Justice for Jordan Miles

PITTSBURGH--On April 23, 2007, a 27-year-old white male was caught trespassing on a golf course in suburban Pittsburgh at a private event in an effort to meet Tiger Woods. This man was Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. No charges were brought.

On January 12, 2010, an 18-year-old Black male was walking from his family home to his grandmother's house and was jumped by three unidentified, large white men in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The men beat him within an inch of his life, while shouting, "Where's your money? Where's the drugs? Where's the gun?"

This young Black man was Jordan Miles, an honors student at Pittsburgh's prestigious arts high school. His attackers were three plainclothes police officers--not muggers as it had appeared. They arrested the young Black man. He was charged with assault, but the charges were later dropped.

The difference between these cases highlights the racism at the heart of Pittsburgh's police force. For many, the case of Jordan Miles recalls the 1995 case of Jonny Gammage--a 31-year-old Black man who was driving into the city of Pittsburgh when five cops beat him. Gammage died from asphyxiation. The coroner recommended that all the police officers be charged with homicide.

Several trials, with few or no minority jurors, eventually ended with no convictions. This 1995 murder sparked a movement for justice for Gammage, who is still a symbol among activists of what police brutality looks like.

Similarly, the case of Jordan Miles, who thankfully survived, has likewise become a symbol around which a movement against police brutality has sprung up.

Charges against the officers who attacked Miles were recently dropped, and they were reinstated on the force. This has led to an upsurge of protest. On May 21, a small crowd held a "whitewash" where activists painted over Jordan's picture to symbolize how the city has treated the case. Miles spoke in public about the brutality for the first time at the protest.

A week later, another rally was held in front of the courthouse on May 28, the latest in a series of weekly rallies to demand that Officers Ewing, Saldutte and Sisak be charged with assault. More than 150 people--Black and white, young and old--gathered at the Allegheny County Courthouse to protest.

People chanted, "It was not Jordan's fault, charge the cops with assault!" and "Walking while Black is not a crime, it's the cops who should do time." People held signs saying "Stop police brutality," "Why is Jonny Gammage dead?" and "How can you act like this never happened while the blood of Jordan Miles still stains your badges?"

The Alliance for Police Accountability, the Black Political Empowerment Project, 1Hood and others called this protest to deliver a "peoples' indictment" charging the police with racial profiling, assault and battery, perjury and false arrest.

THE PERJURY charge is particularly important, because the police have tried to explain away their crimes based on false evidence. The officers claimed that the neighbor had reported Jordan for trespassing on her property. This turned out not to be true, and she denied this at trial.

The officers also claimed they thought Jordan had a weapon due to a bulge in his pocket--which turned out to be a bottle of Mountain Dew. This is also a lie. Jordan does not drink Mountain Dew, as his friends and family attest. There was no bottle of any sort. Even if he had a bottle, of course, the beating still would not have been justified. Mountain Dew bottles have become symbols at some of the marches.

"Common sense is not as common as the word suggests. It's an open-and-shut case of excessive use of force. The photos make us all witnesses," said Paradise Gray, an activist with 1Hood.

Rev. David Thornton of the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network said, to huge applause:

We've got to continue to stand for justice. No matter how long it takes, we have to keep standing. We have to be persistent in the midst of injustice. And when we leave here today, we've got to be bold enough and go to other people we know and look them in their faces and say, "How come you're not standing up for justice?" You can be wrong when you do something wrong and you can be wrong when you don't stand up [against] wrong.

As activist Brittany McBryde from the Alliance for Police Accountability explained:

District Attorney Zappala has been able to cop out of addressing the Jordan Miles case for more than a year and a half by telling the people of Pittsburgh that he could not conduct an investigation while the FBI was investigating--so we waited. Now that their investigation is over, the people of Pittsburgh are not going to wait any more. We want Officers Saldutte, Sisak and Ewing prosecuted for their crimes, we want justice for Jordan Miles, and we want it now!

Jordan Miles' case is not unique--there are many examples of police brutality against Black youth in Pittsburgh and across the country. But activists hope that the campaign around Miles' case can be a part of a larger fight against police brutality generally.

As one local woman, Tracy Jennings, stated, "There are too many 'Jordan Miles' cases whose faces we never know. If Jordan Miles can be that face...I don't want there to be another Jordan Miles, because [the next person] might not survive."