The question at the Cesar Chavez lecture at a packed auditorium at Sierra College was, do all lives matter?
It was a great forum and a great dialogue, but in a sense, it was the wrong question. The reason is that each time the answer will invariably mischaracterize, misdirect, or at best, deflect. In case there is any doubt regarding this answer, one only need examine Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent ordering of a review of dozens of existing consent decrees between the Justice Department and police departments nationwide.
Translation: the consent decrees exist because there has been unquestionable abuse by law enforcement agencies around the country. The message from the Orange administration is of all lives, it is blue lives that matter most.
Perhaps some people at the forum felt that I am jaded — because I explained that I do not believe in the judicial system — because in my youth, I was almost killed by Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputies and charged with trying to kill four of them, but subsequently won both, my criminal (1979) and my lawsuit (1986) trials.
I think some people think that because I won twice in the courtroom, therefore I should believe in the judicial system. It is possible that someone could think that way. However, aside from living and witnessing such violence, as a journalist, and even now as a professor, I have researched this topic thoroughly, including watching many hundreds of videos of innocent people being killed, many in cold blood. Of all those that I have seen, I know of but one case in which an officer actually did time. It was the officer that killed Oscar Grant in Oakland, Johannes Mehserle, who did less than a year in jail for involuntary manslaughter. However, no one else.
What explains this?
This has little to do with the police themselves; it has to do with district attorneys who rarely, if ever, file criminal charges against officers who kill unjustifiably, even when the evidence appears to be incontrovertible. However, it doesn’t start or end there. One can say that it is the political environment that we live in that permits police officers that kill unjustifiably to wear a badge with impunity. The district attorneys take their cues from politicians at all levels, for fear of being viewed as anti-police.
