By Courtland Milloy
Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Where is our Rev. Al Sharpton? Seriously. Our Al wouldn't necessarily wear pressed hair or sound like a storefront preacher. He certainly wouldn't have to be an opportunist or an instigator or even a he, for that matter -- just someone to help us channel our consternation over questionable police practices into action.

You don't have to like Sharpton to give the man his due. On Monday, he and other civil rights activists confronted New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg about a police shooting frenzy that killed one unarmed man and injured two of his friends as they were leaving a bachelor party. The slain man was supposed to be married the next day. Imagine a group of black activists, concerned about police behavior in Prince George's, similarly confronting County Executive Jack B. Johnson. Or should I say, "Dream on"?

Since 2000, Prince George's has shelled out $16.3 million to compensate victims of alleged police misconduct. Last year alone, taxpayers paid $4.6 million. Yet the bizarre behavior continues. In September, there were four police shootings in three weeks -- two of them fatal.

It seems not to matter that most of the victims have been unarmed Latino and African American men. The response of most residents in the wealthiest predominantly black county in the country has amounted to little more than a collective yawn. Of course, if the Ku Klux Klan were in charge of a police department that lost millions in lawsuits that alleged misconduct, black people would be protesting from Beltsville to Brandywine.

"It's not easy to get people involved unless they have been personally affected by police brutality," said Redmond Barnes, a member of the People's Coalition for Police Accountability, a grass-roots organization based in Capitol Heights. "Part of the problem is that we have moved away from social protest in the county and now believe that seeking wealth is the way to escape bad behavior by police or even by other black people.

"I believe this is a mistake. We can't just turn and run away. We have to respond to each incident of police misconduct, even if it means taking our protests to the streets, or the situation is never going to change."

Barnes, 57, works at the National Institutes of Health and serves as a deacon at St. Paul's. He's no Reverend Al. But it should be noted that Bloomberg agreed to meet with the community leaders amid concerns that Reverend Al was about to do just what Barnes advocates: take the protest to the streets.

"I get calls every month from people who've had unpleasant experiences with police, asking us to do something about this problem," Barnes said. "But we're not the kind of organization that will do something for you. We're the kind of organization that wants you to join with us in an effort to seek justice. When they hear that, they just seem to drift away."

Prince George's is by no means the only jurisdiction in our area marred by controversial police shootings. In January, a Fairfax County police officer shot and killed an unarmed optometrist, prompting an FBI investigation. A month later, in Alexandria, an off-duty officer shot into an SUV, killing an 18-year-old man who had just left a pancake house with friends who had not paid their bill. In the District, police officers shot and killed five people between January and June. Affluent Montgomery County also has problems with questionable police behavior.

But Prince George's is special -- home to a highly educated black elite that came of age during the civil rights era, a time of nauseating and murderous police brutality. The county's first elected African American county executive -- Wayne K. Curry -- and Johnson, the second, are lawyers with civil rights backgrounds. Both campaigned as fierce critics of the police department. It is unseemly in the extreme for such a place and such people to have such difficulty getting a handle on their police department. And what about the talented teens being raised in this land of plenty? Must they wait until one of their own is victimized before taking up the mantle of the activist? Where would we be if the Freedom Riders had waited until they could afford a Benz for the ride down South?

Even those police shootings that are found to be "justifiable" stain the county -- for they still involve mostly blacks and Latinos who have been locked out of the economic mainstream.

"I ride the Metro to work, and all I see on the train every morning are women -- women going to work, hardly a black man to be found," Barnes said. "But when I look out of the window, I see the men hanging out, doing nothing. We have nothing for them to do. And that gets to the fact that we don't value them. It's depressing. During slavery, you could be prosecuted for killing somebody's slave because a slave had economic value. But these guys are considered worthless, so police rarely get prosecuted and almost never convicted."

Except in civil proceedings, where juries routinely award plaintiffs hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars every year. Imagine what might be accomplished if the county used that money for vocational education and jobs programs instead.

Where are you Reverend Al? Reverend Alice?

E-mail:milloyc@washpost.com