Michael A. Wood Jr. (1979?- ), a retired White American police sergeant and former US Marine, has come forward to say what he saw while serving on the Baltimore police force from 2003 to 2014. He was forced into retirement by a shoulder injury.
He confirms much of what many Black Americans have long known or suspected.
The police:
- racially profile, all the way;
- often lie;
- lack empathy: do not see Black and poor people as real human beings;
- are an occupying force in Black ghettos, seeing the people there as the enemy, not as citizens to protect and serve;
- use unspoken arrest quotas: each officer is expected to make so many arrests a month;
- do not care much about the US Constitution;
- are badly trained;
- fear Black males.
Wood was never afraid of the streets because of his military training: Baltimore is hardly Iraq or Afghanistan. He says police brutality is mainly driven by fear and a lack of proper training that feeds that fear.
That fear becomes a vicious circle: it makes Blacks afraid of the police, which makes the police even more afraid and so on. It makes the police angry, bitter, brutal.
It is not just a few “rogue cops”: police act out the racism that is in US culture – and get away with it.
Wood himself tried to be colour-blind so that he would be fair to Blacks. But that made him blind to the institutional racism that he was taking part in – like:
“Targeting 16-24 year old black males essentially because we arrest them more, perpetrating the circle of arresting them more.”
Arrests and crime bear little relationship to each other – except for the “crime” of being poor while Black.
When he was put on patrol in a well-to-do White neighbourhood, he would go to a nearby Black neighbourhood to make his arrest quota. Not because there was more crime there, like you might think, but because he could get away with arresting Blacks for little things, like throwing a cigarette on the sidewalk or playing basketball in the street. He could go through their pockets (despite the Constitution) and maybe find drugs or a weapon.
He did not see himself as “personally” racist – yet took part in a racist institution by “just following orders”. Orders that came ultimately from the good old White boys at the top of the police department. Who, in turn, were supported by politicians who represented not the people but moneyed interests – like the prison-industrial complex.
As far as he can tell, this stuff goes way beyond Baltimore.
Some changes he would make:
- End the War on Drugs. Like Prohibition, it makes things worse, not better. Drugs should be seen as a public health issue, not as crime.
- Base policing on science, on what works to bring down crime, not on arrest quotas.
- Teach the police empathy. By, for example, getting them to know the actual people they supposedly serve and protect. This is what changed him.
- Try cases of police wrongdoing in public. No secrets.
Thanks to Sondis for suggesting this post.
– Abagond, 2015.
Sources: Twitter, Slate, The Real News, RT, The Young Turks, Washington Post, Huffington Post, The Independent, BBC, Dogma Debate.
See also:
- Twitter: @MichaelAWoodJr
- the police
- slave patrols
- racial profiling
- Black Brute stereotype
- by city:
- Baltimore police brutality
- New York: Adrian Schoolcraft – another police whistle-blower
- Ferguson: the DOJ report
- Orwell: Shooting an Elephant
- Black ghetto
- “I don’t see colour”
- The Stanford Prison Experiment
570
It’s sad that we need confirmation from a white officer for white Americans to actually believe this stuff exists. But by whatever means necessary I suppose.
What black males can do to mitigate this is to document each incidence, file police reports immediately after unconstitutional stops and searches and file civil complaints in court. Most people don’t do this (for time and monetary reasons). But the more police depts are forced to pay out to victims, the more governments will crack down on unlawful police behaviour.
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Brave confession. This kind of thing inspires me to speak the truth, and be more honest with myself as well.
I wonder if anyone will actually take his advice to heart, or if other former officers will back him up. I certainly hope so.
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He is the most recent to come forth, but I know of others as well. The problem is fear. These individuals that come forth risk harassment and bullying from the police force when they come forth.
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Abagond,
Seriously! I’d like for YOU to address the following.
What purpose does this ex-cop’s validation serve?
With all respect, did you not ALREADY KNOW factually and feel in your heart that all of these proclamations he’s making were true?
The crap that he’s admitted (in part – because there’s MORE) that cops do has been going on since the days of ‘Slave Patrols.’
