Turning away from injustice

By Joshus Westlund

As they say in New York: it's easier to indict a ham sandwich than it is to indict a cop. And just a short distance away from the Yale campus, a cop just got away with murder.

On Monday, State's Attorney Michael Dearington ruled that the fatal shooting of Malik Jones by East Haven Police Officer Robert Flodquist on April 14th was both "reasonable and justified." One thing is clear through the report's haze of fuzzy logic and legal verbosity: people in power cover each other's asses. With the police policing the police, justice hasn't been served.

Not that the ruling was surprising. Most people predicted that, based on Dearington's track record, Flodquist wouldn't be indicted. In three other instances, cops accused of misconduct got off without even being tried. Dearington's report seems thorough enough, and in some instances it even validates parts of Flodquist's story. But it doesn't come close to answering the pressing questions: why did what should have been a routine arrest turn into a grotesque killing? Why did Flodquist shoot Jones at least four times at point-blank range? Why didn't the East Haven Police Department call in the New Haven cops for backup when they crossed the town line? Did Flodquist's actions violate EHPD policy for high-speed chases? Why does the EHPD refuse to reveal its policy? Did the EHPD attempt to force a witness to leave the scene, and if so, why wasn't this witness' testimony included in the verdict? Dearington attempts to answer the first two questions, but ignores the latter.

And Dearington pumps bullets into the validity of his own conclusion when he admits that "another police officer...may have responded differently to the situation and Mr. Jones would be alive today." If other cops would have acted differently, fatal force wasn't necessary.

So how was the shooting justified? Dearington's report is unconvincing. Flodquist may have been in danger (that's disputed). Flodquist may have suspected Jones was armed (he wasn't). And yes, Flodquist may have feared for his life. But police are constantly required to make quick judgments, and communities depend on them to make the right ones. Dearington stoops to relativism to let Flodquist off the hook.

But what should Flodquist have done? Perhaps a cop should answer that question. New Haven Police Chief Melvin Wearing stated, "[Flodquist's] tactics were improper. We in policing have to know when to back off." Wearing claims that the proper procedure when an officer is unsure if his suspect is armed is to take cover, then call for the occupants to get out of the car; because, as Wearing stated, "You don't know what's in that car." Instead of taking cover, though, Flodquist marched up to Jones' car with his gun drawn.

Flodquist may have the support of his fellow EHPD officers, but his department doesn't have a great track record. The all-white EHPD has been accused of brutality before (see numerous accounts in this week's New Haven Advocate). The force's softball team wore "Boyz On the Hood" T-shirts that depict macho cops aggressively shoving two youths (wearing baggy urban apparel) onto the hood of a squad car. New Haven attorney John Williams, who's been suing local police departments for 20 years, told the Advocate that, "There's a culture in the East Haven Police Department that violence is okay."

Community support for Jones has been strong and militant. But one part of the community is still uninvolved: Yale. On Tuesday afternoon, medical school employee Craig Green stood on the corner of High and Elm, shouting into a bullhorn. He urged Yalies to get involved, since the shooting "happened in your community."

But Yalies responded by showing a common talent: the ability to look the other way when serious shit is going down. As Green pleaded for community action, Yalies responded with indifference, quickly walking by while staring at the ground. Even President Richard Levin passed by, showing his uncanny ability to pass a man with a bullhorn without noticing.

Green understood that he was preaching to those who refuse to be converted, persevering with the fervor of a man who knows the truth's on his side. "If you're in a rush, if you're going somewhere, I'm not going to stop you. This message is too powerful to explain to you. You wouldn't understand," he said. But part of the message is simple enough even for the typical Yale student to understand: using deadly force to apprehend a man guilty of only motor vehicle violations is never reasonable and never justified.

Joshua Westlund is a senior in Timothy Dwight.

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