Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

in Mississippi. In February 1968, three students were killed at South CarolinaState College. One was killed in Berkeley in May 1969, and another at NorthCarolina Agricultural and Mechanical College that same month. One was killedin Santa Barbara in February 1970. In March 1970, twelve were shot:, but no onekilled, at State University of New York, Buffalo. Most famously, in May 1970, fourwere murdered at Kent State. That same month, twenty were shot just downthe road at Ohio State (all survived) , and fourteen were shot (again) at JacksonState, two of whom died. In July 1970, one was killed at the University of Kansas,Lawrence, and another at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Two yearslater, in November 1972, two more students were killed at the University of NewOrleans."9Predictably, urban Black people received even worse treatment In the Detroituprising of 1967, forty-three people were killed, thirty-six of whom were Black.Twenty-nine of these deaths were definitely attributable to police, National Guardtroops, or the Army. The remaining thirteen died from any of a variety of causes:some were shot by store owners, some died in fires, two were electrocuted by fallenpower lines. No deaths were directly attributable to the violence of the crowds.Despite the rhetoric surrounding them, Black uprisings in the sixties "weremarked by a relative absence of violence committed by rioters against people.Careful examination of the casualty lists shows that police and military inflicted thevast majority of fatalities and injuries on blacks in the riot area."ooA GLIMPSE AT 1968These facts speak to the level of police violence, but they say very little aboutits prevalence in crowd control situations. For that, we should consider asample of police actions during a specific time frame-for example, duringthe year 1968, a banner year remembered for producing rebellions aroundthe world. While in this respect 1968 is exceptional, it may also (for thesame reasons) be seen to typify the official response to unrest. It certainlyprovided numerous, widely varied examples for comparison.In January 1968, San Francisco police broke ranks and charged into thecrowd at an anti-war demonstration, beating protesters. San Francisco alsosaw numerous rampages by the police department's Tactical Squad throughoutthe year, especially in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. During onesuch attack, a Black plainclothes officer was beaten by his White colleagues.During another, off-duty Tactical Squad officers moved through the Missiondistrict, clearing sidewalks and assaulting pedestrians. Two officers went totrial for that stunt. 51Three Black people were killed and almost fifty others injured when policeand National Guard troops opened fire at a February demonstration against aWhite-only bowling alley in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Most of the woundedwere shot in the back. 52In March, New York City police attacked a Yippie demonstration at GrandCentral Station. Offering no opportunity for the crowd to disperse, they indiscriminately beat members of the crowd that had gathered. 1be same tactic wasrepeated at another Yippie march in April, this time in Washington Square.o3Later that same month, Students for a Democratic Society held a demonstration185