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OUR LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE
By Bishop Dr. Raymond H. Rufen-Blanchette
Chairperson, The Clergy Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
Member, The MICAH Faith Table at New York Theological Seminary,
members of the Justice NOW Coalition

My brothers and sisters, we have all come to understand the American cliche’, ‘Elections have consequences’, but it is now a vital imperative that the community of faith and consciousness come to critical understanding as it pertains to the divisive election of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency of the United States of America, and what this presidency will mean to diverse communities throughout the Nation, and for our dynamic moral quest for societal equity and social justice. Now more than at any other time in American history we have the tools to combat racism, societal hatred, inequity and injustice, but we must ask ourselves if indeed we have the collective moral resolve to use these tools to bend the moral arc of our universe toward the justice that we seek for ourselves, our neighbors and for the beloved community that we all profess the desire to live in. Here our subject case and point.

On July 17, 2014 at approximately 3:30 pm, in front of a beauty supply store at 202 Bay Street in the Tompkinsville section of Staten Island, a 43 year old African-American man named Eric Garner was approached by two New York City Police Officers, Justin Damico and Daniel Pantaleo. The officers proffer that Mr. Garner was approached by them because they witnessed him selling untaxed ci******es (loosies) to individuals on the street. This account is disputed, however, by numerous persons who were present before and at the time of the incident, and have in their own accounts stated that Mr. Garner had just broken up a fight on that Staten Island street and had not been selling loose ci******es. By virtue of the conversation which ensued as a result, having been recorded for all posterity on cellphone video by a bystander Ramsey Orta and seen around the world, it can be surmised that Mr. Garner and the officers had had run-ins before. Mr. Garner stated that he had not done anything wrong and protested vigorously what he had perceived to be continual harassment by the officers, and asked emphatically that he be left alone. The officers proceeded to place Mr. Garner under arrest, and when he protested further NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo moved to place Mr. Garner in a chokehold, a detainment protocol banned by the NYPD patrol guide, and proceeded to take Mr. Garner down to the ground slamming his head and body against the glass storefront of the beauty shop on the way down to subdue him. Several other officers joined the confrontation while Daniel Pantaleo held Mr. Garner in that chokehold in a prone position impeding his ability to breath. Mr. Garner in clear distress and profoundly labored breathing declared eleven times, “I can’t breath”.

After Mr. Garner was handcuffed he lost consciousness and officers placed him on his side to ease his breathing, yet for seven minutes Mr. Garner lay on the concrete as the officers waited for EMT’s to arrive without rendering him assistance, or performing CPR. Further, when EMT’s arrived no CPR or other medical assistance was rendered to Mr. Garner by the police or the Emergency Medical Technician’s. A spokesperson/apologist for the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association (PBA) stated that the reason why Mr. Garner had not been rendered assistance or CPR was because Mr. Garner was perceived and believed to be breathing. However, members of the community of common sense ask if Mr. Garner was perceived and believed to be breathing, why did they not simply bring him to his feet and place him in the patrol car under arrest? If Mr. Garner was perceived and believed to be breathing, why was a ‘bus’ (an FDNY EMT ambulance) requested by officers on the scene? Mr. Garner was pronounced dead at the hospital an hour later.

The medical examiner concluded that Mr. Garner was killed by “compression of the neck, compression of the chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police”. The medical examiner ruled Mr. Garner’s death a homicide. For months after the murder, in the midst of vehement protest and ardent calls for justice, Republican Richmond County District Attorney Dan Donovan danced around the political football of whether or not to seek an indictment of NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the murder of Eric Garner. That dance ended on December 3, 2014 as a Richmond County (Staten Island) Grand Jury declined to indict Officer Pantaleo in that case, in what has widely been considered to be a disdain for black life in New York City and the Country, and police bias in a partisan travesty of justice. On the same day, December 3, 2014, the United States Department of Justice announced that it would conduct an independent investigation to determine if Officer Daniel Pantaleo should be prosecuted for the violation of the Civil Rights of Eric Garner. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio after consultation with his Corporation Counsel, former U.S. Attorney Zachary Carter, subsequently made the decision to defer bringing NYPD Departmental charges against Daniel Pantaleo in hopes that the Justice Department would move swiftly to bring civil rights charges against Officer Pantaleo. In February of 2016, Zachary Carter engaged a conference call with members of the New York City clergy community inferring that the Justice Department had requested that the NYPD not bring departmental charges against Mr. Pantaleo as they believed that it would impede the efforts of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department to prosecute Officer Pantaleo.

