Ex-Seattle Police Chief Condemns Systemic Police Racism Dating Back to Slave Patrols
On Wednesday, President Obama met at the White House with law enforcement officials and civil rights leaders. President Obama hosted the meeting one week after the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, and the killing of five police officers by a sniper in Dallas. While the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile made national headlines, they were not isolated incidents. According to a count by The Guardian, at least 37 people have been killed by police in the United States so far this month. That’s more than the total number of people killed by police in Britain since the year 2000. Overall, police in the United States have killed a total of 585 people so far this year. We speak to former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, author of the new book “To Protect and to Serve: How to Fix America’s Police.”
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I never thought of what has been going on like that, ‘Slave Patrols’. Damn! That rings too true.
The recent violence has a lot of people riled up, and continued activism is needed to ensure we move forward, not backward.
So well said! Thom Hartmann also pointed out recently that the whole Second Amendment was written as it is, in order to support the existence of the slave patrols and satisfy Patrick Henry’s demands. And Patrick Henry (Give me liberty or give me death) turns out to have been the largest slaveholder in Virginia.
I actually transcribed and wrote a post about it, but didn’t have a chance to post it yet. I will now, before I have to get back to work.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that our policing traditions stem from slave patrols, too. 🙁