SULLIVAN'S SALVOS
June 17, 2020
Sullivan’s Salvos 6/23/20
In this edition:
*Laura Bergus Is Doing Great Work!
*Black Lives Matter – Dispatch
*You Can’t Make Me!
*Gracias, Rafael!
*Did You Know?
*Laura Bergus Is Doing Great Work!
Though one of the newest members of the Iowa City Council, Laura Bergus has quickly jumped into a leadership role. And she is doing GREAT work!
It is easy to criticize. It is much more difficult to try to get things done. Thank you, Laura! Please keep up the outstanding service to your community!
*Black Lives Matter – Dispatch
In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, I thought it might be worth resurrecting an idea I had back in 2014.
I was working with LaTasha DeLoach. You may know LaTasha as the Director of the Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center. You may recall that she was a member of the ICCSD Board of Directors (elected 2015). You may know her as a founder of G World. Well, at the time, she worked for Johnson County Social Services. And one of her duties at Johnson County was serving as the Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Coordinator for Johnson County. Several counties (Johnson being one) were under a federal consent decree to do something about the disproportionate numbers of people of color in the juvenile justice system. It was a long slog of building trust, creating data sets that did not exist previously, and slowly adopting policies. But over LaTasha’s time at Johnson County, we made measurable progress toward our DMC goals. We did not fix everything, mind you. But we made measurable progress.
I was impressed by her work, but the consent decree was limited. I wanted to do something about DMC in our adult systems. While LaTasha could not work on adult issues per her grant, she volunteered to help me dig into our DMC issues. This was magnificent, because she is possessed of knowledge and skills I simply do not have.
We knew DMC was bad in our adult system. It still is. So we began looking at where disparities come from. As it turned out, we found a common theme. Officers and command staff from every law enforcement agency in Johnson County had some variation of the same response: “We go where we are told.” The single biggest problem we had in dispatch was what we can now call the “Amy Cooper” problem.
You remember Amy Cooper? She is the white woman who threatened a black man that she would call the cops and falsely accuse him. In fairness, most of the calls in Johnson County were not as egregious as Amy Cooper. But the calls were things like, “A black man is loitering outside my house.” “Black kids appear to be up to no good.” “I don’t like the looks of this guy.”
It is not hard to see how this creates more DMC. If cops are always being called on you, you are going to have ramifications. Maybe you are just a bit intoxicated. Maybe you have a small amount of weed. Maybe you missed a court date. Maybe you owe the courts some money. Maybe you simply push back against what you rightfully view as harassment. There are a million things that can turn an otherwise-innocuous stop into charges and/or an arrest. An arrest that frankly, didn’t need to happen.
Once dispatch orders a car to check a situation out, the cops are on their way. It is already too late. So we began looking at dispatch.
In Johnson County, law enforcement is dispatched by the Joint Emergency Communications Center (JECC). JECC runs out of a building behind Chatham Oaks on ground that was part of the Historic County Poor Farm. JECC is overseen by a 7-person board that includes the Sheriff, the Emergency Management Director, a County Supervisor, two Iowa City representatives, a rep from Coralville, and a rep from North Liberty. That group hires a Director (Tom Jones), who then hires staff.
LaTasha and I met with Tom. He shared some of the challenges of doing dispatch. Yes, the dispatchers could start asking more questions, but every extra question takes valuable time. And dispatch is all about quick responses. It was also interesting to hear Tom say that JECC sometimes got racist complaints. Callers sometimes said things like, “There is a (N-word) in my neighborhood.” He estimated that there might be a dozen or more 911 calls every year that were explicitly racist. Granted, that is a very small percentage of the thousands of calls they receive. But I still found it shocking.
So, what to do? LaTasha and I presented to the JECC Board, and requested that they come up with some type of response. I was thinking along the lines of the way in which fire departments deal with false alarms. You get one free, and after that, you are charged a fee for wasting public resources. Perhaps we could have law enforcement officers follow back up with people who made sketchy complaints. Explain to them that they were wasting public resources, and warn them that if they did so again, they would be getting a ticket for interference with official acts, filing a false report, or some other charge.
Understand, JECC does not have the staff to do this kind of follow up. It would need to be law enforcement or whatever follows law enforcement as we know it. And I am certain this will be resisted; no one wants yet another task to do, especially one that will be unpleasant. But I really think this is critical.
I asked that the JECC Board, individual cities, and County consider this policy. It went nowhere. I think the time for an “Amy Cooper” law might be right now. I am going to send this to the various entities involved in JECC. What are your thoughts?
*You Can’t Make Me!
I wrote a few weeks ago about adults who still say things like, “You can’t make me!” We are hearing a lot of these responses now. I wrote the following just a month ago:
We are lucky to live in the USA. We have a longstanding Bill of Rights, and a legal system full of precedents. Most of us believe inherently in individual rights, including an individual’s right to NOT do something. In short, no one can MAKE you do something.
There are some instances where an individual loses that right. For example, when a law enforcement officer says, “Please step out of the car, ma’am.” You can respond with, “You can’t make me!” but you will likely be getting a ticket for Interference with Official Acts.
In my experience, the person responding, “You can’t make me!” is rarely responding to a law enforcement officer. As a matter of fact, they aren’t even responding to any kind of order. Typically, the person who responds, “You can’t make me!” was politely asked to do something, and she refuses.
This is not news to the person making the request. He or she understands our basic rights. He or she knows that they “can’t make you”. They simply asked you to do something, and you went straight there. That is why this response is so telling.
Unfortunately, both the Black Lives Matter and Covid-19 crises are fertile ground for the “you can’t make me!” crowd. Because the person who goes straight to “you can’t make me!” does not care about others. And if we are going to recover from either crisis in any meaningful way, we are going to need to care about others.
*Gracias, Rafael!
I was sad to hear that Center for Worker Justice Director Rafael Moratoya and his family are leaving Johnson County. Rafael has done really good work in his 4 years with the CWJ. More importantly, I will miss my friend. Best of luck, Rafael!
*DID YOU KNOW? JECC takes approximately 150,000 calls per year.
Anyone interested in learning more about County government should take a look at the County website-
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---Rod
posted by Rod Sullivan @ 2:01 PM
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