After recent police shootings, NNPA declares a State of Emergency in the Black Community
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. (center), President andCEO of the NNPA, speaks during a press conference on police brutality and police misconduct in the Black community joined by Denise Rolark Barnes (left), the chairwoman of the NNPA and publisher of The Washington Informer, Bernal E. Smith II, a member of the NNPA Board of Directors and publisher of The New Tri-State Defender. (Freddie Allen/AMG/NNPA)
By Freddie Allen (NNPA Newswire Managing Editor)
The recent extrajudicial killings of three Black males, including a 13 year-old boy, have sparked protests across the country, and the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) has now declared a state of emergency in Black America.
The NNPA is a trade group that represents more than 200 Black-owned media companies nationwide reaching more than 20 million readers a week.
“Millions of our readers across the nation are once again outraged at the latest fatal incidents of police brutality in Tulsa, Okla., and Charlotte, N.C.,” the group said in a joint statement released on Friday, September 23, by Denise Rolark Barnes, the chairwoman of the NNPA and publisher of The Washington Informer, Bernal E. Smith II, a member of the NNPA Board of Directors and publisher of The New Tri-State Defender, and Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., president and CEO of the NNPA.
“These are not isolated incidents but are a deadly national pattern of police violence and prosecutorial misconduct.”
On September 14, thirteen year-old Tyre King was shot and killed by police in Columbus, Ohio who were responding to an armed robbery call. Police said that King ran when they approached him and then pulled a weapon from his waistband, which was later found to be a BB gun, a toy that couldn’t even fire bullets.
On Friday September 16, Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby fired the fatal shot that killed Terence Crutcher after the truck he was driving broke down on the road. In a video captured by the Tulsa Police Department, Crutcher can be seen walking back to his truck with his arms raised, just before he was tased then shot. Shelby was charged with felony manslaughter.
On Tuesday, September 20, police in Charlotte, N.C. shot and killed 43 year-old Keith Lamont Scott at an apartment building. Witnesses said that Scott was sitting in his car reading a book when plainclothes officers approached him and asked him to exit his vehicle. On Saturday, September 24, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police re-leased body-worn camera and dashboard camera video foot-age of the incident. None of the videos show Scott holding a gun or pointing a weapon at the police.
“We’re tired of covering these stories,” said Denise Rolark Barnes, chairwoman of the NNPA and publisher of The Washington Informer, “We have been covering these stories long before mainstream media ever saw them.”
Barnes continued: “The situation has escalated, and it is time for us to step up to not only tell the story but to also make some demands.”
Bernal Smith, the publisher of the New Tri-State Defender in Memphis, Tenn., said, “I’ve had way too many conversations with our readers and with people in our community that feel like we’re under siege…that feel that driving, walking or even sitting while Black is a threat to their lives.”
Smith continued: “We are here today to declare that there is a state of emergency in our communities across America, and it requires immediate and significant action on behalf of the federal government…it can no longer be business as usual.”
April Goggans, who represents the Black Lives Matter movement in Washington, D.C., said that the narrative about the killings of Black men and women at the hands of those sworn to protect them is still being controlled by mainstream media.
“As much as we want to protect Black lives, we also have to protect the mediums and ways in which the stories that are true about Black lives are spread and that is through the Black Press,” said Goggans.
At a recent press conference, the NNPA announced that they want President Barack Obama, the Attorney General and the U.S. Congress to address four principle demands immediately:
— Appoint a Special Federal Prosecutor on Police Brutality;
— Establish a National Police Oversight Commission on Use of Deadly Force, Training and Cultural Sensitivity;
— Creation of a National Police Brutality and Misconduct Database that is publicly accessible;
— Establish tougher federal penalties for police officers and prosecutors who violate constitutional rights.
“We’re not waiting for a new Congress, we’re not waiting for a new Supreme Court Justice, we’re not waiting for a new president, we’re not waiting for a new Attorney General,” said Chavis. “We want action, today.”
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