Charleston Democratic Socialists Statement on “Public Safety” and the Charleston Mayoral Race

The Charleston Democratic Socialists released the following statement on public safety and the Charleston Mayoral Race:

“The Public Safety round of questions and answers last Monday, September 25th at the Post and Courier-hosted mayoral forum was deeply concerning. Aside from Mika Gadsden, each candidate demonstrated their uncritical devotion to the police in a shameless display of electoral dishonesty.

To begin with, candidates leveraged white reaction to the 2020 uprisings as virtually the sole topic of discussion. This blatant fearmongering and pandering to Charleston’s business elite led each participant to attempt to outdo the others in offering no insight as to what caused the uprisings. Instead, they advocated carceral responses for residents demonstrating against police violence and white supremacy. Only Mika Gadsden pointed out how zeroing in on one night of police violence ignores what “public safety” even means. She attempted to broaden that discussion, asking where were the resources after the Emanuel AME massacre, or the outrage when far right militias parade through our streets?  But the other candidates were not having it.

To walk through Charleston’s International African American History Museum is to walk through centuries of White Supremacist police violence in America right up to the present date in our city. What do these candidates make of this? Tecklenburg is an ex-officio member of the museum’s board and called it “inspiring” at the opening ceremony. However, with the exclusion of Mika Gadsden, each candidate has positioned themselves as antagonists to this history.

In a bad faith attempt to ignore what cops actually do, the majority of candidates attempted to conflate the police with firefighters. Cops have nothing in common with firefighters. Modern institutional policing has a completely different history, design, function and track record than institutional firefighting and to reference firefighters in what should be an honest discussion about “public safety” is shrewd tactical maneuvering. Whenever a politician conflates firefighters with the cops, you know you’re being lied to.

Thirty minutes into the debate, Clay Middleton, after giving an astonishingly  milquetoast answer about not sending cops to arrest residents receiving abortions, used  the 2020 uprisings to state how he would bring his two decades of military experience to bear on demonstrators. A few hours down the road, residents of Atlanta, Georgia are being arrested on trumped-up RICO and Domestic Terrorism  charges for pushing back against their city building a $90 million Cop City to train police in counterinsurgency tactics to silence public demonstrations. Atlanta is siphoning off public funds that should be used to improve the community and actually foster public safety in order to expand militarized police violence. It is with this same mindset that Middleton wants to offer a military analysis of how to use city cops to engage in counterinsurgency against our own residents using their First Amendment right to protest. THE POLICE DO NOT MAKE US SAFE!

In the midst of supplicating the cops and the upper class they serve, Middleton  argues for police in the streets fighting “deadly crime”. This is a sentiment Peter Shahid seconds on his website, indicating “…countless other examples of violence throughout the city.” This is a grift, as the police do not fight “deadly crime”. Full stop. Only a tiny minority of police activity actually responds to violence and even that isn’t preventative as cops generally show up after the violence has already been done. The overwhelming majority of policing involves targeting residents for non-violent, victimless actions that have been criminalized: drug-use, traffic infractions, disorderly conduct, etc. And each district in the City of Charleston disproportionately criminalizes black and brown residents. The policy on offer here is to further militarize the police against organizations fighting against gentrification, against food deserts, against unaffordable housing, and against police violence.

William Cogswell recently released an ad about “public safety” that does this exact same thing. Cogswell exploits our community members’ fear of crime by playing footage of the 2020 uprising and claiming, “this isn’t Charleston!” Cogswell promises to give the police the resources they need, as if the $6,938 that Charleston spends on policing per hour, every hour of every day, in 2023 isn’t enough. That’s over $60,000,000 we could spend on life-affirming public goods that actually create safe communities, such as affordable housing, physical and mental healthcare, rehabilitation, and so much more. On his website, Cogswell states that he will “never encourage [cops] to police one area differently for fear of bad press.” It sounds like Cogswell is suggesting that Charleston cops aren’t policing black and brown communities for fear of bad press, and this is in line with his bizarre takes on the police in general. As mentioned above, black and brown residents are criminalized at disproportionately high rates in every single Charleston district. Presumably, Cogswell thinks the police should be even more biased.

We haven’t mentioned Deborah Gammons up to this point because she had nothing to contribute except empty platitudes about how the cops need a better PR campaign and more diversity. These reforms have been tried for decades, and do not work to fight police violence or make communities safe. They simply obscure the history and function of policing in order for candidates to pretend they care about the lives of residents.

There have been uprisings in this country for centuries against white supremacist police violence. These will continue until white supremacist police violence ends. As a city, Charleston residents need to decide whether we will fund our communities, or continue letting so many people fall through the cracks… and then fund the cops to criminalize the fallout. We deserve investments in real solutions to public safety – deeply affordable housing, living wage jobs, accessible public transit and pedestrian safe streets, universal healthcare, high quality public schools – People’s Budget Now! “

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