What has now come to our understanding is that for more than a year and a half the New York City office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York have worked actively to impede the prosecution of Officer Daniel Pantaleo. Career prosecutors in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. have determined that there is clear evidence to bring a prosecution against Officer Pantaleo, but the prosecution of their case has been stymied by the investigation by FBI agents in Brooklyn. A thorough and legitimate investigation is critical to the presentation of charges before a federal grand jury in Brooklyn, and for the successful prosecution of the case if it moves forward. If there are FBI agents who are ideologically and politically in opposition to said federal prosecution against Daniel Pantaleo and are actively working to hinder that investigation we will have the same results, no indictment, as was produced by former Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan in December of 2014.

Loretta Lynch, who as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York oversaw the beginning of the federal inquiry in the Eric Garner case prior to her appointment by President Obama to be Attorney General of the United States, according to reporting in the New York Times, has been considering for several months how to proceed in this case in response to the FBI stonewalling. FBI agents in New York who had been investigating the Eric Garner case were replaced in the last two months with special agents from outside of New York, in order to insure that there would be no impediment to a just prosecution of Officer Pantaleo. However, the world that we once knew prior to the election of Donald J. Trump on November 8, 2016 has evaporated in the twinkling of our eyes gazing at the midnight sky. Our thoroughly unprepared, misogynistic and bigoted President-elect has named an avowed racist to replace Loretta Lynch as Attorney General of the United States, in the person of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, who has shown great hostility and hatred to the enforcement of civil rights laws, and Trump has the votes in the U.S. Senate to confirm him. If a federal grand jury in Brooklyn does not return an indictment against Officer Pantaleo prior to the confirmation of Jeff Sessions to become Attorney General, likely in February 2017, the same Jeff Sessions could and more likely than not would crush any further efforts by the Civil Rights Division to prosecute Daniel Pantaleo for violating the civil rights of Eric Garner causing his death.

Brother’s and sister’s this is our dynamic imperative and moral call to action. This is now our campaign for accountability. Justice demands that those persons in our republican system of democracy that we the people have empowered to seek and obtain justice on behalf of the aggrieved people of our civil society, do so. The New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was successful in filibustering the prosecution of Daniel Pantaleo, just as the U.S. Senate has been successful in preventing the appointment of Judge Merrick Garland by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court, and we cannot allow the FBI or Donald J. Trump to thwart justice in the case of Eric Garner. Officer Daniel Pantaleo stripped of his gun and badge, and placed on modified duty after Mr. Garner’s murder earned a salary of $119,996.00, with overtime, in FY2016, $20,000.00 more than what he was earning prior to being placed on modified duty. He earned over $105K in FY2015. Republican ideology and political shenanigans seek to impede and prevent the federal prosecution of Officer Pantaleo to thwart justice on behalf of Eric Garner, the people of the State of New York, and our federal system of Justice on behalf of all people in these United States of America. Justice demands that the people of the community of faith and consciousness in New York City, and throughout the State and Nation, compel our law makers at all levels of civil government to pursue, with all moral tenacity and the full weight of federal law and political authority, the prosecution of Daniel Pantaleo for violation of the civil rights of Mr. Eric Garner causing his death on that Staten Island street.

The Justice NOW Coalition partnership now asks that all faith congregations, pastor’s, religious leaders and congregational membership in the City of New York, immediately join in our dynamic faith and justice coalition seeking justice in the case of Eric Garner. WE ask that all faith congregations and their leadership, participate with us in the days to come in nonviolent civil action, on the streets, on the phones, with emails, and throughout social media to compel President-elect Donald J. Trump, and his Justice Department-in waiting, to seek and not impede a just prosecution of Officer Daniel Pantaleo, in the case of Eric Garner. WE ask that all faith congregations and their leadership, confront New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, demanding a departmental trial in the New York City Police Department against Officer Daniel Pantaleo, seeking his immediate termination for the murder of Mr. Eric Garner. WE ask that all faith congregations and their leadership, confront the Governor of the State of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and the full New York State legislature, demanding a law prohibiting the chokehold by any and all law enforcement officers in New York State, and making the use of that chokehold by law enforcement a felony crime in New York State, punishable by not less than 20 years in a State penitentiary. WE ask that all faith congregations and their leadership, confront Patrolman’s Benevolent Association president, Patrick Lynch, demanding a change in the culture of the rank and file membership of the NYPD that led to the indifference to black life that caused the death of Eric Garner, to begin with. WE ask that all faith congregations and their leadership, confront New York City Police Commissioner, James P. O’Neill, demanding policy and policing practices that places relationship and community policing as a first priority in policing policy and practice on the streets of New York City, and further demanding that he work with faith communities to establish a new metric within COMPSTAT to measure community policing performance by the rank and file within communities throughout the City, and in surveillance measures of diverse communities with input from affected communities. WE ask that all faith congregations and their leadership, demand a New York City office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is without ideological and political bias, and that all FBI agents that are so biased be purged from the FBI to insure that real justice is achieved in all federal prosecutions in New York City, and the Country. WE ask that all faith congregations and their leadership, demand that Riker’s Island be closed for good, and commit to work together with the Administration of the City of New York to devise a new and just plan to meet the comprehensive needs for our system of criminal justice in New York City.

