWN 901
During a rally Aug. 19 at the Forrest
statue, Memphis police arrested seven citizens – some of whom were standing on
the marble monument while others attempted to place a Black Lives Matter banner
around the feet of Forrest’s bronze horse, King Phillip.
Sawyer blasted the city for abridging
citizens’ freedom of speech, and McMullen claimed no one was arrested for
protesting but rather for “violating the law.”It is unclear which law or laws the city attorney thought were broken or
were being prosecuted upon citizens as police charged the catch-all disorderly
conduct in all but two cases, and four cases so far have been dismissed in
court. The remaining three cases have yet to receive a preliminary hearing. Arresting officer affidavits in two cases specifically cite: "An unlawful protest was underway."
After that action, Mayor Strickland put
out a statement criticizing statue opponents for being “divisive,” and he later
convened several local preachers and others for a photo opportunity showing his
support for removing the monuments.In
this gathering Strickland did not include Sawyer or others who were on the front
lines of #takeemdown901, such as Rev. Earle Fisher, and he called the effort to
remove the Confederate statues “our drive.”
Sawyer says the time is now to remove the
statues, and she cited the city’s history of not following laws – such as to
integrate schools in the 1950s – when laws conflict with public sentiment.
MONUMENTS TO INTIMIDATION
“These monuments were put there to intimidate
African-Americans,” Wade said.“That is
the very reason they should come down….
“The continued presence of this monument
– Forrest notwithstanding; he was the
general and you can laud all his accomplishments – but it’s not about who is
there. It’s about why it is there. And it is there to demean African-Americans
and continue to perpetuate this distinction in our culture and wealth and everything
else.The continued presence of that
thing is a thumb in the eye of our citizens, saying we are still in control and
you will never catch up with us.
“That’s the important thing to keep in
mind from a social point of view. But as a legal thing, we are going to fight
those out,” Wade said. "We believe we have a great likelihood of succeeding."
“We have made contact with all levels of
government that are connected with this effort – the governor, the city and
county mayors, city council, the historical commission -- and we have delivered
petitions to them with about 5,000 signatures,” Sawyer said.
“This was never a specific attack on Mayor
Strickland, and while we sit here and laud his efforts, that’s great, but the
protest and the actions were to make a public push for removal and to bring
this to the forefront of the administration and city council to have them
removed,” Sawyer said.
THE CITY’S PRECEDENT TO SHUN THE LAW
“As we think about this not just in the
legal context but in the historical context, when we go back to 1954 and we
were ordered by the Supreme Court (Brown vs. Board of Education) to integrate
schools with all deliberate speed.And
it took seven years for schools here to be integrated. And it took 13 parents
to file a lawsuit through the NAACP legal defense fund for their kindergarteners
to be the ones brave enough to integrate these schools.The schools they integrated are either closed
today, or they are a hundred percent black and Latino, or they are a hundred
percent low income.
“In 1951 there was a legal standard to
integrate schools and to insure there was no separation,” Sawyer said, “and that
there was equality in schools. Our city government chose to ignore that law,
because that’s what they thought was right.And our city government then chose not to engage in the process they
were required to do. Because that’s what
they thought their people wanted.
“So I continue to push, as the activist
on the panel, and say if the people are saying this is what they want, those
that the people have asked to represent them have the power and the right to be
radical in making this change.”
Harris said that the movement to take
down the statues has gained momentum in contrast to the city’s struggle in 2012
and 2013 to rename the parks that contain the monuments.When the Tennessee General Assembly passed
laws in 2013and 2016 that usurped the
authority of cities to control the monuments, Gov. Bill Haslam “did not have
political courage.He has a way to go,
but he has come a long way, and he is now for their removal." Harris noted that when he was a member of city council they considered renaming it "Ida B. Wells/Nathan Bedford Forrest Park," awkwardly combining the journalist who exposed lynching atrocities with the slave trader and first Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan. We have supposed how they might have then altered the monument (see photo).
Can you imagine...?
A RADICAL PATH?
“We can take a radical path,” Harris
said.“We can close the park, put a
fence around it.We are probably a long
way from doing something like that, but that’s a national news story.That would put so much pressure on the
governor and the Tennessee General Assembly.
“We can stop maintaining the parks.Don’t cut the grass, because the state has
said we don’t have control over our parks,” Harris said. “Let it get six feet
tall.That’s another national news
story.To be sure, it hurts us, but it
really puts the pressure on Nashville.There are a lot of levers to be pulled that we haven’t pulled quite
yet.”
Sawyer spoke of the racial wealth gap and
education inequity between African-Americans and Caucasians in Memphis, and she
said the effort to remove the Confederate symbols highlighted those
issues.
Under the boot of the Rebel general
“We don’t go away when the statues come
down.We will continue to bring
attention to the racial inequality in this city,” Sawyer said. There was no audience Q-and-A opportunity, although we had our question ready for the city attorney: As Baltimore took away its statues and a city official called it putting them under "protective custody" against vandals, how much is Memphis paying to have 24-hour police protection for the two statues, and would it not be better and cheaper to put them in "protective custody" for their own safety?
