Denver Post

Nothing short of change will bring justice
By Cindy Rodriguez
Denver Post Columnist

Monday, July 14, 2003 - To all the people who are afraid that black people are going to rise up, take arms and get revenge on Denver police because one of their officers killed a teen, you can relax. It's not happening.

Yes, there was this scary-looking flier that some fool distributed Thursday in northeast Denver, summoning people to "shoot cops in streets." But no one listens to fools.

That night, at the rally/vigil held for Paul Childs, the 15-year-old shot to death by officer James Lee Turney, people were talking about justice, not revenge.

Hundreds of people gathered at Skyline Park to honor Paul Childs, vowing his death wouldn't be in vain. The crowd was predominantly African-American, with a sprinkling of Latinos, Asians and whites in the crowd. Interestingly, nearly all the reporters were white.

People were mad as hell. There's only so much crying you can do before you harden up. They were looking for answers, for leaders to help them figure out what to do with all that internalized pain.

As the speakers came up to the microphone one by one, I felt an odd sensation, as if I had gone back in time.

Back to 1999, when a Denver SWAT team raided the wrong house and fatally shot Mexican immigrant Ismael Mena.

Back to 1997, when New York City police tortured Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, shoving a wooden stick into his rectum.

Back to 1991, when a group of Los Angeles cops pummeled Rodney King so hard he suffered permanent brain damage.

It's 2003, and we're still singing "We Shall Overcome." We're still crying out, "No justice, no peace."

It's a confusing tangle of emotions. And now I sit here, like so many Denver residents, trying to sort out what Paul Childs' death really represents.

His case does not rise to the same level as Mena, or Louima, or King. Paul Childs had a knife, and it was his family who dialed 911. Apparently, his mother had her hands full when it came to caring for Paul. When he ran away, or acted up - which was often - she often called the police.

In the past four years, dispatch logs reveal his family called the police about 47 times. The police department should not have become surrogate disciplinarians.

But regardless of the struggles this family had with Paul Childs, a kid with mental disabilities, many of us believe his death could have been avoided.

Less than two minutes after Turney arrived, he shot Childs in his own house - even though no one else was in the home. Even though his mother, Helen Childs, pleaded with Turney not to shoot.

What we've learned about Turney is sickening. His previous shooting was of an 18-year- old who was hearing-impaired. And there's an alleged threat to an ex-wife. The whole mess conjures images from the past, of all the rogue cops who have done worse.

For many of us who come from communities where one too many cops have raised their batons to beat someone, the psychological damage has already been done. We've come to distrust police. Not just black people, but Latinos too, and poor whites, as well.

It's happened so often, too often, that when something like this happens we're not sure how to react.

But we're taking a cue from our black ministers, and black elected officials, from Mayor Wellington Webb: Wait for answers.

This time, the anger is being channeled. We're not going to settle for excuses. And, love him or hate him, Johnnie Cochran is on the case. Because of that, the national spotlight will be on Denver. That kind of pressure will result in changes.

The community won't be placated if the only result is a huge settlement for the Childs family. It won't be satisfied if the only consequence is that Chief Gerry Whitman gets axed.

What we want is the end of police protection for any cop who unjustly claims to kill someone because his life was on the line. We want our cops to be trained to defuse fights, and to disarm people holding weapons.

We won't be rioting because we know it's stupid. All it accomplishes is the destruction of our own neighborhoods, and it makes us look like animals - even though we have been driven to that point.

We're not having any of that.

The changes we seek are going to make police more accountable. And that will help us come to one day trust police again.

We've come a long way from the days when police brazenly bashed black people, when they blasted protesters with water hoses, when they sicced K-9 patrol dogs on crowds.

But we're still stuck in this mode where police departments protect the few bad cops, crippling the image of the majority of police officers who every day commit courageous acts of heroism, without fanfare. We need to dismantle that system now.

I don't want to hear, ten years from now, or even a year from now, the rallying cry, "No justice, no peace."

By then I want to hear people singing, in past tense, "We have overcome."