The Gantt Report, by Lucius Gantt
Reverend Al Sharpton has announced plans for a march on Washington. The march, planned for August on or near the same date when Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech, will also feature MLK III and reportedly the George Floyd family and other families victimized by police murders and misconduct.
Sharpton and King may have good intentions, but the proposed march may benefit politicians more than it does victims of law enforcement violence.
The Gantt Report talked about police training at least 25 years ago and the Negro leaders that you love ignored the TGR message and the columnist that urged the Black community to address the training issue.
Training remains the main way to fight police misconduct and I’ll get back to that but first let me tell you what the people who say they are fighting for you are up against.
The Minnesota Attorney General and the lawyers for all the families that have been victimized by police misconduct suggest that it will be hard to try and convict lawless law enforcement officers.
It is hard but I know why. Let me explain. The politicians you love probably will hate my explanation.
It’s all about the money!
The Floyd family and the other families mourning the illegal and wrongful deaths of their loved ones will pay celebrity attorneys to represent them in the “hard” court battles, that will string out for years, but grieving families also contributed to paying the salaries of the policemen that killed their family members.
The taxes paid by victims of police murders and police misconduct also pays the salaries of the government prosecutors and judges that minimize and/or dismiss the heinous, beastly and devilish actions of law enforcement officers.
Let me tell you how police misconduct is dealt with by government.
When a complaint is filed there is always a discussion that takes place that includes the police chief, city or county manager and the government attorneys and they decide how to proceed.
More often than not, they decide to fight the case. Governments could never pay all of the citizens victimized or mistreated by law enforcers.
They decide to circle the wagons. Governments will lie to complainants, hide evidence, destroy evidence and delay the release of evidence like police body cam video and audio pertinent to the police murder case.
The government will quickly approach family lawyers and offer to pay their legal fees if they get families to drop or settle their cases. If that doesn’t work, the government will sweeten the lawyer pot by offering lawyers “risk management” contracts for the family lawyers to work on government legal cases. Some lawyers and their family members are even charged with law violations themselves because they file charges against government.
The Negro leaders, “movement” leaders and other people news networks pay to speak on your behalf will tell you what they are paid to tell you.
Your hand-picked leaders say, “We need laws to address police murder and misconduct.”
Come on! Who are you kidding? There are laws in the books right now against murder that are never enforced when people of color are victimized by police murders and misconduct!
If you want American and worldwide change in police and government behavior, attack the money! Your government uses your tax dollars to hurt you so why don’t you and the highly paid lawyers you love to hire attack the money of government officials that rubber stamp, parrot and vote to support whatever the police chiefs tell them to support?
In 1989, in Tallahassee, Florida, I was arrested and charged with Felony Assault on a Law Enforcement Officer. Government lawyers said I beat a police officer so bad the officer had to have neurosurgery for the wounds he suffered.
If you violently attack a police officer in the presence of other officers, the other officers have the authority to shoot, or kill, you, if you don’t know.
I was cuffed and transported to the police holding cell for processing. When placed inside the holding cell, I was handcuffed to the cell bars, torture style, with my hands over my head and no one else in the cell was handcuffed at all, just me. Imagine what could have been done to me. The hand cuffing of inmates inside of holding cells doesn’t even happen in Hollywood!
After about three hours of incarceration, I was “un-arrested”, whatever in the hell that means, and I walked out of the cell and the jail.
I filed a suit in federal court, but no local lawyer would take my case, so I represented myself, Pro Bono
Every day the government filed motions to dismiss my case. Even though I never took a law class in my life, my case went all the way to the jury.
Why? Because I focused my case on training and federal case law supported my legal approach.
Lawyers that constantly get million dollar fees will not tell victimized families that elected officials can be held publicly, and personally liable, if they voted to finance police training that trains police officers how to falsely arrest, beat, choke and murder innocent and law abiding citizens.
If lawyers don’t know the law, they can find it using “Westlaw”, a program that searches cases. I used “Brown vs. the City of Oakland, California, a 1992 case. (Or, search Lucius Gantt vs. Wilton Dozier, the City of Tallahassee, et al)
Using that case law, I, a person who never read a single law book, was able to bring the Tallahassee Mayor, City Commissioners, Police Chief, Deputy Chief and other government employees to court and make them testify about the millions of tax payer dollars they voted for to ineffectively, inappropriately and insensitively train police on how to commit and basically cover up police misconduct and police murders.
Yes, the elected officials in Minnesota, Texas, Georgia, Kentucky and other states all vote to defend police murderers. (I think they spent about $500,000 to fight against little old me but you’ll never know because government will never release how much tax money is used to defend police accused of misconduct.)
When you start suing politicians for their votes to support police and to defend police misconduct, I promise you there will be fewer votes to defend devilish law enforcement officers!
African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics and other people of color can change the world by suing governments and elected officials and getting rid of officials that maintain the police status quo.
You tell me. Why do your political, religious and other leaders tell you to march, pray and sing about justice when everybody knows that tactic has not worked? They tell you to protest but only protest in the way acceptable to the people in power that hate you.
Think about it. No one needs special laws in America but Black people.
The Gantt Report has always said, in a capitalist society, capital, or money, is the primary motivating factor.
The worldwide protests will get a few people a few jobs but it will not change how laws are enforced, it will not change equal access to capital, it will not create affordable housing or better healthcare, we have to fight with strategies that will hurt our exploiters, our oppressors and our racial enemies!
And, voting for the party you love will not get the results you want. Vote, but vote for elected officials that will vote for you.
Believe it or not, most State Attorneys and State Prosecutors are Democrats. They are reluctant to prosecute police murders that kill Black men, women or children but you run to the polls to reelect them anyway.
Too many of the people that disguise themselves as Democrats, in reality, are really Dixiecrats who, behind closed doors, vote to support, defend and finance devilish lawmen with your tax dollars that kill people like George Floyd.
If you learn, the political game you can win the battle you’re trying to win!
Let’s consider every strategy instead of relying on the old and failed tactics of the past.
Lucius is a contributing columnist to NNPA newspapers around the nation, and the author of “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” available on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.