rm± keeping it real
Hallowed Be Thy Jail
ONECOP INITIATIVE IS NOTHING BUT PR
By Imani Scott-Blackwell news@flagpole.com
About 30 local faith leaders and law enforce
ment officers—including outgoing District
Attorney Ken Mauldin, ACCPD Police Chief
Cleveland Spruill, UGA Police Chief Dan Silk
and Solicitor C.R. Chisolm—attended the
OneCOP “One Congregation One Precinct”
initiative launched by the organization
MovementForward Inc. at the East Athens
Educational Dance Center on Feb. 27.
OneCOP, a partnership between faith
institutions and law enforcement, is led
by the Rev. Markel Hutchins of Atlanta.
Some may be familiar with Hutchins from
his “advocacy” for the family of Kathryn
Johnston, a 92-year-old grandmother who
was killed by police during an illegal raid
on her Atlanta home in 2006. Hutchins
claimed to have helped Johnston’s fam
ily win their wrongful death settlement
and proceeded to sue the family for
10%, according to the Atlanta Journal-
Constitution. Then, In 2010, amidst a power
struggle between opposing factions of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
Hutchins, who claimed to be the interim
SCLC president, allegedly had the power
cut off, welded the backdoor shut and pad
locked the gates. When questioned in court,
Hutchins invoked his Fifth Amendment
right to avoid incriminating himself.
This is the same man who is now in
Athens mobilizing faith leaders to work
in partnership with law enforcement. The
OneCOP promotional narra
tive is textbook propaganda, g
defined in Merriam-Webster’s z>
dictionary as “ideas, facts, or 3
allegations spread deliber- g
ately to further one’s cause or S
damage an opposing cause.” [=
OneCOP’s cause is improving
relations between cops and
communities. They want to
create enough good press to
overshadow the bad press from
decades of police abuse and
constitutional rights violations.
The program is being framed
as an initiative that is not
reactionary, but instead aims
to improve public safety on
the front end. This messaging
deserves a second look. The
role of police officers is inherently reaction
ary. A crime takes place or is alleged to take
place, the police are called, and then they
react or respond to the scene.
To put the OneCOP program into con
text, it is important to understand the
ways police engage with the public at large.
One is through a consensual encounter—
when someone is willingly participating
in an officer’s investigation. For example,
when an officer approaches a person on
the street asking where they are going or
coming from. The goal of these consen
sual encounters is either to gather enough
evidence to justify an arrest or to gather
evidence that can contribute to their inves
tigation of another individual—a neigh
bor, a family member or, in the context of
OneCOP, another member of your church
congregation.
Police are the militarized arm of the
state, and they are responsible for man-
aging government interests in the Athens
community. Police officers are not social
workers. Quite literally, their job is to
abduct people who have been accused of
committing crimes and put them in cages
where they wait (unless able to bond out)
for a hearing before a judge. That arrest pro
cess often happens with little to no over
sight or accountability for civilian safety.
Six Athens residents, most experienc
ing some degree of mental health crisis,
were shot by police in 2019: Nan Zhao,
Salvador Salazar, Bonny Thomas, Aaron
Hong, Carlton Steve Brooks and Thomas
Wayne Swinford. All were killed except for
Salazar, who was left in critical condition.
Comparatively, in the previous year, local
police investigated seven homicides. The
number of deaths at the hands
of police in 2019 was nearly
equal to the number of people
killed by civilians in 2018.
With odds like these, it
is time for our leadership to
re-evaluate where they bud
get our time and money to
reinvest in solutions proven
to change the conditions that
breed crime, such as lack of
access to education, living wage
jobs, food, housing and mental
health resources. Rather than
investing in the community,
the OneCOP initiative takes
advantage of the goodwill of
faith communities to expand
the investigative capacity of
local law enforcement under
the guise of promoting public safety. It
invests nothing into the communities of
highest need, while still finding ways to dis
rupt their lives, families and neighborhoods
by putting them in in jail, overburdening
them with fines and fees, or criminalizing
their children. ©
From left, Police Chief Cleveland Spruill, former DA Ken Mauldin, Solicitor C.R.
Chisholm and Sheriff Ira Edwards pray at the OneCOP launch event.
THANK YOU
ATHENS!
WINNER
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6 FLAGPOLE.COM | MARCH 11, 2020
