ain't this where clinton spoke about cleaning up racist amerikkka?

This is an upate of the Cedar avenue incident. Below contains the results
of a federal inquiry in the incident.

:   Tomorrow marks the 180th day aniversary of the police riot on Cedar
: Avenue in East Austin, in which innocent black women and children were
: beaten by police officers. This day is significant, because after this
: day, ALL the police thugs involved in the riot will be free from any
: administrative action that could be taken against them by the APD.  Texas
: laws mandates that such discipline must be carried out within 180 days of
: the infraction. 
: 
: Prelude to a kill 
:    At 10.25 pm on February 11, 39 year old Ira Bedford called 911 to ask
: the police for help. "Some little short boy" - a gang member carrying a
: gun - had come to a chaperoned valentine's Day party Bedford was throwing
: for teenage children at his home at Cedar Avenue on the east side of
: Austin (a black neighborhood). He tossed the boy out but wanted an officer
: to "ride through" the neighborhood, just to make sure things were okay.
: "I've got a lot of kids here and we're not going to have anything going
: on,"  he can be heard saying on the police tape.
:
:    What happend after that, Cedar Avenue neighbors say, was a "police
: riot." Within half an hour of Bedford's 911 call, approximatly 68 cops -
: more than a third of the police officers on duty in Austin that night -
: showed up and closed off the street. At least 14 people claim they were
: maced, beaten, and had guns pulled on them by police that night, most of
: them teenagers who attended the party. Even Bedford and his family did not
: escape injury. He was hit on his thigh  with a night stick, his wife
: sufferd a broken tailbone, and his teenage son and daughter were maced.
: Three of the party's chaperones were arrrested, and EMS rushed a police
: officer, Carlos Cardona, to the hospital with a serious head injury, after
: he was struck on the head by an unidentified assailant. Two officers were
: treated at the hospital for mace (one of those, claims an eyewitness, was
: a black officer in uniform who was maced by another officer).
:
:    A channel 36 broadcast from the scene that night showed enough police
: cars to choke off the street, officers chasing residents, and at least
: one  female officer bearing down on a group of young people with a teaser
: gun on a long prod. Community members were outraged that the routine call
: escallated into violence that they say would not have happend west of
: I-35.
: 
: The police riot
:    Approximatly 40 to 50 people, ranging in age from 11 to 21, showed up
: at the Bedford's small home to eat barbecue and drink punch. When the
: police arrived at the party , Bedford says, he informed the officer that
: the gang member had left and everything was under control. At that point,
: Bedford says, Cardona told him, "You need to turn this party out. "When
: Bedford again told Cardona that every thing was okay, he says, Cardona
: replied, "if the kids aren't out of here by 12.30, we can lock their asses
: up." Bedford turned to the house and began herding the kids - who had come
: out to see what was going on - back inside.  He says he was standing in
: the front doorway, looking inside, when he herd his son yell, "Help daddy,
: I cant see." Bedford says he turned to see officers charging up to,  and
: through, his door yelling "Get your ass to the back motherfucker."
:
:    Bedford's wife, Charmaine, was outside, in front of the house. She says
: she saw an officer choking her son in the front yard. She yelled to them,
: "No, please, this is my son... and then I found myself on the ground."
: X-rays later showed that she sufferd a broken tailbone. She says she went
: inside to check on the rest of the kids, but an officer pulled a gun on
: her and several teens in her kitchen, telling them to get down on the
: floor. Instead, Bedford says, she picked up the telephone to call 911
: again, this time to report police brutality.
:
:    Bedford says she then left the house and was approached by a black
: uniformed officer. "I'd just been thrown out of my home, and he asked me
