By: Kyla Goolsby
Rejecting the violent murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, Mark Hughes attended a police brutality protest in Dallas, Texas. Advocating for racial equality and the right to exercise the Second Amendment, Mark Hughes brought his “long-gun,” an AR-15. As the streets poured with 800 like-minded Americans fueled by the same ambition to catalyze change, Mark Hughes (“Hughes”) was to become yet another victim of police brutality, but this time made possible by the weaponizing of Twitter.
Recently, there has been an upheaval in police brutality and subsequent protests. In what appears as an effort to garner support for “Blue Lives,” numerous police departments across the United States have increasingly taken to Twitter to spread misinformation about protestors, highlight brutalities taken against police officers, and, in the case of Mark Hughes in 2016, to improperly render him a wanted man. For instance, during mid-June of 2020 at the height of a racially-charged dispute, three New York City police officers used Twitter to allege that a Manhattan Shake Shack had purposefully poisoned their beverages. Not one week prior, the Kanas City Police Department tweeted, “We have learned of & discovered stashes of bricks and rocks in & around the Plaza and Westport to be used during a riot. If you see anything like this, you can text 911 and let us know so we can remove them. This keeps everyone safe and allows your voice to continue to be heard.” As floods of tweets from other departments heeded the same “warnings” of protester violence, often posting pictures of rocks and rubble, oppositional tweets arose displaying instances of police staging the events.
Twitter attacks on Black Lives Matter protestors do not stop at warnings of debris or poison, but goes so far as departments tweeting “warnings” about dangerous individuals – almost exclusively people of color – alongside suggestive photographs doubling as mugshots. In Miramar, Florida, the police department tweeted the issuing of arrest for Quinton Dunbar, from the Seattle Seahawks, and DeAndre Baker, of the New York Giants. The pair were accused of stealing upwards of $70,000 worth of property from a party, Miramar Police even tweeted a copy of the arrest warrant and affidavit. The Dallas Police Department, tweeting only four years prior, exhorted this same fear of Black men against Mark Hughes.
At the outset of the 2016 protest, given the ongoing fear-mongering against Black men, Hughes was in-tune with the likelihood that his public possession of a firearm may spark confusion or controversy. He notified police officers of his license and allowed inspection of the gun. At 8:45 pm, as participants dispersed at the protest’s conclusion, shots rang out. Cory Hughes, Mark Hughes’ brother, accompanied Hughes in handing his firearm over to Dallas police in an effort to prevent any mistake of his involvement. The exchange between police and Hughes included cellphone video footage of police taking the firearm, swapping it for a business card, and a receipt with information to assume possession following the investigation. The aftermath of the tragedy confirmed six injuries and five deaths. In the time following the shooting, Police Chief David Brown collected information on Hughes to funnel into a new and haunting narrative: Hughes was the shooter. At 10:52 pm, Dallas Police Department’s Twitter, @DallasPD, distinguished Hughes as the culprit; instructing citizens to call 911 with information on his whereabouts, inflaming citizens with a photograph of Hughes with his AR-15, and provoking citizens by promising to “bring him [Hughes] to justice”. Brown, bolstering the power of his tweet, held a press conference, and meeting with other Dallas officers reiterating the same message.
Made aware of his wanted-status via phone call, Hughes sought police at the scene to clarify the misinformation, at which point he was relocated to police headquarters. Cory was also detained, neither was read their Miranda rights warnings during the arrest, nor the consequent interrogation. Following the investigation, a significant debate ensued over whether Hughes’ arrest constituted unlawful detainment. The defense for Hughes contended that his arrest did not meet the requirements for a “consensual encounter,” in which “the individual willingly agrees to speak to police, [and] may be initiated by police without any objective level of suspicion.” Hughes recounted his decision to speak to police, recalling his expression to Cory, “if I stay here, they’re gonna kill me.” How can the arrest emanate consent where the Police Chief has created space in which Hughes must speak to police, where the alternative could mean increased violence against him or his family? The tweeted picture of Hughes and the firearm alone, Hughes’ attorney Corwyn Davis contended, resulted in thousands of death threats against Hughes and his brother.
Of his confiscated goods, cops still refuse to return Hughes’ camouflage shirt, and it took over five months to return his AR-15. Cory and Hughes affirm that in the time following the incident, they experienced helplessness from the barriers preventing entrance into the narrative: an inability to erase the photograph from Twitter (which had been retweeted thousands of times), an inability to learn why the department targeted him in the first place; and an inability to publicly expose the police department for their failure to elicit even a mere apology. This overall inaccessibility of Black men and women into a dialogue with the police system is made possible by the usage of social media platforms, such as Twitter. Without the accountability of face-to-face conversation, misinformation can be circulated in seconds before even contemplating removing it from the site, everyone is free to point fingers wherever they please. Exacerbating the issue, the limited characters allotted in a tweet provide ample opportunity to shorten complex issues into inflammatory propaganda that is easily digestible, yet frequently misleading. The Kansas City Police Department, and others alike, may send out photographs of protest violence and stashes of makeshift armaments without fear of fact-checking. At most, the tweet will be taken down, or those in opposition can seek to set the record straight by replying with their own accounts. These efforts, however, are largely unrewarded as the damage has already been done.
The weaponizing of Twitter as a method of police brutality against Black people is dangerous. As the political divide widens and bipartisanship centralizes around whether Black or Blue Lives Matter, the sanctity of the truth becomes less and less. It is unlikely that “Blue Lives” Twitter will believe Mark Hughes is innocent, just as it is unlikely that the Dallas Police Department will use the platform to issue Hughes an apology for their egregious mistake. Further, as this line between truth and tale becomes dimmer – obscured by partisan loyalties, the potential for increased violence against people of color also grows. For now, it is a quasi-mugshot, or a brick, or a policewoman’s Twitter bio reading “KKK member” that takes five years to result in expulsion. Tomorrow, it may be marshaling the thread component of Twitter to orchestrate violence or the trending of accounts orientated at compelling anti-Black narratives promoting police efforts at “bringing them to justice.”
Student Bio: Kyla Goolsby is a second-year law student at Suffolk University Law School and is pursuing a concentration in Health and Biomedical Law. Kyla is also a staff member for the Journal of High Technology Law, and a health and pharmaceutical law research assistant.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are the views of the author alone and do not represent the views of JHTL or Suffolk University Law School.
