“I don’t feel protected or served,” I tell him. “I do,” he says. The back-to-back public executions of Alton Sterling (07.05.16 Baton Rouge, LA) and Philando Castile (07.06.16 St. Paul, MN) give him pause, and he concedes that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, but at the same time he wonders what it must be like […]
Zachary Hammond’s murder is only the most recent example, not of institutional racism, but of the increasingly blurry line between our civil and military authorities, likewise the dug-in adversarial, even predatory, relationship that now exists between law enforcement and the public it ostensibly serves. This phenomenon transcends race, although race admittedly can be a factor in how it plays […]
Here’s former NYC police officer and prosecutor Eugene O’Donnell quoted in a May 5, 2015 NY Times article titled “Police struggle with loss of privileged position“: There was a time in this country when elected officials – legislators, chief executives – were willing to contextualize what police do. And that time is mostly gone. I’m assuming that […]
