Police Brutality: Charanga Cakewalk and "El Ballad de José Campos Torres"

Today's song, El Ballad de José Campos Torres, sounds deceptively mellow - like a song one would like to relax to on a Saturday evening while playing a mix of similar, low-key music during a sunset. And maybe that's the point, because the name of José Campos Torres symbolizes anything but mellow and relaxing times.

In 1977, Houston police picked up José Campos Torres, a 23 year old Vietnam veteran, on a disorderly conduct charge. They took him to a waterway called Buffalo Bayou, where they proceeded to beat him and inflict serious injuries. After the beating, they took him to the city jail, but the jail refused to admit him due to his injuries. The cops were ordered to take him to the hospital, but instead they took him back to the bayou, handcuffed him and dumped him into the water. One of the cops supposedly said "Let's see if the wetback can swim." After a trial of the police officers on state murder charges, they were convicted of negligent homicide, given one year of probation and fined $1 each. A year later, they were brought up on federal civil rights charges and convicted, with each serving 9 months in prison.

The story attached to this song hits close to home, given that I live in Albuquerque and our police are under investigation by the Justice Department. Since 2010, officers of the Albuquerque Police Department have shot and killed 27 people. These shootings and the investigation into the police have been covered by Albuquerque media, including KUNM, and by national media as well. The most notorious shooting was of a homeless man, James Boyd, who was shot and killed while apparently surrendering to police. Other shootings by APD include a man in his own back yard, and a young woman running from an officer who brought her down but apparently didn't turn on his lapel video camera. All of this, coupled with the recent national discussion focusing on the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson and about the militarization of police forces nationwide during the War on Terror continues to shine a spotlight on the role of the police. Are they our guardians, or should we be guarding ourselves from the police? And if you are a minority, are you automatically targeted? This discussion isn't just happening in the United States. The recent conviction of Oskar Pistorious in South Africa on lesser charges after shooting his girlfriend through a bathroom door (by a black judge) has reignited questions of whites in that country automatically get the benefit of the doubt in criminal cases. The fact that in this country, blacks comprise about 13 percent of the total population but about 40 percent of the total prison population may hint at many things - the role that poverty has on our minority communities for one, but also the way that police view minority communities for another. If anything, El Ballad de José Campos Torres can remind us that until we are all treated in similar fashion as guaranteed to all US citizens under the Constitution, regardless of whether we are shopping, driving, or getting picked up on suspicion of a crime, the United States will always still have a way to go to live up to its full potential as a democracy.

El Ballad de José Campos Torres is by Charanga Cakewalk. Charanga Cakewalk is the brainchild of Michael Ramos, a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called cumbia lounge. Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. El Ballad de José Campos Torres is from his 2006 album Chicano Zen.