THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PAGE 21A
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2014
SHOOTINGS
4
Police attempt to curb unrest
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The police killings of two unarmed black men came barely three weeks apart, generating immediate and potentially volatile outrage.
but compared with the violent aftermath of Michael Brown's shooting in Ferguson, Mo., the fallout from the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York now seems notable for what's been absent: no guns pointed at raging protesters, no billowing tear gas, no lengthy delay in revealing an officer's name, no National Guard troops.
The relative calm in New York followed a carefully calibrated response by city and police officials intended to neutralize possible unrest. The response drew
on the lessons from other high-profile use-of-force cases involving black victims that roiled the city in the late 1990s.
Activist Joo-Hyun Kang, of Communities United for Police Reform, said the department's record on dealing with outrage over possible brutality is checked at best, pointing to an ugly clash last year between police in riot gear and a bottle-throwing crowd after the police slaying of a teenager in Brooklyn. The
what you want in a democracy is the ability to express your concerns, but you don't want it to spill over into disorder."
Initial outrage over Garner's July 17 death was fueled by an amateur video showing an arresting officer appearing to put him in a chokehold, banned under police policy, and Garner gasping "I can't breathe" before falling unconscious. The next day Mayor Bill de Blasio postponed a family vacation, spoke with black community leaders and called a news conference with Bratton.
"What you want in a democracy is the ability to express your concerns, but you don't want it to spill over into disorder," Police Commissioner William Bratton said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "I think we've had a very informed and reasonable response to the issues raised by everybody. There's been no violence."
clashes. NYPD officials said Tuesday they're in contact with organizers of a Sharpton-led march planned for Saturday, an effort to preserve calm headed by a Community Affairs Division staffed with hundreds of officers citywide.
Officials say police commanders reached out to community activists and offered condolences to Garner's family. On July 19, two days after the death, the New York Police Department released the name of the officer and announced he had been placed on desk duty while a prosecutor determines whether to bring criminal charges. On July 31, de Blasio and Bratton sat next to the Rev. Al Sharpton at a City Hall roundtable about community concerns.
De Blasio, a Democrat, called the death a "terrible tragedy" and the video "very troubling." Bratton conceded "this would appear to have been a chokehold." Both promised a thorough investigation.
WILLIAM BRATTON Police Commissioner
Demonstrations after Garner's death have been peaceful, even after the medical examiner ruled it a homicide. A rally in Times Square last week protesting the deaths of Brown and Garner resulted in only five arrests for minor offenses and no serious
emphasis on keeping order after Garner's death "fails to address the racial profiling that caused it in the first place or how these cases send the message
that police officers are above the law" she said.
The challenges harken back to the torture of Abner Louiama with a broken broomstick by an officer in a police station bathroom in 1997 and the death of Amadou Diallo in a hail of 41 bullets fired by four white officers searching for an armed rapist in 1999. Both cases sparked demonstrations resulting in hundreds of arrests and frayed then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's already tense relationship with the black community.
But Howard Safir, police commissioner under the Republican Giuliani amid both crises, says conditions could have been worse if city and police officials hadn't taken swift steps to keep the peace. During a closed-door meeting after the Louima assault, it was decided he and the mayor should visit Louima in the hospital and meet with community leaders in Brooklyn, Safir recalled on Tuesday.
Similarly, the pair decided to attend Diallo's funeral after the administration concluded, "This one has legs and we have to get on top of it real quick," he said.
The department then, as now, also benefited from racial diversity in its ranks, experience with crowd control at large events including the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square and a robust community affairs operation geared toward developing relationships in communities before tragedy strikes, Safir said.
One measure used to quell unrest was to negotiate with Diallo demonstrators and persuade them to use designated protest areas policed by officers in what are called soft uniforms, windbreakers and baseball caps.
"In the final analysis, police officers are human beings who make mistakes," he said. "You have to be prepared to deal with it."
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Barack Obama is getting off the island.
Upward mobility!
In a rare move for him, the president took a break in the middle of his Martha's Vineyard vacation to return to Washington just after midnight Monday for meetings with Vice President Joe Biden and other advisers on the U.S. military campaign in Iraq and tensions between police and protesters in Ferguson, Mo.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Obama heads back to DC after vacation break in Mass.