The police state in the USA is about the LAST white-supremist-racist law enforcement organization on the planet that is interested or capable of empathy toward Black people. Do you really believe otherwise!
Did you write this post for yourself, or other Black people?
If yes, can you share with me who these ignorant unaware Black people are.
Seriously.
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Are you able to add a FB like button to these posts? That would be dope.
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Corroboration from the most unlikely source naturally helps to make a case. It’s like the Iraqis saying that Americans are torturing Iraqi prisoners and then an American soldier saying that Americans are torturing Iraqi prisoners.
Well didn’t you believe the Iraqi!!??? Yes, but for those harder to convince, the American who admits it is doing so with everything to lose… which is why his testimony carries so much weight.
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Just wondering, did he specifically mention Martin O’Malley.
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Did this corroboration stop Americans from torturing Iraqis?
Of course it didn’t. If anything it only made public why the need for torture was SUPPOSEDLY so desperately needed.
See the RULES of Racial Standing –
An unwritten subset of one of those rules is that the testimony of white people who don’t support and assist the system of racism-white supremacy shall be summarily ignored and dismissed, as has been done for HUNDREDS of years, and still goes on today.
Corroboration … with the expectation of ending police mistreatment (and GETTING THEIR EMPATHY) is like waiting on a fool’s pipe-dream. Or reparations, or a winning lottery $25.5M ticket — for everyone.
Relying on white people’s validation (or good moral sense) to end white supremacy is and has always been a losing proposition.
The end of racism is a POWER that will never simply be handed to Black people – even with the truthful testimony of 50,000 former cops.
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@Fan of a few
Well said.A system that rewards psychopaths is a death system. America can no longer lie to the world that it is great.
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Former officer Michael Wood’s corroboration of events is not pixie dust. It is not meant to magically whisk us to some fairytale land were everything is fixed.
But it is more helpful that some police admit what has been going on behind the scenes then that all police simply deny it or keep silent. (which is the brilliant alternative) This is not about empathy, it is about truth being admitted to. And that, at least to SOME degree, is helpful, in the same way that a bank robber’s testimony of how his gang robbed the bank is helpful. Inside information gives you SPECIFICS that you cannot get when you are not part of the system.
That is the point.
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OK, just read the Washington Post interview with Michael A. Wood Jr.
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/06/25/an-interview-with-the-baltimore-cop-whos-revealing-all-the-horrible-things-he-saw-on-the-job/)
He mentioned nothing about the responsibility of politicians. Does anyone have any link or info on that?
Martin O’Malley is running for president, but he is very low in the polls. I heard from someone inside his campaign that he sees himself as running for vice-president. Before we get to that stage, I really want to hear and see more about what people like Michael Wood or others say about the power structure in Baltimore and Maryland during that time period.
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Your point is embarrassingly weak. You should have kept it to yourself instead of sharing it with me, unless you and Abagond are the same person.
“”This is not about empathy, it is about truth being admitted to.””
I guess you’re not Abagond after all.
If you were him, you would not have overlooked what you wrote in your own post:
“The police:
….
– lack *empathy*: do not see Black and poor people as real human beings;”
and this,
“Some changes he would make:
…..
3. Teach the police *empathy*. By, for example, getting them to know the actual people they supposedly serve and protect.”
Why don’t you hold your breath while you wait for your WHITE ex cop to make that change? He’s gonna change all those empathy challenged white souls to finally garner some meaningful empathy for Black people?
“But it is more helpful that some police admit what has been going on behind the scenes then that all police simply deny it or keep silent. (which is the brilliant alternative)”
How many BLACK cops have already come forth to testify what’s been happening? What.. their confessions didn’t carry enough weight for you, and apparently the white masses, so you believe a Michael Wood is going to make a bigger/better “more helpful” difference?
Everybody has to have faith or believe in something, I suppose.
I wish you much luck with your reliance on white people!
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@ Villagewriter
” America can no longer lie to the world that it is great.”
