Columbus Police

The is no good reason for me to know the name Julius Tate Jr. There is one bad reason. Julius Tate Jr. was a teenager out with his girlfriend in his own neighborhood. He was a young guy enjoying his life and I am some older guy that lives alone and writes detailed articles on technology and surveillance. He had excited young people things to be doing and I have boring old nerd guy stuff to be forever behind on. He will never know my name because the life he was enjoying was ended by a Columbus SWAT officer without warning while he was unarmed and accused of no crime.

The involvement of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division in the affairs of the Columbus Police Department stretches back more than 20 years. Every instance to their intervention follows the same pattern. Local outrage leads to court cases which then lead to attorneys involved which then leads to the Justice Department stepping in. What follows next is a change in presidential administrations which leads to a change priorities, or in the case of the Trump administration outright removal of the pretense of priorities, which is then followed by half measures or consequences.

It was something that should have never happened. This past Comfest in June 2019, members of the fascist group Proud Boys volunteered at Comfest and were welcomed. Despite the 2019 mission statement including the phrase “combating resurgent fascism” Proud Boys were allowed to pick up trash while wearing t-shirts and hats advertising their group and their beliefs, and after the objections of community groups who were alerted, were allowed to get free beer and police protection.

Columbus is not a sanctuary city, despite the claims of the big fat liar in charge, Andy Ginther. It has not gone so far as to literally unleash the hounds (or in this case German Sheppard attack dogs) on behalf of ICE like the Ohio State Patrol, but contrary to resolutions in support of individual immigrants seeking sanctuary and other public pronouncements, the Columbus Division of Police does assist ICE in roundups.

Here in Columbus law does not mean justice and police work does not mean investigation. That has been made clear again in the case of Masonique Saunders on today May 9th. 17 year old Saunders has been held virtually incognito by Franklin County for the five months and a day since she was belatedly arrested for the murder of her 16-year old boyfriend Julius Tate. She witnessed him being executed on the street by SWAT during a robbery sting operation. Another youth had been shot two days before.

The protest during gallery hop on May 4th was a great many things. It was energetic. It was determined. It was fairly restrained on the part of everyone but the police and a lone lunatic in a track suit and a MAGA hat stumbling around raving about America being great. What it was not, legally or in reality, was a riot. Yet four, and exactly four, demonstrators were charged in order to make it a riot.

When a teenager dies in a hail of police bullets family and community are traumatized. When that happens in Columbus the teenager is invariably not actually a danger to the police who execute them. After the murder, the City of Columbus is not content to merely smear the victim and hide behind attorneys, the police union, and their badges. There is a developing escalation, where any witnesses and t to the murder and their families are prosecuted. This is what is happening in the wake of the police killings of both Julius Tate Jr.

I've never written an obituary for someone I've known. I've never written an obituary for someone I've liked. I've investigated friend's murders as a journalist. I've never framed that work as an obituary. I normally write obituaries for public figures I hate. I've written to celebrate their deaths, to name their crimes, to wish them ill in the afterlife.

The family of Donna Dalton-Castlebury expressed tenative relief this week Andrew Mitchell, a 31 year police veteran and vice cop, was arrested on charges by the FBI. He was charged in connection with his apparent pattern of forcing alleged prostitutes to give him sexual favors in his car in exchange for not being arrested. He is being held without bail and the City of Columbus is “reviewing” weather to overturn some or all of the prostitution arrests he made in the last year. Mayor Andy Ginther quickly put out a self-congratulatory press release asking for more information.