Throughout scripture our God demands justice. In Micah 6v. 8, the LORD declares that He has shown thee, “O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” From Isaiah 56v. 1-2, “Thus saith the LORD, keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation (Yeshua) is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing evil.” From Psalm 82v. 1-5 “God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; He judgeth among the gods. How long will ye judge without justice, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah. Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy: rid them of the hand of the wicked. They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.” Let it never be forgotten that the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was to government, and to the people of the world afflicted by unrighteous, unjust pious government. As we endeavor to be like Him, we must endeavor to do what He did in the earth. In the aftermath of this historic divisive election, the body of faith, the body of believers, have the responsibility to serve as the hand of God in the world, to do justice, to demand justice from those that are in power, to fight for the needs of the poor and the oppressed, and to set the captive free, in Jesus name.

Remember, we enter now upon dark times, but only in the darkness can we see the stars. This is our last chance for justice.

The Book of Proverbs 10v. 22 state,s ‘the blessing of The Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it’. I extend to you and your family’s the blessings of The Lord, this day. May you know love, joy, peace, justice and prosperity in this New Year, and may you have no sorrow with it.

For several years now, I and a conglomeration of faith leaders and organizations, together with people’s of conscience and good will have been working diligently on the civic and social, and on the national political level to systematically change the criminal justice system; and very specifically to change the criminal justice system and the system of policing within the City of New York, at the level of strategic policing objectives, policing policy and police practice. We have had some modest success, as we’ve helped to reduce the policing practice of 'Stop, Question and Frisk' by the NYPD, and in the election of a new Mayor of the City of New York. But we have been clear that even these substantive changes were only the small tip of an enormous criminal justice iceberg threatening the very existence of peoples of color and poor communities throughout New York City. In 2013, the Country was shocked to learn that the murderer who used Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law as an excuse to murder the unarmed teen Trayvon Martin, would not be punished for the heinous crime of taking that young, innocent man’s life. And in the Summer and Autumn of 2014, shock again, and enough became more than enough, when two separate Grand Jury’s in two separate American states failed to indict police officers for the murders of Mike Brown, Jr., in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner on Staten Island in the City of New York.

The conscience of the nation was seared. How was this possible? How was it possible that our system of policing and our system of Criminal Justice could be so unbalanced and so unjust, even in the presence of so much incontrovertible evidence. The Book of Proverbs tells us again in Chapter 11v. 1 that ‘A false balance is abomination to The Lord, but a just weight is His delight’. As a consequence of these unjust decisions, everyday peoples of faith and good will from throughout New York City, and all over the Country began to speak with their feet, and in displays of nonviolent direct action all over America, and even in cities around the world, they marched, engaged actions of civil disobedience, participated in ‘die ins’, and took to social media to give their spirit voice as they protested systemic and rampant injustice in America’s system of policing and criminal justice. With heavy hearts, but with the heart filled hope that we have the power to create and build a better system of justice rooted in human rights, dignity, equity and equality for all people, we, and citizens of the world marched for justice for weeks on end. The world heard our collective voices standing in solidarity all across the American landscape calling for equity, equality and justice as part of the nonviolent social justice movement.

Then one week before Christmas two honest and beloved New York City Police Officers, Raphael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, were assassinated ‘execution style’ sitting in their patrol cars in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, by a depraved, mentally ill individual who travelled the same day from out of State, using this nonviolent social movement as an excuse to incite and engage violent, seditious murder against New York City police. The murders seemed to suck the life blood out of the fledgling movement, as shock turned to anger and intolerance, vitriol and deep emotional pain on both sides of this immense social debate. Mayor Bill de Blasio asked for a pause to protests to allow the City to mourn, and to permit the City and the nation as a whole to reflect on what was transpiring, and to ask ourselves some very painful and serious questions, as the City of New York honored and buried it’s fallen officers. I, as a consecrated bishop and faith leader in the City of New York, attended the funerals for NYPD Detectives Ramos and Liu, not only to pay respect and to offer love and condolences to their families, but to as well extend the broader message that police officers are not the enemy of the people; that we love and have great respect for those that wear the uniform and have taken the oath to protect and to serve the citizenry; and who put their lives on the line daily to upholding a society built upon human and civil rights, and of law. Our fight is for justice and equity in the conduct of that noble profession; for the fair and just prosecution of Officers who in bad faith take innocent life, violate the laws they are sworn to protect, and who execute their duties with malice and depraved indifference to the lives that they are sworn to protect; for policing strategy objectives, policies and practices that not only uphold the rule of law, but that as well preserve and protect communities and the people that live in them, regardless of race, color or economic station. We believe that black lives matter, and that every life matters, and our objectives are to promote and preserve life for all people, without fear of those that we rely upon to protect us, and that we should be free to have that life more abundantly.