PRESIDENT
President Barack Obama walks with daughter Malia Obama, to board Air Force One at Cape Cod Coast Guard Air Station in Bourne, Mass., on Aug. 17 en route to Washington via Cape Cod from the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard. The president is taking a short hiatus from his family vacation on the island of Martha's Vineyard to attend meetings in Washington.
and attended a birthday party for Democratic adviser Vernon Jordan's wife, where he spent time with former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
began and before the shooting of a teen in Ferguson that sparked protests.
The White House has been cagey about why the president needs to be back in Washington for those discussions. He's received multiple briefings on both issues while on vacation. The White House had also already announced Obama's plans to return to Washington before the U.S. airstrikes in Iraq
"I think it's fair to say there are, of course, ongoing complicated situations in the world, and that's why you've seen the president stay engaged," White House
Yet those crises turned the first week of Obama's vacation into a working holiday. He made on-camera statements Iraq and the clashes in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb. He also called foreign leaders to discuss the tensions between Ukraine and Russia, as well as between Israel and Hamas.
spokesman Eric Schultz said.
Obama is scheduled to return to Martha's Vineyard on Tuesday and stay through next weekend.
Even though work has occupied much of Obama's first week on vacation, he still found plenty of time to golf, go to the beach with his family and go out to dinner on the island.
That get-together between the former rivals-turned-partners added another complicated dynamic to Obama's vacation. Just as Obama was arriving on Martha's Vineyard, an interview with the former secretary of state was published in which she levied some of her sharpest criticism of Obama's foreign policy.
He hit the golf course one more time Sunday ahead of his departure, joining two aides and former NBA player Alonzo Mourning for an afternoon round. He then joined wife Michelle for an evening jazz performance featuring singer Rachelle Ferrell. They left for Washington late Sunday night.
Obama's vacation has also been infused with a dose of politics. He headlined a fundraiser on the island for Democratic Senate candidates
Clinton later promised she and Obama would "hug it out" when they saw each other at Jordan's party. No reporters were allowed in, so it's not clear whether there was any hugging, but the White House said the president danced to nearly every song.
STATE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Garden City beef plant reopening after 2012 'pink slime' dispute
A shuttered Kansas processing plant that produced a treated ground beef product critics dubbed "pink slime" plans to reopen next week with limited operations amid rebounding sales, the company said Tuesday.
Beef Products Inc. said it planned to start collecting fresh beef trimmings at its Garden City facility beginning Monday to support its current Dakota City, Nebraska production operations. The Kansas plant is the first to reopen since the company closed three
Some 236 workers at the Garden City plant lost their jobs in 2012 and the dustup over a meat product called lean, finely textured beef.
"BPI continues to experience growth and remains confident
The Dakota Dunes, South Dakota-based company will rehire 40 to 45 workers for two shifts of fresh beef trimmings collection and a third shift cleaning crew at its Garden City location.
of its facilities over the 2012 controversy about the meat.
this growth will continue," Craig Letch, BPI's director of food quality and safety, said in a news release. "Although business conditions are not yet to the point where we can resume lean beef production operations in Garden City, this is certainly a step in the right direction."
The uproar prompted Beef Products to suspend operations at plants in Amarillo, Texas; Waterloo, Iowa; and Kansas that cost nearly 700 jobs.
"It is good news for that community," said Jeremy Jacobsen, a spokesman for the Dakota Dunes, South Dakotabased BPI, said Tuesday.
Loss of revenue over the controversy was a contributing factor in Cargill's shutdown of its plant in Plainview, Texas.
that employed more than 2,000 people, although the tight cattle supply played a larger role in that decision, Cargill spokesman Mike Martin said Tuesday. Cargill also shut down a facility in Vernon, California, outside of Los Angeles that further processed the meat product.
BPI filed a lawsuit in 2012 against ABC News and others, saying that the network's coverage prompted consumer to shun the product and led to the plant closures and layoffs. BPI said it lost 80 percent of its business in 28 days.
BPI hasn't said exactly how much sales have rebounded.