BLACK NINE / GUARDIANS OF JUSTICE HISTORY
Excerpts from the autobiography of former Alameda County Judge Henry Ramsey Jr., The Life Story of Henry Ramsey Jr: An Autobiography (Self-published, 2008).
Judge Ramsey provided legal counsel for the Black Nine and the Guardians of Justice, documenting their courageous battle for justice in the City of Richmond. ______________________________________________________________________________
Black Police Officers of Richmond, California
Excessive use of force by police officers has been a source of distress for the black community for well over a century. But rarely are police officers, black or white, willing to stand up and be counted by publicly naming fellow officers who engage in such improper and unlawful conduct.
As I began writing this section in 2003, a criminal trial known as the Riders case had just concluded in the Alameda County Superior Court. It involved three Oakland police sergeants being tried "on criminal charges that they abused and framed suspected drug dealers in a conspiracy to obstruct justice." The case was triggered when Keith Batt, a rookie Caucasian Oakland police officer, resigned from the department immediately after telling his police superiors that he had observed officers responsible for his training "[beat] people or [plant drugs on them, then [fabricate] reports to cover their tracks." An internal departmental investigation of Batt's allegations resulted in the accused officers being fired and subjected to criminal prosecution.
The Riders case ended in a mistrial after the jury, on Tuesday, September 30, 2003, returned verdicts of acquittal on eight of the 35 charges against the accused officers but were unable to agree on unanimous verdicts concerning the other 27 counts. The case was then re-filed, and a second criminal jury trial commenced on November 1, 2004. That jury was unable to achieve a unanimous verdict on any of the counts, and the charges were later dismissed by the district attorney of Alameda County, At the least, however, rookie Keith Batt's courageous action brought the issue to public attention.
I cite the Riders case as backdrop for an even more extraordinary chain of events 35 years before. In 1968, nine black Richmond, California police officers took the unprecedented action of telling then Police Chief Robert Murphy that a significant number of sworn officers within the Richmond Police Department were regularly engaging in unlawful acts including illegal detentions and arrests, beatings, and unjustified verbal abuse. These observed acts of police misconduct had been committed largely by white officers and directed primarily against black young adult males.
The nine informing black officers were: Douglas L. Ellison, Sergeant, age 44; Ollie Sylvester Glover, patrolman, age 30; Lee Arthur Johnson, patrolman, age 31; Rudolph Johnson, patrolman, age 32; Tecumsch "Danny" Nelson, patrolman, age 31;" Michael Nichols, patrolman, age 29; Harold Redic, patrolman, age 29, Marvin Richard Smith, patrolman, age 27; and Otis Timmons Jr., patrolman, age 27.
Each of those officers had observed serious misconduct by other sworn officers (including sergeants) since being hired as members of the Richmond P.D. The officers who became informants had for some time been talking among themselves about their personal observations of police brutality and other forms of misconduct by Richmond police officers. They sincerely wanted to take concrete action to address this issue and to bring about positive change within the department.
At the time there were approximately 150 sworn officers in the department. The nine black officers constituted 90 percent of the sworn black officers then on the force. Andrew Pringle, patrolman, was the one other black officer at that time, but he was a recent hire and was still on probation. The nine protesting black officers had permanent employment status and could be fired only for cause. They felt that Pringle should not risk almost certain loss of employment by making what would certainly be a controversial claim of police brutality against other officers within the department." They might have also thought that his testimony wouldn't have been so valuable as to risk his career. He would only have been able to testify about what had happened in the months he had been there, whereas the other nine could testify that the behavior had been going on for years.
The black officers' first collective action after informing Police Chief Robert Murphy about their area of concern was to request a private, confidential meeting with Murphy and his captains for the purpose of providing specific and detailed information about their observations of police misconduct. The officers asked that the requested informal meeting with Chief Murphy be limited to just him and his four captains because they intended to name not only patrolmen but also lieutenants and sergeants, and to provide details about each named person's misconduct.
In retrospect, one can see that they-I suppose I should say we-were somewhat naive in thinking that a matter of such magnitude would be acknowledged by the chief and effectively addressed within the department. That would have been a tacit admission by the chief and his command staff that sworn officers had been regularly engaging in unrestrained racist conduct without the police leadership having done anything meaningful to stop it. Naive or not, those mostly young black officers hoped that the matter could be resolved within the department.
