Law Enforcement–Perpetrated Homicides. Tom Barker

cops who commit intentional murder are not a new phenomenon in American policing and will be discussed more fully later. The 1929 Wickersham Commission—the first National Commission on Police Violence—in a volume entitled Our Lawless Police—documented the use of the third-degree and other forms of police violence throughout the United States. The same report found that the American police of the 1920s and 1930s engaged in “institutionalized malpractice”—violations of constitutional rights or the human dignity of civilians (Richardson, 1974).

      Police violence was an accepted part of early urban policing in Chicago. For example, in Chicago, there were three justifications for police violence: First, to mete out punishment to wrongdoers, “That’s my motto, scare ‘em to death and knock the hell out of them, and let them go” (Haller, 1976: 318). Second, the third degree was an accepted part of investigative work. This was still in use in Chicago during the 1970s and 1980s. A Chicago police commander, Jon Burge, and his team of white detectives known as the “midnight crew” used electric shocks, waterboarding, and mock executions, accompanied by racial epithets, and attacks to the genitals to coerce false confessions from 200 predominately African American criminal suspects (Taylor, 2016). This was a part of the third reason for police violence, which was to uphold the dignity of the policeman. This is what is known as arrests for COP (Contempt of Cop) or POP(Pissing off the Police) in today’s police culture. During the 1960s many police supervisors would not accept a “resisting arrest” charge unless the suspect was sent to the hospital or the morgue. The rationale was that if he was a “cop fighter,” he might kill the next cop (personal experience). The “get tough on criminals” philosophy still exist in many police agencies as they conduct the War on Crime.

      War on Crime and Resulting Violence

      Theodore Roosevelt in 1894 was the first NYPD Police Commissioner to recognize the police as a military organization when he declared “war” against crime and corruption. He increased the officer’s weaponry and gave them the license to use it against criminals (Johnson, 2003: 88). Other police CEO’s have urged the police on in their “no quarter” for suspected criminals. The American police have always had hostility toward criminals, the courts, politicians, and civilians who do not share the police view of the genesis of crime, disorder, and its control (Richardson, 1974; Walker, 1977). This ideology was the standard for the NYPD since Clubber Williams declared, “There is more law in the end of nightstick than un a decision of the Supreme Court” (Johnson, 2003: 41). Frank Rizzo, when he was the Philadelphia Police Commissioner in the 1970s, reportedly told a newsperson, “The way to treat criminals is spacco il capa—to bust their heads” (Skolnick & Fyfe, 1993: 139). I hear the same philosophy from working police today.

      Previous Information on Police-Perpetrated Homicides

      Popular Sources for Police-Perpetrated Homicides

      The majority of information on homicides by LEOs, before the mid to late 1960s, is not the result of scholarly research; however, there is anecdotal evidence, some from popular sources. The 1977 publication Killer Cops: An Encyclopedia of Lawless Lawmen by Michael Newton is an excellent source to begin an examination of LEOs who murder in U.S. history. The fascinating book on sixty-seven American killer cops includes early nineteen-century cops and Western lawmen killer cops such as Bass Outlaw, Wild Bill Hickok, and Wyatt Earp. The popular market book was used as a reference source for research purposes, although I disagreed with many of his selections.

      Stark (1972) in a footnote describes a 1968 “friendly fire” incident between three trigger happy off-duty NYPD officers on a crowded expressway unaware that they were officers that left one dead and one seriously injured. A second 1968 “friendly fire” incident by an NYPD plainclothes officer and another Housing Authority plainclothes officer left NYPD officer dead. Friendly fire police homicides still occur in the NYPD and other police departments. Although multiple police-caused deaths are rare in modern police work, the Philadelphia police did drop an incendiary bomb on a row house occupied by a militant black cult (Skolnick, May 21, 1985). The fires spread to sixty more homes and lead to eleven deaths including five children ranging from age seven to thirteen. It could happen again in the present rise of police militarization with surplus military equipment.

      Early Scholarly Research on LEO-Perpetrated Homicides

      Professor Gerald Robin (1963) published one of the first empirical studies of justified police homicides—intentional killings commanded or authorized by law. He reported that from 1952 to 1955, the reported rate of justifiable police homicides (JPH) was 3.2 percent of the total number of homicides in the United States. Furthermore, Robin opined that the victim-offender relationship in police justified homicides is an example of victim-precipitated homicide because the victim was killed as a consequence of his criminal actions—an interesting but biased conclusion.

      Robin examined the thirty-two known police killing of criminals in Philadelphia from 1950 to 1960 according to official police records. Thirty of the cases were disposed by the medical examiner’s inquest, and two officers were indicted and cleared by a jury at trial. All the deaths were the result of gunshot wounds. Twenty-five victims of the police-caused homicide victims resisted during the attempted arrest. Seven of the thirty-two victims were fleeing when shot and killed. Robin also presented JPH reported for ten U.S. urban cities from 1950 to 1960—Boston 3; Buffalo 7; Milwaukee 10; Philadelphia 32; Washington, D.C., 26; Cincinnati 23; Kansas City MO. 23; Chicago 191; and Miami 21. He reported that the national statistics show that the U.S. police were six times more likely to kill than to be killed in the line of duty. He used this statistic to opine that the dangerousness of police work may be exaggerated. The study concluded that the JPH in the sample revealed that Negro’s deaths were disproportionate to whites at 7 to 1, female JPH’s deaths were negligible, JPH victims were relatively young, victims were generally unskilled workers, 70 percent of the shootings occurred between 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m., and two-thirds of the victims had criminal records. The author reported that six of the men killed had “strong indications of psychotic consequences” (Robin, 1963).

      Conclusion

      Complaints of police violence and LEO-perpetrated homicides are a part of American police history. The allegations are not confined to big cities or particular regions, any specific racial or ethnic group, or labeled dangerous class, or any type/pattern. For example, in August 1900 in Akron, Ohio, a shootout between police in a city building and civilians outside left two children killed by police gunfire (Richardson, 1974: 188). Johnson (2003) in her seminal study of NTPD police brutality complaints opined that the use of police violence progressed through several periods. In the nineteenth century, the major citizen complaint was “clubbing” where brutal police bludgeoned poor, working-class citizens, and immigrants with nightsticks and blackjacks. Severe injuries and deaths occurred during the “clubbings.”

      During the Prohibition era, NYPD police collusion with criminals increased police violence and the use of the third degree to elicit confessions. The victims were predominately the immigrant poor, African Americans, and other marginalized individuals and groups. Injuries and deaths occurred during these extracted false confessions. In the 1870s, the 1930s, and the 1960s mass police violence was directed at the dangerous classes such as Communists, labor, African American activists, strikers, and demonstrators. Johnson said that the significant police brutality complaints resulted in police brutality in the form of street justice—punishment given to criminals, wrongdoers, and disrespecters.

      The historical discussion of law enforcement violence and homicides against members and groups of the dangerous classes is a part of American history. However, the risk to the physical security and civil rights of those labeled as members of the dangerous classes still exists in this country. The use of the dangerous class label has utility for politically charged criminal justice professionals because of its flexibility. For example, a Texas District Attorney (DA) running for reelection arrested 177 bikers at a biker/police shoot out in Waco, Texas, as members or supporters of outlaw motorcycle gangs—criminal street gang according to Texas law (Barker, 2017). Police snipers killed four of the nine persons during the shootout. All charges against those arrested have been dropped and the DA was voted out of office. The Texas criminal street gang definition—dangerous class—was used as a hammer to force plea bargains and it backfired on him. The Texas DA was not the first to do so.