Ha! America can’t even lie to itself … but there ARE still Americans who believe the great lie. How much longer they can do that remains to be seen.
The Rev. Dr. Jerimiah Wright has given Amerika a glimpse of the truth, but Amerika has a very hard head …
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I am surprised they didn’t try to perpetrate violence against him for exposing them. “They fear black men” Well those who are fearful of black men or black people have no business being in law enforcement. They are nothing but thugs in uniforms with badges.
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@Mary
Exactly what I thought. This guy will be pushed to the back or covered up some how.
On the other hand it is interesting that his solutions are ones I wrote about in my essay in colloge. Though I also though tasters were safer then too.
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So if a white man says what Black people have been saying for decades in regards to police brutality and profiling that makes it more valid? Will whites believe or even care? I doubt it. So what’s in it for Wood a clear conscious?
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I’m very open to any questions. There’s a lot more here. http://www.michaelawoodjr.net as well. Those revalations are about moving past the denial and into reform.
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need to focus on how long he was a sgt, etc, which is of course a supervisory position and will not be direct street patrol so much? you know, the white shirts that show up like the 5th cop car in?
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that’s ridiculous as a supervisor he officially sanctioned what he is now so conveniently railing against gtfo
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so he can have a speaking circuit while waiting for his ssdi oh please
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@ Fan of a few…
So you think that Abagond is in the habit of using sock puppets himself, while banning others for doing the exact same thing… Are you really that stupid???
How about this… before commenting on a blog, you might consider reading enough to discover who the commenters are. If you had bothered to do that, you would discover that Abagond and I have disagreed on many points over the years. Do you think that six or seven years ago, Abagond created this sock puppet just to have arguments with himself? Or are you just too lazy to read?
Besides, your empathy argument is ludicrous. The entire Black Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s was based on an empathetic strategy. It preceded by Gandhi’s non-violent ‘Satyagraha’ movement, 50 years earlier. Should we argue that Gandhi and the Civil Rights marches were failures that didn’t accomplish anything? Or is it YOUR FAILURE to fully understand what even happened which is really the problem here?
The point is not, and never has been, that EMPATHY itself is a cure-all that will create a ‘heaven on earth’ where there is no prejudice and everyone is happy. The point has always been to use whatever tools work as far as they can be effective. Empathy is simply one of those tools and it HAS worked to a degree. There are other tools that must be added to it, of course. Nobody has denied that. Neither is appealing to empathy in any way limiting us to do nothing but wait for it’s results! That is a straw man.
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@Mary Burrell
“Well those who are fearful of black men or black people have no business being in law enforcement. ”
Right, but somehow that same fear can absolve them from killing unarmed black men. It’s unbelievable.
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@v8driver
“need to focus on how long he was a sgt, etc, which is of course a supervisory position and will not be direct street patrol so much?”
Good point. Are you going to ask him about that?
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@Michael Wood
Are there other policemen who have said what you are saying? Do you really think policemen can police people who belong to a culture they find alien to them? Can they really respect people who don’t look like them?
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“This guy is the Edward Snowden of policing!”
This doesn’t make any sense. Snowden revealed things most Americans don’t know about, African-Americans have been saying what Wood ‘revealed’ for decades. Snowden also put himself at risk with the US government, which certainly requires more bravery than a retired police sergeant admitting what we already know.
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@ Villagewriter
According to one Michael Wood fan, here, on this blog:
“””The point has always been to use whatever tools work as far as they can be effective. Empathy is simply one of those tools and it HAS worked to a degree. “””
LOL… This is a vapid, silly and useless argument. White empathy amounts to (NOTHING) minus 150, on a scale of 1 – 10. But certain lovers of white validation (lap dogs) see these little scratches behind his ears, and specks of crumbs off the table, as useful.
Meanwhile they are killing more Black people in plain view than ever before while deflecting – “Look at all those Black people killing other Black people.” And, “All lives matter.” As if Blacks are killing whites (and other Blacks) and GETTING AWAY WITH IT – in the way white people are way more apt to do.