Chief Murphy's response was that he would "not meet with a delegation of black officers." After receiving legal counsel, the officers then made a formal written request for a meeting with the chief and the four police captains, and a meeting was scheduled by the chief's office. The black officers thought that their request for a private meeting with only the chief and the four police captains had been granted and that it would be held in the chief's office at police headquarters.
But when the officers arrived for the meeting, they were for the first time told that the meeting would not be held in the chief's office but downstairs in the much larger Civil Defense Room.
They were next advised that lieutenants and sergeants would also be present and would participate in the meeting. It was the black officers' unanimous view that they had been deceived and that the chief had broken his word. They remain convinced, even today, that Chief Murphy and his command officers believed that the nine black officers would be intimidated in this open and broader setting and would be afraid to provide specific information about the police brutality charges previously disclosed to the chief in private.
The curve thrown by the chief served only to unity and strengthen the group. In the downstairs meeting room, each black officer looked those present in the eye, named names, and candidly described specific acts of brutality and other misconduct he had observed since being hired as a member of the Richmond Police Department. The chief, captains, lieutenants, and sergeants were astonished that Sergeant Douglas Ellison was an active participant in this protest action.
One would have to know Doug Ellison to appreciate how unsettling it must have been for those white officers to hear and see him take what, by any measure then and now, was a strikingly militant stand.
Doug had once been a very good prizefighter, but he was also a particularly quiet person and usually had very little to say. Until that occasion, he had always been moderate in his rarely expressed comments concerning race relations. One of the first black police officers hired in the city of Richmond, he was now a 44-year-old sergeant-indeed, the only black police officer in Contra Costa County above the rank of patrolman, and had been on the Richmond force long enough to qualify for his retirement pension. In other words, he had a great deal to lose in joining this protest with the eight other black officers.
Doug had to have been viewed by white people as a "good Negro," one who was not a "troublemaker" and who was not subject to influence from "outside agitators." White police officers who knew and worked with him probably assumed Doug would agree with them that race relations within the Richmond Police Department, while not perfect, were pretty good, and that substantial progress between blacks and whites in Richmond had been made since he had joined the force.
They certainly would not have expected him to speak out about or accuse any of his fellow officers of any form of racist behavior. The older black officers at the meeting said the white officers were truly shocked
when Sergeant Douglas Ellison spoke up, described specific incidents, and named names.
The primary catalyst for the brave actions of those black Richmond police officers was the June 25-July 2, 1968, riots in Richmond, California, that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King was shot to death on April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Almost immediately, angry protests erupted in many cities throughout the United States. In California, riots were expected in Oakland as a consequence of Dr. King's assassination but did not occur there. Riots were not expected in nearby Richmond but did occur there. The Richmond riots were of such intensity and magnitude that mutual aid pacts with police departments in several nearby communities were invoked. Unlike the Richmond Police Department, those departments were composed totally or almost totally of white personnel.
Several of the black officers shared with me various experiences that led to their taking action.
Marvin Smith told me that he was particularly offended by comments he heard from a white officer from the Walnut Creek Police Department. The officer said that shooting at and thumping black suspects was his first opportunity "to do real police work." As already stated, Doug Ellison was one of Richmond's first black police officers and the first and only black sergeant. As Ollie Glover later recalled, Sergeant Ellison saw two white patrolmen engaging in unprofessional conduct while on patrol in Parchester Village, a black Richmond neighborhood, during the riots and ordered them to return to the police station. Glover reported, "The two white officers told Doug he could not tell them what to do."
Ollie also recalled for me an incident in which a black preacher from Marin City was stopped by a squad of 16 officers (four police cars with four officers in each car) and told to get out of his car. The preacher was told that it was unlawful for him to be on the streets after curfew (declared because of the riots). He was thoroughly thumped by some of the officers and told to get back in his automobile and get out
of Richmond. I do not know if those specific incidents were shared with the chief and other white officers at the meeting held in the Civil Defense Room. I assume they were.
