A Gross Miscarriage of Justice

On May 26, 1951 a twenty-six year old unarmed Black man was shot in the back by a New York City police officer. His name was Henry Fields, Jr. His father, Henry Sr., told newspapers that his son was a “good boy” who worked in a produce store on Osborn Street in Brownsville, deep in Brooklyn. Relatives said Henry Jr. had never been in serious trouble before. He died of the gunshot wound just blocks from his home.

The killing of Henry Fields might sound familiar. Fields was chased down by the police after committing a misdemeanor offense, and for it he was met with a sentence of capital punishment. He was driving his brother’s car and had a fender-bender accident with another motorist. Fields fled the scene the accident, but was chased by motorists, including two officers in a patrol car. Not very far into the chase, Fields pulled over. The police said a flat tire stopped him. When Fields exited the vehicle, patrolman Samuel Applebaum, a military veteran with firearms training, drew up his sights on the young man and fired a .32 caliber slug into his neck.

Fields was well known and liked in his community. As his lifeless body bled into the street, an angry crowd gathered. The police sent upwards of twenty patrol cars and more than that many cops to the scene. A local pastor was enlisted by the authorities to calm onlookers who were all-too familiar with racially-motivated police violence. Authorities feared a riot might break out.

Within twenty-four hours community organizers called for a mass rally to protest the killing of Fields. Former Congressman Vito Marcantonio appealed to the District Attorney Miles McDonald that there be “immediate grand jury proceedings in the wanton killing.”

“This is the latest in a long series of police murders of innocent Negros,” wrote Marcantonio. “Police brutality is turning streets of New York into areas of official police lawlessness and terror.

One gathering to plan a response to the killing drew over 1,600 people. Forty patrolmen and twenty-five plainclothes officers prowled around the community meeting.

Despite it being 1951, there was a grand jury investigation into Fields’ slaying. And here’s where it’s both familiar and unfamiliar. The events echo the recent actions of grand juries in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York, but the inquiry into Fields’ murder also revealed a streak of independence in the District Attorney Miles McDonald and his staff that is unheard of today.

In June the Brooklyn grand jury declined to bring any charges against officer Applebaum. Rather than accept this decision, the District Attorney’s office publicly lashed out at the grand jury. Assistant District Attorney William Siegel called the grand jury’s decision a “gross miscarriage of justice,” and condemned the members of the jury for acting “capriciously and contrary to the law.” Imagine it. A District Attorney fighting a grand jury that refused to bring charges against a cop who killed an unarmed Black man.

According to Siegel, there was more than enough evidence to bring the officer to trial for at least manslaughter. Siegel cited the fact that Fields was unarmed; that he was shot after committing nothing more serious than a misdemeanor; that multiple witnesses said Fields was exiting his car in an unthreatening manner when he was shot. Witnesses said the officer made no attempt to stop or apprehend Fields. He simply blew they young man away. In his appeal to the judge, the assistant DA also noted that officer Appelbaum contradicted himself. He had expertise and familiarity with firearms. Appelbaum had previously dealt with armed suspects with less than lethal force, once even taking a loaded rifle from a belligerent man’s hands. Appelbaum told the grand jury that it all was an “accident.” He “involuntarily” drew his gun and pulled the trigger, and that the bullet bounced off a car and struck Fields. He said he had meant it as a warning shot.

For all these reasons, and surely because of protest pressure from the community for justice, the District Attorney took the unusual step of asking a judge for a second grand jury investigation into the Fields case, and the judge obliged. But the second grand jury agreed with the first, recommending no charges be brought. Here’s where the unrecognizable ends, and the story concludes with a familiar ring of a justice system beset by racial inequality and a sense that Black lives don’t matter.

Even with a DA who actively sought an indictment of a police officer for killing an unarmed black man, an American grand jury declined to subject a cop to trial.

Darwin Bond-Graham is a sociologist and investigative journalist. He is a contributing editor to Counterpunch. His writing appears in the East Bay Express, Village Voice, LA Weekly and other newspapers. He blogs about the political economy of California at http://darwinbondgraham.wordpress.com/

Darwin Bond-Graham is a sociologist and investigative journalist. He is a contributing editor to Counterpunch. His writing appears in the East Bay Express, Village Voice, LA Weekly and other newspapers. He blogs about the political economy of California at http://darwinbondgraham.wordpress.com/