As you read it (h/t to the field negro), ask yourself these questions: Would this have happened to a white woman who was stopped for a busted tail light on her car? And if it did, what would you expect from our justice system?
It was a little over a year ago when Rowana Riggs was stopped by Officer Christian E. Cory (Badge #1927) for driving with a defective tail light. She was heading home from Jackson’s Mortuary where she was making preparations for her mother’s burial.
The Officer pulled behind Ms. Riggs and followed her for several blocks, turning on his lights and sirens only as Ms. Riggs was approaching her Father’s house. She continued the short distance to the driveway where she pulled in to a stop. Officer Cory pulled her car door open with such force that it damaged the hinges, now preventing the door from closing properly. He then grabbed Ms. Riggs and threw her to the ground.
Ms. Riggs claimed she was tasered and beaten in the face by the police officer. The police department disputed her account, and after an internal investigation, the Wichita Police Department exonerated Officer Cory of any wrongdoing. However, 2 separate and independent medical examinations of Ms. Riggs concluded that she had incurred facial contusions in and around her “right orbit and right zygomatic arch over her right eye . . .” Here is a picture of what she looked like after her motor vehicle was stopped by Officer Cory and she was removed forcibly from her car:
With the help of the Wichita NAACP, Ms. Riggs filed a civil rights complaint with the FBI, the US Attorney’s office in Kansas and the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice in Washington, DC. The Department of Justice finally got back to her recently with its conclusions regarding her complaint:
[L]ast Tuesday, after a year of waiting, I received a letter from the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice stating that after “reviewing” the facts, they had concluded that no Civil Rights violations had taken place.
The Wichita NAACP representatives state that they will continue to pursue this case on behalf of Ms. Riggs. I wish them all the luck in the world. But something tells me that so long as George W. Bush is President of these United States, the odds of convincing the DOJ to do anything on behalf of Ms. Riggs is less than zero. And I suspect it will remain less than zero if John McCain is elected President, also.
Now, I know there are a few people (and I really don’t think it is a large number) who are so angry at what they perceive as the sexist treatment Hillary Clinton received at the hands of the media, and also at the hands of the Obama campaign, that they have stated they will refuse to vote for Senator Obama, or may even vote for Senator McCain. I’m not here to judge their anger or to attempt to persuade them that the Obama campaign had little if anything to do with their claim that sexism prevented Hillary Clinton from winning the nomination. But I do want them to ask themselves if they really want a Republican President and his Republican appointees in the Justice Department to be determining cases where civil rights violations are presented. Women are as much a protected class under our civil rights laws as African Americans. And as much as Ms Riggs is an African American, she is just as much a woman.
We don’t really know what motivated the police officer to brutally beat her so badly that the night she was pulled over for a defective tail light. So badly that for weeks afterwards she suffered from severe pain in her “head, back and neck” and which has caused a continuing loss of vision in her right eye. We don’t know what motivated him to kick her in the abdomen so hard that she immediately defecated and urinated from the sheer force of his blow. Perhaps, his actions might have been justified, though there is nothing to indicate that Ms. Riggs was charged with assaulting the police officer (or if she was the charges apparently were dropped), or with possession of a deadly weapon, or that in some way her actions precipitated and required the degree of force which officer Cory employed against her that night.
On the other hand, perhaps his actions were motivated by racism or sexism or some combination of both. Who can say? But don’t you think that, at the very least, the Department of Justice should have done more for Ms. Riggs than merely brush her off with a perfunctory letter claiming her complaint lacked merit after letting her case languish for over a year? Doesn’t she as a woman, a woman of color, deserve more from the officials and attorneys who staff the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice than that? Doesn’t she deserve some measure of justice for the injuries she suffered at the hands of the Wichita Police Department, especially since they are not inclined to do anything for her, and therefore nothing will be done unless the federal government intervenes?
Well, she won’t get any justice if a Republican continues to hold the office of President. And I suspect neither will a lot of other women, black or white, Latina or Asian or Native American, who file complaints for violations of their civil rights with a Republican controlled DOJ. So, the next time you take your anger out for a proper venting, take a moment to pause and consider the fate of Rowana Riggs. Take a long moment. Because she is your sister as much as any other woman. What was done to her could be done to you, if not by the police, by some other male figure in your life, whether your boss or your husband, boyfriend, family member or even some relative stranger. In such circumstances, wouldn’t you would want the harm done to you to be taken seriously, and those responsible to be brought to justice for their crime?
Just like Rowana Riggs does?