With the exception of Marvin Smith, all of Richmond's black officers were assigned to the patrol division at the time of those unlawful events. Nearly all enjoyed excellent relations with the community, especially the black community. Marvin Smith was the department's community relations officer and had especially good rapport with the black community.
But it was the observations by all of the black officers of frequent inappropriate use of force by police officers during the 1968 riots that brought matters to a head. The black officers all decided that something beyond talk was required before the department would confront and eliminate the serious police misconduct they had observed in Richmond before and during the riot. They therefore decided to take the matter to the chief.
The black officers were intelligent and well educated. In 1968, the great majority of San Francisco Bay Area police officers were high school graduates, but with the possible exception of the officers of the Berkeley P.D., most had not earned any college credits. Those nine Richmond black officers not only were high school graduates but also had an average of at least two years of college. In addition, Marvin Smith had two and one-half years' experience as a military policeman in the U.S. Army when he joined the Richmond Police Department on August 1, 1962.
They all knew that disclosing their observations of police brutality by their white colleagues would be both controversial and divisive within the Richmond Police Department and the city.
They knew, or at least believed, that every white officer, even the sergeants and command officers, would deny their charges and make a determined effort to have them removed from the force. They also knew there was a significant risk that some of the white officers would attempt to retaliate further against them and that they, the black officers, would be vulnerable to such retaliatory tactics. One obvious risk was that some white officers would fail to respond promptly to a black officer’s call for desperately needed assistance. Another risk was that white supervisory officers, sergeants and lieutenants, would make unwarranted accusations of poor, cowardly, or incompetent performance by black officers.
A more immediate problem they had to face was that one of their own, one of the nine-had engaged in brutality. They knew that the obvious charge many white officers would make in response to their claims of white police officer brutality would be the old "pot calling the kettle black" claim. That accusation could cause confusion and might very well distract from any meaningful consideration of the real issue of police brutality within the department and how to eliminate it.
The other eight black officers knew that it was a big mistake for anyone, particularly a suspected criminal offender, to call Ollie Glover an Uncle Tom. When that happened, there was significant risk that Ollie would go ballistic and beat the hell out of the person. I gained personal knowledge of how Ollie would respond if called a Tom when I represented a defendant at a jury trial who was accused of resisting arrest and misdemeanor battery on a police officer. The officer was Ollie Glover. The case was tried twice, before two different juries, with the first trial resulting in a hung jury and the second in conviction.
My client had been arrested outside Cutting Liquors, a popular liquor store on Cutting Boulevard in the city of Richmond, for disturbing the peace and being intoxicated in public. Ollie Glover initially responded to the call for police assistance. By all accounts, when he arrived at the scene and first spoke with my client, Glover had tried to be helpful and even offered to call a taxi so that my client could be safely transported to his home. My client, however, was highly intoxicated, belligerent, and verbally abusive. He ultimately made the grave mistake of calling Glover an Uncle Tom, and not only a Tom, but "a handker-chiefhead Tom." My client later told me that at the time of the incident, his J&B had told him that he "didn't have to do anything [he] didn't want to do."
Glover arrested my client, who was placed in another officer's patrol car for transport to the city jail. At the jail, my client, still very belligerent, was booked and then taken by Glover to his cell.
My client testified at trial that Glover declined an offer from another officer to assist him in taking the prisoner to a cell because "the presence of a second officer might upset the prisoner." There, according to my client (and years later confirmed by Glover in a private admission to me), Glover beat my client badly.
Privately, my client and I acknowledged that he had behaved terribly and, in the culture of the street, probably deserved a whipping. Nevertheless, Glover's conduct was illegal and constituted police brutality. In court, my client and I were adamant that the criminal charges of resisting arrest and battery on a police officer were false and totally unwarranted. The misdemeanor charges were simply a cover for the illegal beating administered by Officer Glover.
Notwithstanding the probability that Ollie's personal history of misconduct would be disclosed and used by the departmental leadership and other white officers in an attempt to obfuscate the issues of generalized police misconduct, the black officers, with Glover's acquiescence, decided to proceed, a decision that was another measure of their extraordinary courage. The nine officers found that they now "were of one mind and had to do something beyond talk."
