Police culture devalues humanity of Black people
In the early morning of Jan. 24, 2022, Jordan Young, father of two young children, was walking his beloved dog on New Scotland Avenue near his Albany home. He was stopped by police officers who had observed him while patrolling the area in search of an alleged intruder reportedly seen by a caller on the rooftop of a nearby building.
The officers, six months on the force and equipped with pepper spray, had been given a detailed description of the rooftop suspect. Young did not fit the description of the suspect, yet the officers decided to stop him. They got out of their car with guns drawn and pointed at him. Young, who has mental health issues, first attempted to walk away as the officers continued to point their guns and yelled at him to drop the knife he carried for protection on mean streets. After being provoked for several minutes, Young advanced towards the officers. Officer James Madsen fired three bullets at Young, two of which struck him in the torso, nearly killing him.
In what happened next, we can draw a parallel between the treatment of Jordan Young and Tyre Nichols, beaten to death by Memphis police earlier this month.
These Black men, and so many others, were victims of a police and justice system culture characterized by its devaluation and dehumanization of Black men.
While Young lay helpless in the hospital’s intensive care unit following emergency surgeries and chained to a bed, barely alive, Albany County Judge William Little ruled that he posed a flight risk as he was charged with menacing and attempted assault on a police officer, which carries a mandatory prison sentence if convicted.
Over the next year, Young would undergo 22 surgeries to save his fragile life. At one point, his weight dropped to less than 80 pounds. He is now scheduled for a 23rd surgery.
Lost in the ordeal with law enforcement is the fact that Young has been medically diagnosed as schizophrenic and bipolar, conditions that require quality medical care and treatment. While the inattention is deeply
concerning, it is not surprising. The inhumane manner in which Young has been treated by law enforcement and the court highlights the mental stress Black men experience.
That lack of concern and the large-scale police brutality toward Black men are evidence of the existence of internalized systemic racism that includes a denial of its existence, a belief in negative racial stereotypes and a brutal disregard for the humanity of Black people.
To see it, we have only to examine the cases of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery — and most recently Tyre Nichols, a young father who was stopped on Jan. 7 by police near his Memphis home for a vague traffic infraction, then viciously beaten to death by five Black police officers without cause. That encounter points to the reality of a nationwide police culture based less on personal bias than on a normalization of violence against Black people.
After all, this historically biased police culture teaches and trains Black officers to view Black people in much the same way as white police officers do. They both operate with some of the same assumptions and stereotypes of Black people. Hence the race of the police officer is of less importance than the race of the victim. Black people are always at a greater risk of being brutalized by police regardless of an officer’s race.
Some glimmers of hope exist: Outraged residents of Memphis and others across the country expressed a recognition and understanding of the nature of the police culture and are actively demanding transformative changes in policing. The response of Memphis police and prosecutors in acting swiftly against the officers and releasing videos probably prevented more violence.
And in the Capital Region, many are speaking out in support of Jordan Young and are actively engaging in protest actions. Well over a thousand residents have already signed on to a petition calling upon Albany County’s district attorney to drop the criminal charges against Young, who along with his family has suffered enough. He needs humane and effective community mental health care and treatment, not destructive imprisonment that could become a death sentence.