I wonder how much racism this particular “useful tool” – WHITE EMPATHY – has helped to eradicate since the 1600’s? Since our resident Michael Wood fan INSISTS that this tool “has worked to a degree,” perhaps he can tell us. I’ll wait..
Gotta go to work.
Happy Labor Day
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There is this African American exchange student in a university close to where I live who says that most of the police violence is hardly reported on the news. He is actually planning to apply for citizenship
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villagewriter
He would be correct. A lot does not make tv. People generally have no clue on what really goes on.
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@ Everyone
As Abagond mentioned, the media is a powerful tool in maintaining racial and ethnic depictions as they see fit. I have the knowledge that police brutality in white rural and even some urban settings do occur but because of specific media agendas they more or less want to forgo this information to the public. The media makes it an effort not to report ‘white people’ with specific narcotic involvements such as ‘crystal methamphetamine’ or ‘heroine’ which is probably more prevalent than anybody could imagine even in the early days of the 60s and 70s. Think about the demographic numbers and what these actually account for. You’re talking about probably 8 – 10 times more prevalent than anything in the inner city black community. But like I said there’s agendas in the media to reduce these actual knowledge. I think most cops know these figures and racist ones figure if I can do this to my own people why not the black or ethnic man? That’s how they make amends themselves is my belief.
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White empathy was indeed a key element of the both slavery abolition and the mid 20th century civil rights movement. In that respect, it could be termed a useful tool.
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@ Jefe
In the hours of interviews I listened to or read, Martin O’Malley’s name did not come up once. Wood sees things mainly in structural terms while his interviewers probably do not even know that one of “the politicians” that Wood is talking about is running for president.
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@ Fan
Little he said surprised me, but it is useful to get an honest account from the other side from time to time. In 2010 I did a post on Adrian Schoolcraft of the NYPD:
Unlike Schoolcraft, Wood is getting way more press. That is almost certainly because of Freddie Gray and the Baltimore riot.
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@ Kiwi
A sock puppet of whom, do you think? She seems familiar.
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@ TeddyBearDaddy
Right. If the War on Drugs was for real, it would be about White people on heroin, not about Blacks with weed.
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“White empathy was indeed a key element of the both slavery abolition and the mid 20th century civil rights movement. In that respect, it could be termed a useful tool.”
_____________________
Slavery has largely been replaced by the prison industrial labor capitalistic complex for profit, the NEW JIM CROW, by caged Black and Brown bodies..at incarceration rates that surpass any other nation. So much for FREEDOM in the land of the free.
Much of the gains in the Civil Rights movement have been or is being deconstructed. White empathy is about as useful as white women’s tears and the Affirmative Action legislation which benefitted more white people than anyone else. Fu-k white empathy!
Sad to see that there are “useful tools,” living and breathing here, pushing this white empathy (in a nation where Black men, women and child are ritually abused and murdered) as being useful, nonsense. To each his own..
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This just amazes me – Wood alludes to politicians responsible for the state of things, but the name of O’Malley, the mayor of Baltimore and the governor of Maryland while Wood was in the Police force did not come up at all.
How does this not come up?
I mentioned I personally know someone in O’Malley’s campaign team. O’Malley knows he is low in the polls, but he has his eye on getting on the ticket to run for vice-president.
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He isn’t the first. There’s also former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_Stamper
We know it. They know it. The system is working the way it’s intended to work.
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Recalling also this grio article:
Then, emblematic of the above, this happened just a few days ago:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kkk-cop-fired-nazi-salute_55e885d9e4b0c818f61b24c2
I don’t even have any comments about any of it.
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^^^^^
Not surprising in the least.
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“Is it ever legal to shoot cops? A growing number of states are passing laws that say that yes, in fact, sometimes it is well within a citizen’s rights to shoot a police officer. Other states have already ruled in favor of citizens shooting police officers in self-defense, (even hip-hop legend Tupac walked after shooting two cops in self-defense) now, in the state of Indiana, if a police officer initiates aggression without cause in someone’s home, violence can be used against them in self-defense – including using lethal force. ”
BLACKLISTEDNEWS
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