From the outset, the nine officers appreciated the gravity of the situation and concluded that they needed legal counsel. I was then in private practice in Richmond and had developed a reputation as a competent lawyer who was intensely committed to justice and fairness for everyone. I think I was also a member of the city of Richmond's Human Relations Commission. Hence, it was a logical choice for them to consider me for service as their legal adviser. (To tell the truth, I was probably their only choice in Contra Costa County, because the chance of getting another lawyer in the county to represent them was between slim and none.)
I had gotten to know Marvin Smith pretty well when I was in the Contra Costa County DA's Office and he was working as an evidence technician in the Patrol Division of the Richmond P.D. We had become acquaintances and lived in the same Richmond neighborhood (Plaza II).
Marvin clearly was a leader among the nine black officers, and it was he who suggested to the others that I be asked to serve as legal adviser for the group. My involvement with the officers came well before their initial contacts with the chief's office. At first, I worked mostly behind the scenes, providing legal counsel and other advice concerning various strategies they were considering.
Later, when the officers' charges and their dispute with the police chief became public, my role became public as well. The officers have often said that they were successful in their effort to make public the police misconduct they had observed because, in significant measure, my advice and counsel was always "one and, sometimes, two steps ahead of the chief of police and his advisers."
Whether or not that statement is true, I do know that representing those officers was one of my proudest achievements as a member of the legal profession. And if the statement is true, it is because I was committed to thorough preparation. As a lawyer, it was my experience that poor preparation was a certain formula for failure. While thorough preparation could not guarantee victory in litigation, it clearly was an essential element if victory was to be achieved.
Nothing significant happened in the department, nor was any meaningful action taken by the police chief, mayor, or city manager after the meeting between the black officers and the police chief, captains, lieutenants, and sergeants. As a consequence, the nine black officers decided to draft a protest document to be signed by each and presented to the chief of police and the Richmond City Council.
Initially, Marvin Smith was to sign the document on behalf of the nine, but the black officers decided by consensus that all nine should sign. They were convinced that for the document to have a real effect each of them needed to sign it and that Doug's signature was especially vital.
On the occasion when they discussed among themselves the importance of Doug's signature, Doug himself reminisced that when he was hired as a police officer he was not specifically told that his authority was less than that of a white officer, particularly concerning arresting White people or patrolling in white neighborhoods, but that he "knew there was an understanding."
The young officers reminded Doug that he had paved the way for each of them to become Richmond police officers. And while that path had been difficult for him and sometimes even demeaning, now times were different and he "did not have to take it anymore." It was a very dramatic and poignant moment when Doug declared in a forceful voice, "Hand me the board!" and unhesitatingly signed his name.
The black officers held a press conference a day or two later at the local Holiday Inn to make their concerns public. I was also present. Captain Lourne Phelps later had a "speak freely discussion" within the department. A couple of the black officers' white colleagues said to them privately, "I appreciate what you are doing, although I cannot come out and support you publicly."
Soon after receipt of the black officers' written complaint by the city, the matter was scheduled for an evening session of the Richmond City Council on Tuesday, February 3, 1969. At about 6:00 a.m. the day before the scheduled council meeting, each of the black officers was personally served at home by a Richmond police officer with a letter from Chief Robert Murphy. The chief's letter, on department letterhead, was concise and to the point. It was a written order not to appear before the city council, with the threat that an appearance at the city council meeting would constitute cause for discharge from the Richmond police force.
Eight of the nine black officers, dressed in civilian clothes, appeared in the council chambers the next evening at the time for the regularly scheduled meeting. The chambers were packed with citizens of Richmond, members of the press, and interested individuals from nearby communities. The black community was well represented by a substantial number of Richmond residents. I served as spokesperson for the Richmond Nine and introduced each officer individually to the assembled members of the city council.
Doug, the ninth officer, was not present because he was on duty. When advised of this, the mayor and council members directed the city manager to order Sergeant Ellison to report immediately to the council chambers from wherever he was at the time.
It was a dramatic moment when, a very short time after the city manager had been directed to summon him, Sergeant Ellison proudly walked down the center aisle of the council chambers in full police uniform and joined the other protesting officers. As many of today's young black males would say, "The Black Nine was in the house."
