A DEVASTATING REPORT
If you still need to understand why the Springfield Police Department, like many around the country, is being castigated for its treatment of Black and Brown people, you need only read the United States Justice Department’s 28 page report on its investigation of the department’s Narcotics Bureau. It is a powerful testimonial to the blatant, regular, random and institutionalized violence against Springfield’s Black and Brown residents that extends – the report found – well beyond the Narcotics Bureau as a regular part of the culture of the entire Springfield Police Department. The report leaves no doubt that we who are critics of the department have been absolutely correct in our conclusions that the rot is much deeper than “a few bad cops” and will only be corrected by a wholesale reformation of the manner in which policing is conducted in Springfield. And the proposed comprehensive state law passed by the state Senate would be a good start because it appears that it won’t happen on the local level. (See full report at https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-findings-investigation-narcotics-bureau-springfield)

NATHAN BILL RESTAURANT HAS SHOWN ITSELF TO BE A RACIST CANCER IN SPRINGFIELD
One would think that the owners of Nathan Bill Restaurant on Island Pond Road would have learned a lesson from recent events in which two of its owners are under indictment for assisting the five White police officers for assaulting four of its Black patrons, especially after the recent demonstration outside of its location in protest of the rehiring by Mayor Sarno and Commissioner Clapprood of five police officers indicted for helping to cover up the investigation into the incident. A recent racist posting on social media suggests they haven’t learned anything. Not only was the posting a confirmation of their racist orientation and a cause for another demonstration but it also showed their ignorance of the state Public Accommodations Law that makes it illegal to discriminate against people because of their race. The restaurant posted new rules describing people who would be banned from the property based upon their dress and appearance that were clearly directed at a Black and Brown audience. The owners probably considered themselves clever by not expressly stating their intent to discriminate but by masking their racial intent in neutral language. But that only shows their ignorance of the law regarding “pretext” and “disparate impact,” which penetrates such duplicity. Whether or not they continue to cater to police clientele, who seem to like beating up on Black and Brown people, they should also keep a lawyer on hand whom they might pay with the thousands of dollars in Community Development Block Grant money the city gave Nathan Bill even while its owners remained under indictment.

WHAT IS THAT ALL ABOUT?
The Springfield City Council cut $800,000 out of the city budget that was intended for a firing range for city police. The $800,000 was the city’s first payment on a 20-year lease for a building that was purchased from Smith and Wesson by a private group for less than $800,000. To make the record clear, the city entered into the lease to pay $800,000 for each of the next 20 years without informing the city council, which had to approve the first payment as part of the annual budget and will be required to approve each of the remaining nineteen payments each year. After purchasing the building, the buyers made substantial contributions to Mayor Sarno’s campaign before the contract with the city was signed. The rational for entering into a contract that will eventually cost the city $16 million dollars was that the buyers had to spend several million dollars to renovate the building. Nevertheless, given the numbers, no mathematical calculation can justify such a lopsided deal and the council was right to cut it out of the police budget. (See pg. 14)

WAS IT RIGHT OR WAS IT SPITE?
I couldn’t help but suspect that Springfield police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood terminated police detective Florisa Fuentes out of spite after she re-posted her niece’s participation in a Black Lives Matter protest on Facebook. Unfortunately, her niece was holding a sign containing an anti-police slogan. When Fuentes began receiving angry calls from fellow officers, she immediately removed the post and apologized profusely explaining (very credibly) that her intent was to highlight her niece’s activism and not to insult police. The 30-year-old Fuentes grew up in Springfield’s North End neighborhood and joined the police department last year and succeeded in advancing to detective before the end of her first year. Although her post was not directed at her fellow officers, she was instantly terminated by the commissioner who had recently come under criticism by Black and Hispanic councilors. Commissioner Clapprood’s petulance has been on display before and it is not unfair to suspect that her instant termination of Fuentes for an innocent mistake, while coddling other officers who have committed far more serious intentional offenses, was an act of spite. Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno typically defended Commissioner Clapprood saying, “I concur with Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood’s decision…” Of course, he was equally as dogmatic in support of Clapprood’s recent decision to rehire five officers who were under indictment. That didn’t work out too well.

