When it was announced the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic were hosting the first presidential debate of 2020, there was an overlooked problem. A private force that operates on these grounds terrorizes Black people!
Armed private police patrol Cleveland’s medical zone and the city streets, mostly targeting Black people. They are nearly indistinguishable from the city of Cleveland’s police force – which also has racism issues – but they’re getting a special comparison.
These police serve as a “border patrol” of sorts, working to keep Black people out of the medical area. That they overwhelmingly pursue Black people traveling through their jurisdiction attests to this. Analysis of available data makes this even clearer.
According to reporting from Propublica, “Nearly three-fourths of those arrested or ticketed are Black, well above the percentage of Black people among the area’s workers and visitors.” Racist policing isn’t new, but their being a private force makes it worse.
Private police, like private prisons and other privatized forces, face fewer consequences and less accountability. It’s bad enough we have to reject public police brutality, but we should always be against privatized, incentivised violence against Black people!