We are so proud today of Chattanooga Police Chief David Roddy and Hamilton County Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy Austin Garrett. We're proud because today they didn't form the blue line of silence that we've seen in years past when the latest example of injustice and unnecessary death at the hands of officers was thrust upon us.
But not this time. This time, Chattanooga Police Chief David Roddy on Wednesday afternoon tweeted about the unpardonable death in custody of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man suffocated by a white Minneapolis police officer who had thrust his knee onto Floyd's neck for an unforgivable eight or nine minutes. In a video made by a bystander, the officer seems nonchalant as Floyd gasps that he can't breath and as witnesses nearby beg for that officer and three others to let the man get his breath.
Roddy's tweet - with a still photo taken from the witness's video - reads: "There is no need to see more video. There no need to wait to see how "it plays out". There is no need to put a knee on someone's neck for NINE minutes. There IS a need to DO something. If you wear a badge and you don't have an issues with this ... turn it in."
Hamilton County's Chief Deputy Garrett, a former Chattanooga officer, took to Twitter four hours later: "As leaders our communities must know where we stand. This act of violence is black & white. Make no mistake, there's no explanation or gray in it. For 8 min George Floyd lay suffocating and dying. If you wear a badge stand up for what's right & stand up & speak out against wrong."
Indeed. In Minneapolis, the four officers involved were fired, and Mayor Jacob Frey has said Offier Derek Chauvin - the one who held his knee on Floyd, should be charged in Floyd's death. The FBI is investigating.
Former Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher, who retired and moved to Colorado, also took to social media platforms, urging officers everywhere to act against everyday injustices.
On Thursday morning, Fletcher tweeted a quote from American author Ibam Kendi: "The opposite of racist isn't 'not racist.' It is 'anti-racist.' There is no in-between safe space of 'not racist.'
The day before, Fletcher had tweeted: "Those of us from LE have duty to stand up & speak out & act against injustices large & small in our profession - long before they become murder. I see many of u who do stand up & act - lets magnify their influence."
Yes, yes. Please do. It is so needed. Perhaps especially in our region where instances in the not-so-distant past brought the writers of these pages to chastise, not praise, our law enforcement leaders.
* In late January of 2019, at least four Chattanooga council members voiced their disgust and concerns when a video came to light the week before of a Chattanooga officer punching and cursing a compliant man during a March 2018 traffic stop.
* In December of 2018, a Chattanooga rapper was punched and kicked by a sheriff's detective while in handcuffs. The officer said the man spit on him and bit his finger. The video shows only the officer punching the man twice in the mouth then shaking his hand as if in pain.
* In November 2018, a Chattanooga officer was arrested on charges of felony kidnapping and felony sexual battery after allegedly taking a woman caught shoplifting to his apartment, fondling her and telling her he wanted to have sex with her.
* The month before, a 27-year-old man woke up in Parkridge Medical Center East's intensive care unit after an East Ridge Police Department arrest left him with a chipped tooth, a hammering heart, a bruise the size of a grapefruit around his groin and more on his stomach, wrists and sides.
* In March 2017, a Hamilton County Sheriff's Department vehicle pursuit led to a beating so severe one of the suspect's testicles was ruptured.
Many of those incidents were captured on camera - either by witness cellphones, police body cameras or dash cams, and surveillance footage. The images are changing the way Americans see police. For better or worse.
We've seen it happen, serially, all over the country in recent years. The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis was just the most recent. Before that we watched with sadness similar videos of police actions with Sandra Bland in Texas, Walter Scott in South Carolina, Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Eric Garner in New York City, just to name a few.
Sickeningly, we saw a beating here in 2013 captured on Salvation Army surveillance cameras. The cameras showed eight or 10 minutes of two Chattanooga officers slamming dozens of baton blows on halfway house resident Adam Tatum, who is seen writhing in a fetal position and begging them to stop hitting him. The baton blows came so regularly Tatum had no time to follow the officer's repeated commands to roll over on his stomach. Later the video shows an officer kicking the then-handcuffed Tatum - now with two broken legs - from a sitting position onto his back.
Sadly, all of these videos offer corroboration of what African-Americans have been saying for years about police injustice. But it's important to remember that videos of good police actions rarely make the news - because behavior as it should be isn't news. It's simply the behavior as it should be. It's what's right, not what's wrong.
Policing is one of the hardest jobs on earth. And with the tweets of Chief Roddy and Chief Deputy Garrett, we saw good policing at work in Chattanooga on Wednesday.
Thank you, gentlemen.