Each officer candidly described the problems about which he was concerned and the need for change in the department if those problems were to be corrected. When I advised the council of the threatening letter that each officer had received from the chief, we were told not to be concerned, because all nine were present at the meeting at the direction of the city manager and the council.
I wish I could report that meaningful and lasting positive change in the Richmond Police Department resulted from the courageous action of those black officers. Perhaps there was superficial change for a limited time. It may be that offending white officers curbed their behavior when a black officer was their partner or present at the detention or arrest of a black person. But it is now known that substantive and long-lasting positive change did not occur.
Approximately 10 years later three lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging a practice and pattern of brutality directed at blacks by a group of Richmond police officers.
The lead attorney in the three consolidated cases was Oliver Jones, Esq., a 1973 Boalt Hall graduate and, at the time of this litigation, counsel for the Western Division of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1976." The offending officers were described in the press as "cowboys," an image intended to convey that the officers were wild and out of control. The behavior they were accused of was appallingly similar to that complained about years earlier by the Richmond Nine. The claims complained the Richmond Police Department routinely harassed and beat black residents and then groundlessly charged the victims with offenses such as resisting arrest or interfering with the official lawful duties of an officer.
The NAACP played a significant role in the filing of these three cases." The City of Richmond, on or about August 6, 1981, accepted a consent decree in the three cases and subsequently paid the plaintiffs an undisclosed amount to settle the federal police brutality lawsuits. Under the leadership of Ollie Glover, Art Johnson, and Harold Redic, black officers in the Richmond Police Department formed an association in 1972 named the Guardians of Justice.
Its mission statement reads:
We, the members of the Guardians of Justice Black Police Officer Association of the Richmond Police Department, are committed to professional law enforcement; to represent the association members in maintaining the health and welfare of its membership, address work related problems and morale issues; to promote fairness and justice and encourage the membership to work closely together in a spirit of mutual cooperation; to encourage and promote good citizenship in the youth of our community; and strive to enhance the quality of life in our community through support of various community events and organizations each year.
We strive to assist the Richmond Police Department in continuing to provide the service that citizens of Richmond have come to expect.
In 1971, Ollie Glover traveled to Boston, Massachusetts, to attend a meeting of black police officers from all over the United States. This first meeting led to formation of the National Black Police Association, a membership organization, at a meeting the next year in St Louis, Missouri.
Black police officer associations now exist in most major cities in the United States, along with Hispanic associations and a few Asian associations. In the early 1970s, there was extreme polarization between black and mainstream (mostly white) police associations, but thanks in substantial measure to the efforts of black and other minority police associations, there is far less polarization now.
Today's popular notions in the United States of who is a hero or what is a heroic act tend to differ dramatically from my personal conception of heroism. It is not unusual for an athlete who demonstrates exceptional ability in professional sports to be characterized in the media as a "hero." People who are unfortunate victims of highly publicized events are sometimes described as heroes. I view people as heroes who are consciously aware of a clear, present, and significant risk of material harm to themselves or a loved one if they engage in conduct or behavior intended to assist or save another and who still act notwithstanding that known risk.
During the civil rights movement, ordinary people in the southern United States sought to vote when they knew that their behavior would put them at significant risk of being fired from their jobs, being denied a loan (which they may have needed to purchase a home, seeds for planting a crop, or essential farm equipment), being subjected to acceleration of a mortgage payment if just one payment was late, or even suffering grievous bodily harm or death. Their efforts to secure civil and political rights for others, as well as themselves, made them heroes in my estimation.
The firefighters, police officers, and other emergency workers who voluntarily put themselves in harm's way by entering the burning Twin Towers in New York on "9/11" in a brave effort to save others are also heroes.
In my mind, the nine young black Richmond police officers who took the extraordinary action of confirming the existence of significant police brutality by their white peers were heroes. They acted to help others notwithstanding their awareness of a clear, present, and substantial risk of significant harm to themselves. With one exception, these Were not senior officers or people with established rights of retirement.
