A Bounty For A Black Life

Yet, despite their supreme confidence that they would get off, they still had to suffer the indignity of being called to justice no matter how much of a farce that turned out to be. And those same officers never in their wildest dreams would have expected that any Southern mayor or city official would publicly shower them with awards and shell out cash along with those awards to them for being charged with or accused of shooting the black victim.

But city officials in Claremont, California, located 30 miles east of Los Angeles, have done exactly that to two of their police officers. At a Christmas party on December 4 the city manager with the approval of the mayor, and other city officials named the two officers who shot and killed 18-year-old black motorist Irvin Landrum, Jr. last January employees of the year and doled out checks of $1000 to them. Claremont police officials apparently felt a city award wasn't enough and quickly followed it up by designating them as officers of the year.

Claremont city and police officials didn't even try to mask the reasons they handed out the awards and cash to the officers. They bluntly said that they deserved the honors because of their courage under fire. The officers maintain that they shot Landrum after he opened fired on them following a routine traffic stop.

What Claremont city officials didn't say is that a sheriff's investigation found that the gun Landrum allegedly used was not registered to him, was not stolen, had not been fired, and did not have his fingerprints on it. The case is currently under federal investigation.

City officials also didn't say that hundreds of community residents have staged weekly protests at city hall over the Landrum shooting. They didn't say that they have sent smear letters to officials at nearby Pitzer College in an effort to get school officials to get rid of the handful of professors who took part in those demonstrations.

They also didn't say whether they expressed any regrets to Landrum's family over his death. While the Los Angeles County District Attorney found no evidence that the officers were guilty of any wrongdoing in the Landrum shooting, Claremont city and police officials should still ask themselves these troubling questions about the propriety of giving awards to officers involved in questionable shootings.

Did they give them the awards because they sincerely believed that the officers deserved them, or was this their bull-headed way of thumbing their nose at the hundreds who have protested the Landrum shooting? Do city officials honestly feel that police officers who use deadly force should be rewarded when massive clouds of doubt hang ominously over the circumstances of the shooting? Did they consider the effect the awards would have in a city that is already in deep turmoil over the shooting? Will this award tempt officials in other cities wracked by controversy over police violence to follow their example and hand out awards to officers involved in questionable shootings?

By further alienating the many residents in Claremont angered and disturbed by the Landrum shooting, did city officials brazenly abrogate their sworn duty to do everything in their power to preserve and insure racial peace and harmony in their city? Don't city officials also have an obligation to show some sensitivity toward the Landrum family? After all, the shooting by any standard is a tragedy, and a life was lost.

And finally, could giving cash to officers who kill be likened to putting a price, yes a bounty, on a life? One would think that with the national furor police shootings have caused during the past couple of years, the last thing that a responsible city official anywhere would want is stir up even more furor. But that's exactly what Claremont city officials have done by handing out this award to the two officers who shot Landrum. They have shown that life, especially a black life, is still dirt cheap.

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