I recently opened
a box. It had been sealed with packaging tape since I moved away from
Pittsburgh to pursue my career as documentary maker. A set of grainy black and
white photos had been hidden within the cardboard cube for seven years. I
realized it was my first documentary work. In 1997 most of us still shot on
film. I needed to scan the photos so that I could post them online. They look like they could have been taken in
the very recent past or even today.
On November 12th
1995, Johnny Gammage, an
unarmed black man from Syracuse, New York was killed by Officers Milton
Mullholland and John
Vojtas of the Brentwood police,
Keith Henderson and Shawn Patterson of the Whitehall police and Michael Albert
of the Baldwin Police. He was beaten and
suffocated in Pittsburgh PA, near the suburb of Brentwood. The autopsy showed
that Gammage “suffocated after pressure was applied to his neck and chest (1).”
None of the police were found guilty of any wrongdoing. Vojtas was later found liable in wrongful
death case. Not for the death of Johnny Gammage, but for the 1993 death of his fiancée
Judith Barret (2).
At the time Johnny Gammage was beaten to
death, I was a student at the University of Pittsburgh. Before Vojtas received
his not guilty verdict, I began attending community forums and demonstrations
denouncing the killing of Johnny Gammage. After Vojtas was found not guilty we
began demanding that the federal government charge the officers with violating
Gammage’s civil rights. We even protested outside the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial
when the then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno came to speak. I
do not have photos of that event or of the many other protests that I attended.
Film was expensive and I was poor. The Department of Justice never filed charges
for any violations of civil rights.
The statements of the then head of the Pittsburgh FOP, Smokey
Heinz, and the reluctance of the judicial system to do anything about unchecked
police violence led to a climate in the city where the Ku Klux Klan felt they
had a sympathetic audience. Heinz during one community forum claimed Gammage
had died of a bodily malfunction. The day that the Klan came to downtown I
loaded my SLR with a roll of tri-x and joined the thousands of Pittsburghers
who came out to denounce racism and police violence. What my camera captured
that day was surprising to me at the time, but now I see I should not have been
surprised.
A militarized police
force patrolled a fenced in area that was there to defend the Klan. The
police went out of their way to protect and serve the hooded miscreants delivering
their message from the steps of the City County building. As one of my photos
shows the police placed a sign on the fence that read: “do not climb fence violators
will be sprayed with mace.” I managed to get a shot as police in full riot gear
charged me and the other protesters. Somewhere in the set I have a blurry
negative of a mounted policeman charging us. There is also this one wonderful
photo of group of then young folks, most of whom I got to know later, holding a
banner that says No War, No KKK , No Fascist U$A.
The police that day took a stand to protect racism. It
wasn’t about protecting the right to free speech or freedom of assembly that
they claimed. You only need to look at what the Pittsburgh police did to the
May Day protesters in 2000 or the G20 protestors and other victims in 2009 to
know that freedom of speech and assembly are the least of their concerns. This
same dynamic has gone on and on. And now we have a nation exploding into
righteous anger because police abuse has continued unchecked. Wouldn’t it have
been better if justice had just been done long ago?
When I went to that protest I believed as I do now that
black lives matter. I also still believe as I did then that Iraqi, Yemeni, and
Afghan lives matter, I still believe indigenous lives matter. But we live in a nation that solves its problems by force,
condones torture, and spies on its citizens. This seems like a nation where
lives no longer matter. The president kills by executive order. The country
harbors war criminals and the rich are above the law. We have far more
photographic and video evidence now than I could have dreamed of when I snapped
my shots in 1997. My Photos are no longer sealed in a box. They are visible
again, as visible as the current police chief Cameron McLay who posed for a
photo holding a sign that reads I Resolve to Challenge Racism @ Work. #End
White Silence (3).” Maybe if more people, like him, would have stood up in 1997
we wouldn’t be in this present mess.
It is long past time
to transform this nation into a place where all people matter. The right to a
dignified life must be guaranteed to all. The moral compass of this nation is
broken. The U.S.A has gone off course. The injustice that has become the norm
of so many of our institutions must come to an end. The unrest must continue
until we make this land into a place where there is justice and lasting peace. I
want to live in a world where there are no riot police to photograph and no one
ever has to spend their time protesting institutional violence. Until then let
the uproar continue.
By:
RD
alchemicalmedia January 6, 2015
1. Time-line of events in the Johnny Gammage Case. http://www.post-gazette.com/frontpage/2005/10/12/Timeline-Events-in-the-Jonny-Gammage-case/stories/200510120331October 12, 2005.
2. Pitz, Marylynne Pitz. “Vojtas Liable in Death: Brentwood Officer to Pay $215,000 to Ex-fiancee's Estate.” http://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/19990814vojtas3.asp. August 14, 1999.
3. Flatow, Nicole. “This Is The Generic Anti-Racism Sign That Outraged Pittsburgh’s Police Union.” http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/01/04/3607714/this-is-the-generic-anti-racism-sign-that-outraged-pittsburghs-police-union/. January 4, 2015.
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