At the time, except for Sergeant Douglas L. Ellison, none of the nine has been on the police force longer than six years, and yet they took this substantial risk in an effort to bring better police service to their community and to stop the unlawful abuse of black men, particularly black youth, who were the usual targets of unlawful police violence.
The courage of those young officers has inspired me when I have had to decide whether to act to help others, knowing that to do so would place me in serious economic or physical jeopardy.
Many men and women have risked their economic and physical well-being for others, many times for people they didn't even know personally.
Individuals such as Frederick Douglass, Charles Hamilton Houston, Robert "Bob" Carter, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Robert "Bob" Moses, Leonard "Len" Holt, Constance Baker Motley, and Clinton Wayne White, to name just a few, have all served as role models for me in those circumstances.
I place the nine black Richmond police officers in the same category as those other role models.
Their conduct in 1968 was truly heroic.
You may be wondering what happened to the nine black officers:
DOUGLAS L. ELLISON, SERGEANT.
Doug retired from the Richmond Police Department on January 30, 1973, and soon went to work as a police officer for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). He retired as a BART police sergeant in March 1983. He received two retired sergeant badges. Douglas L. Ellison died in Richmond on Saturday, May 6, 2006, at the age of 81.
OLLIE SYLVESTER GLOVER, SERGEANT.
Ollie later became a helicopter pilot for the Richmond Police Department. He resigned from the department as a sergeant in December 1976 in order to pursue a Ph.D. in psychology, which he received from the Wright Institute, Berkeley, California, in April 1980. For the past 25 years, he has worked as a practicing clinical and forensic psychologist.
LEE ARTHUR JOHNSON, CAPTAIN.
Art continued as a member of the Richmond Police Department and retired as a captain of police in November 1992. Art was the first black captain for the Richmond Police Department.
RUDOLPH JOHNSON, SERGEANT.
Rudy took a lateral transfer from the Richmond Police Department to the BART Police Department in 1972. He retired as a BART police sergeant in 1988.
TECUMSEH "DANNY" NELSON, CHIEF OF POLICE.
Danny was the first black promoted to lieutenant in the history of the Richmond Police Department. Danny left the Richmond P.D. as a lieutenant in 1984, when he went to East Palo Alto, California, as that city's first chief of police. There he organized and started a totally new police department. When Danny arrived in East Palo Alto, the police department had no police cars and only one officer-him. Danny left the East Palo Alto Police Department in 1992, when he was appointed chief of police of Salinas, California, the position from which he retired in 1999.
MICHAEL NICHOLS, PATROLMAN.
Mike Nichols transferred to the San Jose Police Department and retired as a motorcycle patrolman with that department.
HAROLD REDIC, SERGEANT.
Harold Redic succeeded Marvin R. Smith in the Police Community Relations Unit of the Richmond Police Department. He left the Richmond P.D. in 1974 as a sergeant and went to work as a civil rights investigator at the San Francisco office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Harold retired from HUD in 1996. He is currently working with the Contra Costa County Probation Department as a probation counselor.
MARVIN RICHARD SMITH, PATROLMAN.
Marvin was an evidence technician in the Richmond Police Department when we first met in 1964. "Smitty," as he is called by his friends, was assigned to the Police Community Relations Unit, where he worked until resigning from the Richmond P.D. in early 1970 to accept a position with the San Francisco office of HUD as an investigator and conciliator. At the end of his first year with HUD, Marvin was appointed acting director of the Housing Opportunity Division. He later became director of the Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Compliance Division of that office. Marvin left HUD in December 1977 to accept a position as the equal opportunity administrator for the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. He retired from the "Lab" on February 1, 2001. Marvin Smith died on January 29, 2006, within days of his 65th birthday, in Oakland, California.
OTIS TIMMONS JR., PATROLMAN.
Otis left the Richmond Police Department in 1969 to accept a position with the New York Life Insurance Company as an insurance agent. One year later, he returned to police work as a sworn officer with the El Cerrito Police Department. He was seriously injured in 1981 in an on-duty automobile accident and subsequently resigned after receiving a settlement. He later opened Raphael's Shutter Café & Espresso Bar (serving breakfast and lunch) at 10064 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, CA, 94530, a business that has been quite successful.