: what was going on. I told him, 'look at them. can't you see? They are out
: of control.' He said,'Ma'am, I'm going to take you to my supervisor."
: Bedford says that he put his arm aroud her and began escorting her, her
: daughter and two nieces away from the fracas. "We hadn't walked six steps
: when a white officer came up and said, 'Get out of here." He then maced
: the black officer and her daughter at point blank range.
:
:    Dee Burkhalter, who lives two blocks from the Bedfords and was 16 weeks
: pregnant at the time, also attended the party. The 18 year-old says she
: herd her cousin scream that he couldn't see, and was running to his aid
: when someone hit her on the back of the head knocking her to the ground
: where she blacked out for a few seconds. When she came to, she says she
: saw police hitting children in the Bedford's yard. "the children were not
: fighting," She says. "They were running away, the ones that could." 
:
:    Meanwhile a 15-year-old girl was inside the Bedfords living room with
: other teenagers attending the party. "The police came in with guns drawn,
: she says, including Cardona, who was bleeding, "and started hitting
: people, sayin 'Get down nigger, get down motherfucker, shut up bitch.' The
: one that got hurt was real loud; they were asking him "Is this the nigger
: that did it? Is this the motherfucker that did it?' "One poice officer
: held a gun to me and told me to get down. They were four of us and we all
: got crouched down in the corner and he kept holding the gun on us," she
: says, "There were a lot of officers and they were hitting people with
: their sticks and with their fist, then they told everybody to get out of
: the house." 
:
:    The girl says she ran out the front door and across the street were
: some other kids were using a garden house to rinse the mace out of each
: other's eyes. "they came over with dogs and more mace and tried to mace us
: again," She says. Holding a jacket over her head, the 15-year-old ran to
: the corner grocery store, where she called for her mother to come pick her
: up. In an interview, her mother pulled out a copy of a doctor's report
: from the Capital Pediatric Group stating that her daughter had suffered a
: sprained neck and chronic headaches, allegedly from the incident. "She's
: getting counselling," says her mother.  "She  screams out at nights, has
: these nightmares. The other night she kept yelling over and over, "What's
: he saying? Where is he?"
:
:    Another girl says she saw an officer with his knee on her mother's neck
: across the room. When she yelled to him, "get off my mother," she was
: maced.
: 
: Aftermath
:    What happend that night, in a quiet middle-class black neighborhood,
: persists as an icon to many East Austinites, who see the incident as the
: epiotome of racial problems in the Austin Police Department. Most area
: resident believe the police are afraid of the people they are supposed to
: be protecting. Few of the officers are black - 88 out of 1,000. Eye
: witnesses report that only two of the 68 officers on the scene were black.
:
:    Despite all this , chief Watson still denies that her department have
: any major problems with race relations. She also said that she has seen no
: proof that officers violated anyone's civil rights.
:
:    Eastside residents have rallied weekly at the police headguarters,
: protesting officers use of force. But it seems to no avail, since they may
: have found a way to effectivly  close the books on this one. It was
: reported that some advisory panel from city hall decided that it would be
: best to just forget the whole thing (as if to say, fuck them niggers).
: What they decided to do was to set up an advisory board to prevent this
: from happening "again" in the future. Well, when it does happen again we
: can expect them to come up with another board to prevent it from happening
: "again" in the future; and when it does happen again.... Oh, well you get
: the picture,the illusonery quest of justice for the blackman.
: 
: acknowledgements:
: NOKOA the observer (Austin's Leading Progressive Weekly Newspaper)
: The Austin Chronicles


