Police

Jussie Smollett's Lies Will Not Make Me Trust Law Enforcement

If cops want me to withhold judgement until all the facts are out, they have to police their own house first.

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(Photo by Chicago Police Department via Getty Images)

Withholding judgement is an act of faith, not logic. Logic is what allows you to make conclusions based on the information you have available. Deductive logic is what allows to you overcome gaps in that information. But it is faith that makes you believe more information will present itself, and that your restraint will be rewarded with a more accurate set of facts on which to base your conclusion.

My mistake in the Jussie Smollett saga was a common one, but not the one a bunch of white people think I made. My mistake was that I impugned my standards of logical rigor on a man I didn’t know, facing issues I couldn’t imagine, operating with a moral center I’ve never tested. I imagined Smollett to be a rational actor, without any evidence that he was one. It’s a particularly stupid mistake for me to make, I’ve spent a lot of time writing and thinking about how the assumption of “rational” behavior, despite tons of evidence to the contrary, is the threshold mistake made by many right wing judges and economists. No “rational” person would invent an attack by MAGA bros in this political climate and expect to get away with it, but my assumption that Smollett was a rational person was a critical logical failure. I can’t speak for everybody, but I’m smarter than that. Next time, I won’t be so quick to make my thinking contingent upon the common sense of people whose records I don’t know.

But there will be a “next time.” And while I will try to rest my judgments based on more solid reasoning, there’s nothing that’s going to hold back the speed of those judgments That’s because nothing in the Smollett situation has restored my faith in: the police, law enforcement generally, or the white people who rove around this country in MAGA hats. Nothing that’s happened here makes me believe that police are interested in even finding more or accurate information about their own misdeeds. Nothing that’s happened here makes me think MAGA is now committed to having “full investigations” of alleged crimes. And nothing that’s happened here makes me believe that white guy naysayers on Twitter take seriously the threats and incidents of violence that are visited upon minorities, LGBTQ people, and women in this country.

I have no faith in these people. The police aren’t interested in keeping me safe, they’re interested in keeping some unreconstructed white lady safe from me. MAGAs aren’t interested in justice, social or otherwise, they’re interested in preserving white supremacy. The next time somebody comes forward claiming they are a victim of a hate crime, these people can brand themselves with “Remember Jussie Smollett” tattoos for all I care. Their cries to pump the breaks on a “rush to judgement” will mean nothing to me, logically, because I’ll have “Remember LaQuan McDonald” etched on my black ass.

Trevor Noah (who I feel is criminally underrated as a comic and social commentator) says that I shouldn’t conflate the two cases. From Slate:

“The Chicago P.D. has lied about many things when it includes themselves. Cops have lied to further their own goals. This had nothing to do with them. It wasn’t a story about police. They lied about Laquan McDonald,” reminded Noah. “But this is a completely separate thing where they had nothing to gain or lose by him being proved right or wrong.” He finished up with a joke: “Either way they were going to arrest the black person, so they were winning”.

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Here, Noah is wrong. It’s not a “completely separate thing.” He’s making the mistake I just admitted I made myself: he’s imagining rational self-interest guides the actions of Chicago police. I’d sooner anthropomorphize a damn candelabra that impute “rationality” to C-P-freaking-D

Police sussed out and arrested Smollett in less than a month. Smollett made the allegedly false report on January 29th, and he turned himself in today, February 21st. In contrast, police took 13 months to arrest Jason Van Dyke, the officer who murdered LaQuan McDonald. And they had the dash-cam footage showing the crime the entire time. Van Dyke was eventually convicted, but the three officers who allegedly tried to cover up the murder were eventually acquitted.

These incidents are connected because it’s evidence that I cannot trust CPD to do a full and transparent investigation of crimes when the victim is black. It’s evidence that police treat a potential false police report from a black man more seriously than a potential murder of a black man.

And it’s evidence that the police can act pretty damn quickly when there is intense media scrutiny and pressure on the case. Some people are acting like Smollett is an argument against a media circus. I view Smollett as additional evidence that media outrage is the only way to make these cops do their freaking jobs.

Chicago police Superintendent, Eddie Johnson, crushed Smollett today, but had a little something extra for the media:

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“Before I get started on why we’re here, you know, as I look out into the crowd I just wish that the families of gun violence in this city got this much attention,”

If Johnson thinks it would help, I certainly hope the media obliges. I hope the entire national media stays in Chicago and keeps its foot up the ass of CPD until ALL perpetrators of violence are brought to justice, whether those perpetrators be out on the streets or working for the police. I hope this wished for attention on gun violence builds momentum for federal gun restriction laws. If media attention is what Chicago police need, then media attention is what it should receive.

If right-wing Twitter heroes want to make this issue bigger than Jussie Smollett, LET’S MAKE IT BIGGER. We’ve been treated to thousands of stories about how alienation from institutions makes rural white people vote for Trump. Let’s have the stories about how the history of murder, brutality, and lies makes many non-whites reflexively distrust the police. Let’s ask what the police can do about it. Let’s talk about the rise of hate crimes under Trump, and how the police are doing nothing to stop that, but busted down Smollett in four weeks. Let’s talk about how black LIES seem to matter, but black LIVES do not.

It appears Jussie Smollett was full of crap. That’s new information, to me. That the police are full of crap is old information I’ve already baked into my logical processes. I won’t be pumping the breaks or self-censoring until the police spend half as much time investigating their own bullshit as they did investigating Smollett’s.

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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