Keeping an eye on rogue cops in Pierce County before the age of cellphone cameras

These days multiple incidents of police brutality fuel protests that rumble across the nation following the death of George Floyd. Some argue that Floyd, who didn’t live to be charged with a crime, was a criminal and the police were within their rights to carry out street justice.

In my experience of decades of reporting, it’s a common practice for police in dealing with Blacks, other ethnicities or poor whites – those on the fringes of the mainstream.

I was a reporter for The Tacoma News Tribune in the 1980s and was on assignment when a police cruiser suddenly sped around the corner.

The lights began to flash and siren began to wail. An old Impala pulled to the side of the road. The photographer who was with me pulled into the parking lot across the street, wondering what was coming down.

The officer ordered the driver to get out of the car, and when she did, he approached with his baton. We watched as he grabbed the shabbily dressed white woman by the throat and pinned her against her car.

He pushed her to the ground, got on top of her back, handcuffed her and called for backup. Six patrol cars rushed to the scene and police swarmed the area. I got out of the car and walked across the street.

None of the officers realized I had witnessed the event. When I asked the sergeant what was happening, he said, “Honey, wait over there,” and huddled with the rest of the police.

Moments later he returned and told me the woman was suspected of child abuse and had resisted arrest.

I was stunned. At no time had I seen her resist.

The woman was arrested and taken to jail. Even my employer was not very interested in a story about a wrongfully accused alleged child abuser, a “dirt bag.”

We were up against the narrative that police were the heroes. Anything to the contrary was not welcome, especially if the suspect might have committed something as revolting as child abuse.

I found that the woman had a public defender and I wrote him a letter detailing all I had seen. Charges were dropped.

A police-officer friend, uninvolved in the incident, told me I should have minded my own business and let the police handle theirs. Later, the defendant called me. But the gratitude was sheer mockery: “Thanks, bitch,” she said.

Her lack of gratitude never changed how I viewed my actions. My decision to call out the police for lying had nothing to do with what she was accused of. It had nothing to do with whether I thought she was a good person.

Nor should the lives of those who died at the hands of police be measured by perceptions of their worth by the mainstream white community. A crucial part of democracy is the guarantee of one’s innocence until proven guilty.

I acted in defense of the woman not because I thought she was a stellar mother, or a wonderful upright citizen. I knew nothing about her and I came to her aid because I believe in democracy.

Police have the power to limit one’s freedom – or even take a life – and with it comes the responsibility to leverage that power according to the law.

From 2013 to 2019, police in the United States killed 7,666 people, according to the advocacy and research group, Mapping Police Violence. Although statistics vary according to a variety of factors, Blacks by all accounts are killed at a higher rate than whites, according to PolitiFact.

Police are paid to uphold the law, not write new ones. Until the culture changes to holding police accountable for enforcing laws, not breaking them, we will continue to have tragedies that fracture our nation.

Nancy Bartley of Federal Way is a former reporter for The News Tribune and Seattle Times. She’s a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington and has shares in two Pulitzer Prizes for breaking news reporting.