The 180 days deadline strangly coincided with the conclussion of a federal
investigation in the Cedar Avenue incident. This date was also accompanied
with some other disturbing trend in the Austin Police Department. 
 
  Federal officials have concluded that Austin police did not use
excessive force or otherwise violate the civil rights of black youths
during a Valentine's party that ended in clash with police officers.   

   "This department  has no intention of taking any further action," reads
an Aug 1 letter signed by officials with the U.S. Justice Department's
civil rights division and its criminal section.

Racist mayor's comments  
   Austin Mayor Bruce Todd hailed the decision not to pursue a criminal
case as an "opportunity to move forward with improved relations" between
the Police Department and members of the minority communities. But does
the mayor consider what it will takes to heal the wounds inflicted on
these kids as a result of living through that truamatic experience.

Remember Rodney King   
   Not everyone was pleased. "I'm disappointed in the results, but
certainly it's not unexpected," said Kelly Evans, an Austin attorney
representing about 15 party goers who have formerly notified city
officials that they intend to file a lawsuit.

   "To the Justice Department, a civil rights violation is one of a Rodney
King-type dimension," Evans said. "To them, the indiscriminate Macing of a
12-year-old child does not warrant criminal charges being filed.

   "But this doesn't mean that they are not problems with the Police
Department or how this incident was handled," he added. "It doesn't mean
there was no evidence of wrongdoing, and it doesn't mean thay are
exonerated."

   Evans said the decision "does not affect our case one iota."

Bogus FBI investigation?  
   "The Justice Department did not do as thorough an investigation as we
had hoped," said Jeff Travillion, president of the local chapter of the
NAACP. "We've been involved since day one and we had not been called."

   Assistant City Manager Joe Lessard said the Justice Department findings
were based on FBI interviews with withnesses of the altercation, including
parents and children.

   Travillion said he knew of some parents who had not been interviewed by
the FBI, suggesting "a decision not based on the merits."

Can we now trust them?
   Leaders from Austin's black community, the mayor and the police chief
commited on July 14 to a community relations agreement which seeks to
reshape the way the police treats minority citizens.

   The agreement recommits the department to community policing, to
continue to diversify every level of the department and to extend
multi-cultural training of officers.

   The centerpiece of the 10-page agreement is a Chief's Forum, a panel of
community members who will advise the police chief of various issues. 

  Assisttant City Manager and representatives from other community
organizations in East Austin formed the Committee for Justice Advisory
Council, in response to the Cedar incident.
 

P.S. 
              Racists assault on Chief Watson 
 
Chief Watson has the support of the community 
   There finally seems to be an explanation for Chief Watson's irrational
behaviour. Her comments were that she found insufficient evidence to take
disciplinary action against officers involved in the altercation at the
Valentine's Day party, and she had previously stated that there was no
racist police on her force. But these remarks seem to be made under
extreme duress from within her department. 

   The racist elements which seems endemic to all Texas law enforcement
institutions seems to be at work here. For example, there was a recent
poll conducted by the Austin Police Association (APA), in which slightly
more than two-thirds of the force responded to an association survey
released thursday. Of those, 89 per cent voted no-confidence. This
association is representative of the white male element of the department,
the old guard so to speak.  Most of them are upset that she may force them
to adjust their attitude when dealing with minorities. So she seemes to be
treading a thin line, trying to improve police-minorty relations while at
the same time appeasing the racist elements which are part and parcel of
every Texas law enforcement institution. 

   The APA accused her of paying too much attention to "reinventing
government" and too little to the basics of fighting crime. Watson's
response: "I'm not resigning." She added, however, "I think it is
incredibly important to be responsive to the citizens of Austin. If I lose
community support, then, in fact, there would be no longer a reason to
stay. But I believe I have community support."

   Under the City Charter, the City Manager, Jesus Garza has sole
authority to hire and fire the police chief. Garza said she has his
support. "She has my confidence, and she has a job," he said.

Non-support from racist mayor
   Mayor Bruce Todd said it is up to Garza to deal with the problem
quickly, and  the council will hold him responsible for doing so. "One
thing we can't have is the lack of trust and breakdown of communication
that has occurred," Todd said. But what Todd does not seem to realize is
that the there is no lack of trust from the community for the Chief. On
the otherhand, there is a lack of trust from the community in the police
force. What the Chief is trying to do is to instill this trust for the 
police in the community.

   Watson, 46, was hired  in late 1992 by the then City Manager. She came
to Austin from Houston, where in 1990 she became that city's first female
police chief.