By Herb Rothschild

This update wasn't on the Board meeting agenda yesterday, but I thought you might like to know the fruits of HPJC's work on curbing police violence. We should feel good about our impact.

You may or may not remember that after HPD officers shot two unarmed Hispanic teenagers within days of each other in late November 2003, HPJC held a news conference to call for action in ending police murders of poor people of color, and to renew our call for an independent civilian oversight board. Four HPJC member organizations participated--ACLU, Cop Watch, Corpus Justice, and HCJNW--plus three non-member organizations led by people of color--Latino Voters League, Citizens for Better Media, and October 16 Coalition to End Police Brutality. The media covered the conference very well.

Following the conference, we asked Council Member Ada Edwards to revive the coalition that had formed after the infamous police murder of Pedro Oregon but which had faltered and dissolved. She did that, and we were part of it.

To date, the most effective work that group--which calls itself the Houston Area Coalition for Police Accountability--has done is pressure the Houston Mayor and City Council to hire a new HPD chief who would understand his top priority to be ending HPD's on-going abuse of deadly force. I reported on that work at the February Board meeting, but only afterwards did the appointment get made.

Mayor White resisted the police union's pressure to hire its own candidate, the acting chief, and chose a person who prided himself on bringing his last department under control and who promised to do the same in Houston.

In addition to sending a strong message to his officers that abuse of deadly force will no longer be tolerated, the chief has gotten line officers trained in the use of tasers to subdue unruly suspects who aren't threatening their lives. And the Harris County Sheriff's Department, which also has a bad record of deadly force, has followed HPD's lead and begun equipping and training its deputies.

Unquestionably, tasers aren't benign weapons, and they can be abused. So the main thing is the tone set at the top of these departments. But when and if the tasers are abused, their abuse will not end in permanent crippling or deaths.

Another welcome development is that the Harris County District Attorney's Office indicted the officer responsible for one of the November killings. As you may know, Rosenthal's office had not been indicting police for these murders, which enormously exacerbated the problem.

Work is still being done on trying to institute the independent review board. It's a tough process because it may require authorization by the state legislature. Marilyn Head of Corpus Justice has done the most work on this, and may want to update the Board. If you want to contact Marilyn, her email is corpus@ev1.net.

What counts the most is prevention, and gratifying progress has been made there.

It would help if all of us wrote a note to Mayor Bill White and thanked him for his leadership on curbing police violence. The pressure on HPD officers from the top must be maintained or there will be backsliding. If White knows his leadership so far has been appreciated, he will be more likely to maintain that pressure. Write a short note to him at City Hall, 901 Bagby St., Houston 77002.

HPJC's model of fostering collaboration among peace and justice groups is proving itself more and more.