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A real-life story to illustrate why "defund the police" resonates with those of us who don't even agree with it, why police brutality fuels street violence, why this nuance can't be captured in public polls and databases. 1/
cc @jessesingal https://twitter.com/Ravarora1/status/1359153871571087362
A real-life story to illustrate why "defund the police" resonates with those of us who don't even agree with it, why police brutality fuels street violence, why this nuance can't be captured in public polls and databases. 1/
cc @jessesingal https://twitter.com/Ravarora1/status/1359153871571087362
About 12 yrs ago we received the call we long braced ourselves for: The mother of one of my nieces was killed in a drive-by shooting. She was sleeping in the bed with my youngest brother; their daughter and other kids were in the next room where bullet holes were later found. 2/
I rushed home. I made it to the apartment and was greeted by a bloody footprint at the entrance. Kim had already died. I was angry, sad but also afraid because I knew enough about my brother's lifestyle to know this could quickly escalate to a cycle of shootings. 3/
My first thought was to take him over to the police department to have him tell them everything he knew about why anyone would shoot into his apartment. I eventually did that, not before I hesitated. Here's why defund the police resonates with me despite what I just revealed. 4/
Cops in that area a couple years earlier allowed a K-9 to badly injure another one of my brothers. They put him in a jail cell without medical attention, left him there until my mom forced them to release him. 5/
Another of my brothers was praying in a parking lot, in adherence to a religion that kept him sane through 32 yrs in prison, including 7 in solitary. Cops came along, roughed him up, handcuffed and jailed him because he was supposedly scary to people passing by. 6/
Those are personal. As a reporter, I knew of cops who physically assaulted suspects and prosecutors who refused to prosecute, saying they just needed to no longer be cops, and cops who harassed some young black men so frequently they stopped reporting those cops. 7/
That was the context that morning when I was decided what to do, if I should rely upon cops to help me prevent more shootings, or if I should avoid them and a system I simply don't trust. That's the dilemma families like mine face. 8/
Cops will never fully be able to do a great job solving violent crime if the folks in the neighborhoods they patrol don't trust them. That's why you can't solve street crime without solving police brutality. That's why "defund the police" resonates even with those who need cops.
