By Matthew Storey
On Thursday night, in East Harlem, 25 year old NYPD officer, Omar Edwards, was shot dead by an NYPD officer named Andrew Dunton. Officer Dunton had been part of an anti-crime patrol, who had come upon Officer Edwards, off-duty and out of uniform, with his gun drawn while chasing a man who had broken into his car. Reports from the scene state that Edwards stopped when Officers told him to drop the gun and turned around slowly, when he was plugged by Dunton's gun, six shots fired from a distance of 15 feet. NYPD regulations require Off-duty officers to identify themselves as NYPD and there is no indication that Officer Edwards did so, nor any independent witness who can testify that he did not.
Officer Dunton is a 4 year veteran, who lives in a small hamlet in Suffolk County, where he grew up. He attended Siena College in Upstate New York. Suffolk County is 85% White, 7% Black, 11% Hispanic and entirely suburban and rural. Siena College lists its student body demographic as being 15% Minority; the surrounding community of Loudonville, New York has less than 10% minorities. Suffolk and Loudonville are both separated geographically from direct access to urban populations.
Officer Edwards was newly married, to the mother of his 1 1/2 year old and 7 month old. He was a 2 year veteran who grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Brownsville is 85% Black, 14% Hispanic, 4% White and entirely urban. Brownsville is a neighborhood within Brooklyn, a borough of 2.5 million people in NYC, a city of 8.5 million people, all reachable on foot or via public transportation.
East Harlem, also known as 'Spanish' Harlem, was a predominantly Italian neighborhood until the 1950's, when huge influxes of Puerto Rican immigrants settled in the community and it became known by its new name. In the last 15 years, the neighborhood has seen broad development and a greater demographic diversification has blurred the lines between the Upper East Side neighborhood to its South in Manhattan and Central Harlem to its West. Current demographics indicate East Harlem is 42% Black, 31% White and 23% Hispanic, but it is safe to assume the Hispanic population is significantly larger given the huge numbers of uncounted immigrants (also true, to a lesser extent in Suffolk and Brownsville)
In Harlem, in 2009, Hispanics, Blacks, White are more likely to live side by side than at any other time in the community's history, and white collar workers, students, blue collar workers and artists live more harmoniously than they ever have. The economy works in East Harlem, Public Housing works in East Harlem, the streets are safer than they once were and much of the credit belongs to the NYPD, who have effectively worked to foster better relations with all the constituents in the community and to weed out the violent crime that terrorized earlier generations 'Up East'.
At this point, and I expect at no point, has any evidence been revealed that makes any suggestion that Office Dunton, who is a white man from a suburban community, has ever demonstrated that he is a racist. From the first account of this incident, and early reports about both men's service records, this appears to be a case of two good young cops who came upon one another during a crisis, and tragedy resulted.
We can look at the demographics of the places that formed these men's understanding of the streets and shape conjecture, but no genuine understanding of this particular INCIDENT is suggested here or required for the scope of this discussion. All that we KNOW is that a good man is dead and a good man shot him.
For several decades, New Yorkers have debated the imposition of a 'Residency Requirement' that would require NYC employees, and specifically, NYPD, to live in the 5 Boroughs of the City. This is problematic in the sense that Americans have the right to live anywhere they wish, and the Patrolmen's Benefit Association (PBA) have argued against the provision, noting the high cost of living in many parts of the city and the difficult social conditions that exist in more affordable areas - places like Brownsville, or to a lesser extent, East Harlem.
Officer Edwards, who has been described by Brownsville neighbors as a 'Mama's Boy', was a hulking physical specimen who was a star on the NYPD Football Team and wanted to be a cop since he was a boy. Growing up in Brownsville, he would have found the East Harlem community to be easily interpreted and relatively safe. It is also possible that he grew up seeing White police in conflict with young Blacks in Brownsville and internalized a sense of vulnerability to such encounters.
Officer Dunton, a quiet, well regarded student, officer and neighbor. Growing up in Suffolk, attending school in Loudonville and living in Suffolk, it is entirely possible that the street scenes he encountered and the community he served in East Harlem, were unfamiliar to his experiences and that he may have internalized a sense of menace from young blacks, who account for a disproportionate percentage of arrests and convictions in Harlem.
It isn't much of a leap to imagine a furious Officer Edwards, interrupted from a legitimate chase of a suspect he'd caught red-handed stealing from his OWN car - failing to follow procedure and not understanding the gravity of doing so. It is certainly no stretch to imagine an adrenaline fueled Officer Dunton, encountering a huge, powerful, suspect with a drawn weapon, failing to exercise appropriate restraint when Officer Edwards turned towards him. A cool, rationale response is not to fire until one HAS to, emptying six rounds at short range indicates fear, panic and a perception of threat.
For Officer Dunton, regardless of intent or character, the preponderance of evidence (60% of Crimes in NYC are committed by Black men under 40 years of age) and the weight of personal experience resulted in a snap decision that left a cop dead. Had he been exposed to more life on the streets, he very well may have come to a different conclusion about Officer Edwards. We'll never know.
What we do know is that a Large Black man with a gun is a person who is threatening and an understandable fear requires no suspension of disbelief.
Understandable then, that Edwards, of Brownsville, was less than enthusiastic about being detained and that Dunton, of Suffolk, made a snap decision based upon profiling and circumstances.
Understandable, but unacceptable.
The NYPD is not a Social club or a Political party, it is a Law Enforcement organization that sends armed officers into every community to protect the public. Those officers cannot be left to their backgrounds, emotions and biases, when they confront the infinite variety of possibilities in a modern urban environment. They have to rely on TRAINING, and preparation. They have to KNOW what they will do in a situation, no matter how laced with peril it may be - they are Cops - it IS going to happen.
In an ideal circumstance, every neighborhood would be patrolled by officers who grew up on those streets, who could read the vibe with a heightened understanding. Residency requirements make a lot of sense, but they cannot be installed, because of the individual rights of officers. Individual rights make things more complex, but also make things FAIR and in this instance, fairness dictates that the Officers rights and the communities rights must be balanced.
Nobody should bury a 25 year old like Omar Edwards, a hero with a lifetime of service and joy with his family in front of him.
Make his loss mean something.
There are young officers from Suburban communities, who ride in fear every day through Urban neighborhoods they can scarcely be expected to relate to or understand, any more than many of us Urban dwellers would relate to life on Long Island's Eastern end. There are young officers from Urban areas, who have incorporated a sense of mistrust for the very badge they wear, putting themselves and their partners at risk in a dangerous situation. Officers need to rely LESS on probability and 'profiling' and more on interpreting the individual circumstances of a scene - the only way these sorts of tragedies can be avoided is to relentlessly drill and train, drill and train. That suspect may be a Cop. That Cop may be a suspect. Anything can happen out there, and probably will.
Officer Edwards should have laid his weapon down and shouted 'I'm NYPD!'.
Officer Dunton should have positioned himself so that the turning suspect would not threaten him, should have been prepared to shoot in the leg, IF needed, after the maximum amount of precaution and discretion had been observed.
Instead Edwards is dead, shot in the back.
Prepare them. No cop should die at the hands of a cop.
