Yet Another Police Killing in Inglewood

Inglewood Police officials were tight-lipped about the police shooting of Kevin Eugene Wicks. There was a good reason. The shooting of Wicks, like the killing of at least three other African American males by Inglewood police officers, again raised many troubling questions, not just about the murky circumstances of the shooting, but also about such thorny issues as Inglewood police department policies and procedures on the use of deadly force, training methods, discipline of officers, and most importantly, whether a police department be trusted to conduct a full and impartial investigation of itself.

Inglewood police officials will be sorely tested again in the Wicks shooting. Neighbors and family members hotly dispute the police version of the shooting. Police officials and family members agree on one thing and that’s that police officers went to the wrong apartment. That’s all.

Neighbors and family members say that Wicks was in his own apartment and the officers did not properly identify themselves. Wicks, they contend, had a legally registered gun and did not threaten officers with the gun. Wicks kept the legally registered gun for protection since the area is reportedly a high crime area.

The next step is the investigation. The tormenting suspicion is that police routinely bend, twist and massage testimony and evidence to whitewash and ultimately exonerate officers. They drag these investigations out for months, even years, before ultimately rendering a decision. That decision is almost always that the officer-involved shooting was justified. By the time they render the virtually preordained decision to exonerate, the anger over and memory of the shooting have long since evaporated.

But the real question is why do police often shoot first and ask questions later in a small city such as Inglewood and where the victims are almost always young blacks? The finger of blame points directly at department training methods, oversight and discipline. If they are lax or nonexistent, tragedies such as the Wicks killing are guaranteed to happen. But that’s only part of the answer.

The other is the deep-seated wariness, even fear, that police officers have of young blacks. The frequent media portrayal of young blacks as crime-prone, drug-dealing gangsters, the gang and murder violence that continues to wrack many black neighborhoods in Inglewood and other cities and the glorification of the thug lifestyle by many young blacks reinforces negative racial perceptions. This makes many whites, non-blacks, and even many blacks, guarded, suspicious and fearful of blacks. It’s still virtually impossible to convince many jurors, that some police lie, beat, maim and even kill unarmed suspects.

Since there are no ironclad standards of what is or isn’t acceptable use of force, or what degree of force is excessive, it often comes down to a judgment call by the officer. That creates just enough doubt that if the victim, no matter how innocent he or she may appear to be, was not the aggressor, then he or she at least put up enough resistance to the arrest to justify some use of force to restrain him or her, or worse, the use of deadly force.

This was the case with Wicks. Police officials say that Wicks’ possession of a gun was more than enough cause for the officer to fear for his life.

The near universal failure of police officials to take punitive action against officers who overuse deadly force almost always starts with the investigation. Eyewitnesses are not sworn.

And, invariably, when evidence contradicts the officers’ version of events, police officials reflexively rely on the testimony of the officers to sustain their version of what happened.

This ensures that police officials will rule in nearly every case that the officers did not violate any department policies or procedures on the use of deadly force. A fair and impartial investigation into the circumstances surrounding police killings, and that certainly includes the Wicks killing, must have one aim—that is to find out what went so horribly wrong that police had to resort to gunplay and then ensure that there’s no repeat of the tragedy. These are the tough questions that should be asked routinely in a truly impartial police investigation. They must be asked in the Wicks investigation

Did the officer give a warning before opening fire on Wicks? This is disputed. Did he attempt to find out if Wicks threatened the officer with his gun? This is disputed. Do witnesses corroborate the officer’s version of the Wicks shooting? They don’t.

The Wicks killing demands answers, immediate and honest answers. As it now stands, the Wicks killing is yet another Inglewood killing that should not have happened.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is “The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House” (Middle Passage Press).