In this new year, on January 19th, 2015, at 12 noon on the day set aside to honor the life, vision and sacrifice for civil rights of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we the people of faith, good will toward all men and conscience, re-engage this social debate, as we pray with our feet and march for dynamic criminal justice reform, and for systemic reform of the New York City Police Department in it’s policing policies and practices, in particular the eradication of the ‘Broken Windows’ methodology of policing, and we ask that all men and women who yearn for a just and equitable civil society join with us in the power and moral superiority of militant nonviolent protest and direct action.

As we engage in this dynamic campaign of militant nonviolent speech for systemic social change, it is important for all to recognize and remember that speech is not free. All speech carries consequences, whether for good or ill. That the best speech inspires us to love, and to dream, to reach for the brass rings in life, to become better than ourselves, and to embrace the better angels of our sin depraved human nature. Talk is never cheap. Words are actions, and actions are words. We have a hope that through the action of our words and nonviolent social deeds, we can reach the better angels of our human nature to inspire progressive conversation, and debate, and to ultimately inspire the change in public policy regarding policing in the City of New York, and throughout this country that belongs to all of us, that will truly guarantee at the most practical human level, in the streets of American cities and towns, liberty and justice for all. This is why we will march on Monday, January 19th, 2015, and this is why I am asking you to join with us on this day of direct public action. Join with us as we pray with our feet walking through the streets of Harlem and throughout the City of New York. Join with us in spirit, if you cannot join with us in body, to pray for the healing of our cities and towns, and for the healing of the country. Pray with us for betterment of all human relationships. Pray that police within the City of New York, and everywhere, will understand that we love and appreciate them. Pray for the understanding that police are not the enemy, that blue lives matter, and black lives matter, to let it be known that all lives matter. Let it be known that we march for life, and that we shun and defy death. We march for policies of strong community policing that promote healthy civic engagement and relationships between the peoples of community and the police that serve and protect them. We march for systemic change to a system of criminal justice that sees more black and brown people of color behind bars today then were ever under the bo***ge of the Middle Passage and American slavery. We march to change the flawed practice of 'broken windows' policing, because you can't force people of meager means to live in neighborhoods riddled with poverty and brokenness and then penalize those very people for living there through aggressive, unjust policing. We march for social and economic justice, because most petty crimes are committed because somebody, somewhere needs to eat, and our system of criminal justice feeds off of that brokenness and indigence to fuel the engine of the very system created to protect them through arrests and court costs, and lawyers, and jails and prisons, and the mansions and fancy automobiles of those who earn their bread on the backs of those imprisoned by societal injustice. We march to eradicate the school to prison pipeline. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and so are human bodies, miseducated and uneducated, being farmed through a system of education that sees far too many black and brown children left behind, only to be caught up in a system that feeds off of their circumstances and ill fortunes to generate wealth for lawyers, judges and jailers. We march for stolen lives, for shattered families, for busted and disgusted neighborhoods. We march for a new day, and a better day, a day that honors the power and spirit of our nations creed. We the people of the United States, assembled for this march, on the day that the nation honors the spirit, life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the movement for civil rights in America, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense on the streets of our towns and cities, promote the general welfare for every person irrespective of their race, color or religious creed, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves, the nation as a whole, and our posterity, do endorse the Constitution of these United States of America, and do ordain and establish marches to guarantee liberty and Justice for all.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to question and alter the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and our Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which compel them to direct civil action. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of a proper Education and Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men and Women, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That WHENEVER any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People's subject to it, to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness, as well as that of the nations as one people. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute social, economic and criminal injustices, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their security. Such has been the patient sufferance of black and brown people's and the poor in communities throughout America, and such is now the necessity which constrains us to alter our Systems of Government.

Please join with us, and the families of the victims of police misconduct and murder, praying and marching for a better, more just and equitable civil society; for dynamic reform of our criminal justice system; the systemic reform of the New York City Police Department, as well as justice for the victims of police misconduct and murder, and their families. Join with us this 8Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Monday, January 19th, 2015 at 12 o’clock noon, at the corner of 110th Street and Lenox Ave. in the Village of Harlem, in the City of New York, as we march to insure a civil society of liberty and justice for all.

Because justice delayed is justice DENIED.

The Rev. Bishop Dr. Raymond H. Rufen-Blanchette
Pastor, Revelation Pilgrim Ministries Brooklyn, NY
Chairman, The Clergy Campaign for Social & Economic Justice

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