Earl Baker, 19, Steven Booker, 19, and Anthony Freeman, 18, all drowned while in custody of three county deputies. They had been arrested on suspicion of marijuana possession at the annual "Juneteenth" public festival (commemorating June 19, 1865, when slaves in Texas first heard they had been freed). While the officers were ferrying the youths across Lake Mexia, the small boat capsized 80 feet from shore. The deputies swam to safety, which was impossible for their handcuffed captives. The Dallas Medical Examiner found that none of the suspects had any traces of marijuana in their bodies. The deputies were acquitted of negligent homicide.

WHAT MAKES PEOPLE fire on children and completely unarmed men without provocation? Why don't we hear about Black cops accidentally shooting children who "make a quick movement" or reach into their pockets "suspiciously"? A passage from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man may be apropos:

"When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination--indeed, everything and anything except me...You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy."

When Officer Torsney shot Randy Evans point-blank, he cannot possibly have seen Evans for what he was--a 15-year-old asking a question. When Ja-Wan McGee reached for his cigarette lighter, he had no way of knowing a nearby cop would "see" a holdup. Patrolman Kevin Durkin slipped into a waking nightmare, and two men suddenly found themselves cast as Puerto Rican terrorists.

Invisible Man was published in 1947, but it seems that all too many whites still continue to see horrible visions where other human beings stand. This state of affairs can prove fatal when police are involved. And even when the absence of lethal violence makes the syndrome merely tiresome, it can ruin your day.

Take Cambridge, for example. After turning in articles at The Crimson in the wee hours, I often walk back to my dorm in the Quad. There's usually a good chance that the police (Harvard or Cambridge) will "escort" me there, as they have done so often in the past. The game starts when they pass you in the police car, then turn down the next available side street. About two blocks later, they reappear from another side street just as you reach it, and drive past again, but in the opposite direction. A minute later, the whole process starts again. Eventually, we all get to the Quad. This treatment might make some feel safe, but somehow I can never convince myself they are following me for my protection.

THE EFFORT to get American police departments under control and in line with reality seems to be picking up steam in a few places. With new guidelines on the use of deadly force. Flint's police have begun making progress in shooting less often at the unarmed and the innocent. As one Flint doctor involved in police issues put it. "Police have often precipitated riots, and the police here want to avoid that."

A recent Wall Street Journal article noted that cities with Black mayors have led others in restraining police gunplay. Many of these mayors had campaigned on platforms that included ending brutality. Newark's Kenneth Gibson has cut the rate of shooting by 75 percent since he entered office in the late 1970s. In Detroit, the average number of annual deaths caused by police fell in the late 1970s from 32 to 21. For Atlanta under Maynard Jackson, the average went from 11 to four. Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, an ex-cop, allows the District Attorney to conduct frequent investigations into how and when his police fire their guns.

Other cities have taken longer to reform. Philadelphia under Mayor Frank J. Rizzo once reputedly ranked with Houston as the most brutal department in the country; the Justice Department cited the entire Philadelphia police force as consistent violators of civil rights. Not until Rizzo left office in 1979 did the city gets its first written policy on the use of deadly force by policemen.

James Fyfe, an ex-cop-turned-professor at American University, claims better training and their restrictions on the use of firepower actually benefit the police in more ways than one. In a New York study, he found that restrictive measures led to 50 percent fewer police killings and also reduced the number of policemen injured by suspects and fellow officers. At the same time, the arrest rate rose. "There's no evidence it [curbs on the use of deadly force] hurts police efficiency," says Fyle.

Part of the national effort has included hiring and promoting more Blacks in police departments. In New York, New Orleans and other cities, hiring practices have been found discriminatory in court cases. Black cops who help police Black communities, it turns out, tend not to have the kind of delusions that make men shoot without cause.

Not everyone sees the connection. The Justice Department is currently challenging a court-approved promotion schedule in the New Orleans department. The city and a Federal District court had both agreed that, in a city which is 55 percent Black, the near-absence of Black officers was a situation that needed redress. This conclusion was not just based on liberal notions about affirmative action: New Orleans police have led the country for years in the number of annual complaints to the federal government of impropriety. The city's rate of police killings per violent crime is about 10 times that of Newark. An investigator of brutality in New Orleans says the situation is not improving.

BLEARY-EYED from staring at microfilm, I got home and turned on the TV to watch "the second day of racial unrest in Miami." The crowds of Blacks protesting the killing of Johnson had been largely dispersed. Men wearing gas masks ran around with rifles, lobbing gas grenades. Helicopters circled overhead. A convoy of jeeps rolled down the street. The Newsface came on and reported. "President Reagan said today that there is no room for violence in the streets of America." You could picture him saying the words. It was almost funny.

I kept repeating the words out loud. There is no room for violence in the streets. After Miami's riots, then-President Carter had earmarked $83 million in emergency funds to rebuild the already-depressed Black community. When Reagan took over, about half the funds had been administered; he froze the rest. There is no room for violence in the streets. From 1978 to 1981, about $450 million in job training funds came into southern Florida, 60 percent of which went to Black communities. Reagan cut the figure to $20 million, and he is expected to eliminate the program altogether next year.

There is no room for violence in the streets. Would he say that to the next group of policemen he addressed? Would he say that to the mothers of the kids listed above?