An eyewitness finds herself on the wrong side of police
Kimberly Bracken was getting ready to bike away from her North Side home on a Saturday evening around 6 when a police officer ran past chasing a black teenage boy.
She cycled her usual way down Sandusky Street, west of Allegheny General Hospital, but police cars blocked the end of the street. She looked left and saw through a small hospital garage the teen lying face down on the pavement, with maybe 15 cops surrounding him, his hands behind his back.
It appeared the threat was over. The suspect was secured. She slowly biked toward the scene but stayed 25 or 30 feet away, watching.
As she’d later say in detailed description on Facebook, “I thought that regardless of what that boy did, I want to make sure he is treated like a human.’’
Call her a “freakin liberal,’’ as she says one officer did, but the irony of this April 25 encounter is that there’d have been no Facebook post, no citation of Ms. Bracken by police, no complaint by her to the Civilian Review Board of police misconduct, if an officer had told her she needed to watch from, say, the sidewalk. If that had happened, she would have told neighbors it looked like a good arrest to her.
“They secured him so he couldn’t shoot anyone else,’’ said Ms. Bracken, who was told by police that the boy had shot someone. “I think that’s a really positive thing.’’
Who wouldn’t? Years ago, a few blocks away, I witnessed a young officer tackle a youth. I viewed that as a good and brave arrest then and still do. But that doesn’t mean what happened after this suspect’s apprehension is good policing.
Because the Office of Municipal Investigations is investigating Ms. Bracken’s complaint, police spokeswoman Sonya Toler couldn’t say much. But that apprehended juvenile she saw is being charged on various gun counts, escape and flight to avoid apprehension. He’d had a loaded handgun before he was subdued, Ms. Toler said.
According to Ms. Bracken’s complaint, she was still on her bike when a screaming cop approached and ordered her away, yelling that she was interfering with a shooting investigation. As she describes it, after telling the officer something about it being “’good to have other perspectives,” she crept back toward the curb.
Unsatisfied, the screaming cop reached into her coat pockets looking for her wallet. Then, joined by two shouting female officers, police removed her wallet from the basket of her now fallen bike and cited her for interfering with “an active police investigation/search.’’
I know the soft-spoken Ms. Bracken, 30. Years ago, she would baby-sit my daughters. She’s about as threatening as a summer breeze. It certainly looks as if the officer just didn’t want anyone watching the police. Why?
Let’s not be naive here. Let’s not split into the usual warring camps of police-arealways-right and police-cando-no-right, inflamed by events in other cities. Let’s talk about Pittsburgh.
In the past 20 years, unarmed black men have been killed (Jonny Gammage), left paralyzed (Leon Ford) or badly beaten (Jordan Miles) in or around Pittsburgh, with suburban or city police about the only eyewitnesses.
Brandi Fisher, president of the Alliance for Police Accountability, which formed five years ago in reaction to the Miles case, has been in contact with Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay about the treatment of Ms. Bracken in this incident.
“These are things that occur often in poorer communities,’’ Ms. Fisher said. “To me it’s a scare tactic, to intimidate people.’’
Ms. Bracken, who was interviewed last week by KDKA-TV, believes the only reason she’s getting this much media attention is she’s a young, white female.
She didn’t record anything, but Vic Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said there are five ongoing lawsuits against the Philadelphia police for similar citations of citizens for recording police activity with their cellphones, often from across the street.
“The problem is police use the word ‘interference,’” Mr. Walczak said. “The only danger to the police is that they will be held accountable” if they do something wrong.
Ms. Bracken is hoping the hospital has cameras trained on that parking lot that can corroborate her version of events.
The more transparency, the better off good police officers and citizens should be. True interference shouldn’t be hard to define. Chief McLay should share that definition with police and civilians pronto so we can safely be what most of us want to be: allies.