"Rest in Power": Stephon Clark and Black Self-Defense, Part I

[NCTraveler]

At the service for Stephon Clark, killed by Sacramento police officers on March 18, 2018, a ribbon affixed to a memorial wreath read, “Rest in Power.” This riff on the customary “rest in peace” references multiple meanings, including “no justice, no peace,” “black power,” and the death-defiance enunciated across black expressive cultures since the dawn of the African slave trade. Police shot at Clark twenty times, hitting him with seven bullets, mostly in the back, as he attempted to enter his grandmother’s house from the backyard. In other words, Clark was shot down while engaged in a basic act of self-defense: evacuating from public police presence and entering his private home. What does it mean to consider Clark’s actions in terms of self-defense? Further, what does black self-defense mean in the face of the Fourth Amendment’s stated protections against unlawful and unwarranted search and seizure by the police?

One of the main obstacles to adequately assessing the power relations that express themselves through policing is an incorrect understanding about the relationship between law and the police. Customary thinking holds that law is created; and then the police enforce the law and the courts review their execution of law. In reality, things happen in reverse: policingprecedeslaw and literally creates it as it goes along. Fourth Amendment jurisprudence verifies this point, as does the historical context for the Constitution itself.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/rest-power-stephon-clark-and-black-self-defense-part-i

“Stand Your Ground”: Siwatu-Salama Ra and Black Self-Defense, Part 2

When Siwatu-Salama Ra was sentenced to two years in prison for brandishing an unloaded, legally registered gun, in a jurisdiction with a “stand your ground” statute, the state of black self-defense suffered another damaging, albeit predictable, blow. Ra used her gun to get a neighbor who was attacking her and her family to back down. The neighbor had rammed her car into Ra’s car, in which sat Ra’s two-year-old child, and then attempted to run over Ra and her mother. Writing about the case recently, Patrise Cullors noted:

“Michigan has a specific law, popularly known as the Stand Your Ground law to protect people who act by using a firearm to defend themselves from another person who they believe is going to cause unlawful harm to them if there is ‘an honest and reasonable belief that force is imminent.’ However, instead of the law working for Siwatu, it was used against her.”

What is the legal context in which Ra sought to defend herself and her family? And what about the right to self-defense against police violence?

In 1900, the Supreme Court in Bad Elk v. United Statesfound that Bad Elk was within his rights when he shot the police officer that was attempting to arrest him because the attempted arrest was unlawful. Under such circumstances, where a law enforcement officer attempts an arrest without probable cause, Bad Elk explains that the defendant cannot be charged with “resisting arrest” or “assaulting an officer,” and any injury or death to the officer cannot be “murder” or “attempted murder.” Additional court decisions before and since Bad Elkaffirm this basic principle of self-defense, even against the police.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/stand-your-ground-siwatu-salama-ra-and-black-self-defense-part-2