CLAPPROOD/SARNO/MOSS RULES
Because of a social media posting on Facebook, the Springfield Police Department revoked Kashawn Harris’ gun license and confiscated his two guns without as much as a hearing. Harris is a well known DJ who runs a business called DJ Boogy Entertainment. He obtained a license to carry and purchased two guns because he travels to many different venues with very expensive equipment often very late at night…guns he had never even fired before except once at a firing range. Some of his postings were of old iconic photographs of armed Black Panthers, photos that are very public and have been viewed by millions and millions of people for years and years… “vintage” photos as described in an article in The Republican (July 8, 2020). He posted other comments that might have been insulting to some but nothing that would be outside of his constitutional right to free speech and nothing that would justify the cancelation of his license to carry or the confiscation of his guns…except, it seems, in the minds of the police, his blackness. But Harris protested. And things happened, including inquiries made to the Commissioner as to police policy by some concerned elected officials that remained unanswered…that is until in the same article, Mayor Sarno, who inaccurately dramatized the postings as a threat on him and his family, became involved in a puzzling way that nobody will fully understand. Part of his comment was, “Police officials followed their usual procedures in this matter and to the best of my knowledge this matter has been resolved.” Oh, yeah! Resolved how? Well, the mayor’s aide, Darryl Moss, called the executive aide to Commissioner Clapprood and informed him/her that he was coming to the station with Harris to retrieve his license and guns, which he did. Just like that! In spite of the fact that, by law, Mr. Harris was required to file an appeal before a judge within 90 days of the revocation. Somebody, or maybe everybody in their official capacity broke the law… the mayor, Domenic Sarno, if he ordered his aide, Darryl Moss, to use his political clout or Darryl Moss if he acted without the mayor’s instructions, Clapprood’s executive aide if he/she acted on his/her own or Commissioner Clapprood if she gave the okay to reverse the revocation without following proper procedure. We’ll never know quite what happened because nobody’s talking. But one thing we do know, if Kashawn Harris had not been wrongfully targeted in first place, none of this keystone cop foolishness would have happened.

MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, THINGS ARE CHANGING FOR THE BETTER
I am trying so hard not to be cynical about current events suggesting that “racial reckoning” is really happening in America. So many things are happening at one time that listing them all is impossible but Nascar has banned the confederate flag; Mississippi has removed the confederate flag symbol from its state flag; football Commissioner Roger Goodell has apologized for his previous insensitivity to Black players’ peaceful protests against Black killings by police; the Washington Redskins have removed the “Redskins” from their name and their Indian logo; polls show that White folks are now pro Black Lives Matter and demonstrations against unnecessary police killings of Black folks have been attended by as many White folks as Black folks; confederate statues are being pulled down around the country; and former San Francisco Black quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who started the kneeling during the playing of the national anthem, is popular again. And even more significant, the racist rants of Trump are causing his poll numbers to tank nationwide in most of the election battleground states thereby causing many of his fellow Republicans to create political distance from him. Maybe!

CORONAVIRUS DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE
At some point I may tire of quoting Renee Graham but not yet. She is simply one of the best at articulating the nature of racism in America. In a recent Boston Globe article titled “Living in a racist country is a risk factor” (April 12, 2020), she wrote: “Coronavirus does not discriminate. It doesn’t need to. In a nation strategically built on racial and economic inequality, it was never going to be ‘the great equalizer’ some touted. Being a Black or brown person is not a pre-existing condition. Yet this pandemic is a lethal reminder that living in a racist country is.”

WHO ARE THESE WHITE PEOPLE?
What amazes me most about Trump’s public racist rants is the number of White people who cheer him on. I find myself constantly asking, “Who are these crazy White people?” “Where did they come from?” “How did they become so prominent and powerful in a country like America?” And, “How in heavens name, after watching him in action over the last three years, can they still adore and support him?” I’ve studied despots like Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini and many others who appealed to the worst in people and naively believed it couldn’t happen in America. What is it? I mean, the man loves Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping of China and the nut running North Korea. And he has all but destroyed our relationships with our post World War II allies for no apparent good reason. And he has tested every one of our major institutions to the breaking point and 45 to 50% of White people in America still love him. They don’t care that he is a gangster. They don’t even care that he looks down on them and considers them stupid and fodder for his own twisted political and financial ambitions that don’t even include them except for at the most rudimentary level that won’t put money in their pockets or food on their tables. Who are these demented White people? How can a man like Trump whip them into such a frenzy with crazy rhetoric that shouldn’t fool a two year old? They won’t even wear masks to save themselves and their families and people around them! It is beyond me. It is frightening. Which is why, come election day, we’ve got to somehow force the social genie Trump has released back into the bottle and cap it with a concrete cork and never let it come out again. ■