Incident at Independence
The talk of the local journalism community this week has been a clash between our city's most aggressive news team -- that of Meredith-owned CBS affiliate KCTV-5 -- and the police of Independence, Mo., Harry Truman's hometown, late last Friday night.
Link: Kansas City Star | 03/31/2006 | TV inquiry leads to a run-in with police.
The facts, as we know them, are that a representative from a group known as the Police Complaint Center, which investigates allegations of abuse by law enforcement, walked into police HQ there and demanded a form to file a complaint against a police officer. Now, if you read the Police Complaint Center's Web site, it becomes pretty clear that if you are Officer Friendly and one of these people walks through your door, the thing you are supposed to do is: Immediately hand the person a complaint form. Let them fill it out. And then get the complaint into the system.
Apparently that didn't happen. I was able to grab a few minutes on the phone with the Center's executive director, Diop Kamau. He wouldn't discuss details of what went down in Independence, except to say the "tester" (as the person is sometimes called in the group's literature) was sent out in response to several complaints against that city's police force, and to say that he felt the incident vindicated his decision to send the tester out there. As for those radio and online gossip board accounts of the incident that make KCTV-5 look like the heavy, those were "crap," he said.
Kamau also told me KCTV-5 was a good partner because it had showed a willingness to work with watchdog groups in the past, as evidenced by its explosive series in 2004 where it caught alleged child predators in its lair, working with PervertedJustice.com.
Kamau was known as Don Jackson during his years on the force, mostly as an undercover cop in Hawthorne, Calif. His dad, Woodrow Jackson, spent 29 years on the LAPD. But it was the racism Kamau witnessed on the job, along with the brutal off-duty beating of his dad by Pomona cops, that he says led him to turn on his profession and start the Police Complaint Center in 1987.
And he's been doing these "tests" of law enforcement a long time.
In 1989, in what was probably his most famous clash with police, Kamau had his head used as a battering ram by two Long Beach, Calif., officers. NBC was riding along and got it all on camera, and the video played nationwide. The city settled with Kamau and the two cops were forced into retirement.
On the other hand, Kamau's tactics have been called into question -- even by NBC, which suggested that the 1989 incident was partly of Kamau's making. Here's a transcript of a 1998 "Dateline" profile of him by John Hockenberry:
HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) In their official report of the incident, it was Kamau they said who broke the window. His "forward lunge" as the officer was trying to restrain him. His slam into the hood of the car, just part of a "pat down search," the report says. These pictures seem to tell a different story of the incident. These pictures seem to tell a different story of the incident, but they also show why Kamau brings controversy onto himself wherever he goes.
(Police report; clip of Kamau and officers)
Mr. KAMAU: (From video) If you want to write a ticket, write a ticket. Don't mess with me, man.
HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) Here, for instance, a lot of reasonable people might say Diop Kamau himself escalated the situation.
(Clip of Kamau and officer)
Mr. KAMAU: (From video) You can pat me dow, but don't mess with me, man.
Officer #2: (From video) Turn around!
HOCKENBERRY: (Voiceover) By getting out of the car in the first place, and for being belligerent.
Mr. KAMAU: (From video) What are you going to do?
Officer #2: (From video) Put your...(word censored by network)...hands on your head and turn around!
HOCKENBERRY: If you want to prevent an incident like that from being escalated, I mean, isn't it better to just do what the officer says when you get out of the car?
Mr. KAMAU: Yeah, but I'm testing a real situation with real circumstances that an officer is likely to encounter.
Whether we'll have as good a video record of what went down in Independence is questionable. The tester, identified as Gregory Slate, has done work with Kamau before, most recently in Miami (note to Independence police: Don't try intimidating these guys; just ask your colleagues in Broward County). When arrested, he was found to have a wire on him, no camera. KCTV-5 may have opted to take pictures outside the building, which means we may never know the full story of the incident.
The only thing that seems certain is that KCTV-5 will tell its side of the story during May sweeps.
