When police are involved, black lives aren't worth as much

Snow blowers at Lowe's in Paramus. Will this winter be as bad as last, with one storm after another and municipal plows blockading your driveway? I'm prepared. Are you?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Let's hope a Page 1 report in The Record today will lead to federal charges against two police officers for violating the civil rights of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, two unarmed African-Americans who were killed by white police officers.

Today's story reports U.S. Attorney Eric Holder said authorities will conduct a civil rights investigation into the July 17 death of Garner, who was stopped by police for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.

The federal investigation into Brown's Aug. 9 death in Ferguson, Mo., is already under way.

The first paragraph of The Record's story uses the conditional, "would conduct a civil rights investigation" after a grand jury cleared the white police officer involved (A-1). 

Maybe that's just another example of the sloppy editing the Woodland Park daily has become known for -- even on Page 1 stories.

Phillip Pannell

In any case, local authorities aren't treating the deaths of Brown and Garner any differently than they did after the fatal shooting of black teenager Phillip Pannell by a white Teaneck police officer on April 10, 1990.

On Feb. 12, 1992, an all-white jury acquitted Gary Spath, the white officer, of manslaughter. 

More than 24 years after the Pannell shooting, the two recent deaths show that when police are involved, black lives aren't worth as much.

We also see that in other ways, such as Englewood's segregated elementary and middle schools 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education.

I haven't seen The Record's newsroom since 2008, but when I was working there, none of the top editors were black or Hispanic, and the white editor in charge killed the only two columns written by minorities.

He's 'Dumber'

After three straight days of front-page coverage, you'd think Columnist Mike Kelly wouldn't have to fill his first paragraph today with details from alleged rapes at William Paterson University and Ramapo College (A-1).

And after you read the thousands of words he pushes around today, you still can't guess whether he thinks the Wayne and Mahwah colleges flunk on providing a secure environment for the women who say they were gang raped.

Kelly has been at this game of being a columnist for more than 20 years.

Today, he reports, the alleged rapes raise "questions." 

After the trials or pleas, he will undoubtedly write a column describing the "lessons" that have emerged.

Pipeline to hell

Can you name one of Governor Christie's policies that has been good for the state's economy, environment, roads and mass transit, and the middle or working classes (B-4)?

So, why does another of The Record's lame columnists, Christie booster Charles Stile, think anybody in the country cares what the GOP bully thinks of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline (A-1)?