Journalist – Historian – Speaker
A Texas principal joked to her staff that the next time a black disabled child tried to leave the school grounds, she’d call the cops and tell them he had a gun. NEW at Pacific Standard “Swearingen’s “joke,” if that’s what it was, tells a story about the state-sanctioned killing of one of her students. …
Don’t miss this story about policing and disability from Chattanooga. It’s a perfectly awful example of the #cultofcompliance. Hardaway, the victim here, is black, disabled, and homeless. First encounter: Weeks before, Hardaway said his wheelchair had died nearby, leaving him stranded on the sidewalk for eight hours, with no one offering help. He eventually fell …
The things we criminalize reveal a lot about risk and value much more than actual dangers. Here’s a fascinating piece from The Baffler on “distracted walking.” The issue isn’t safety but enforcement of car culture. “Distracted pedestrian” laws aren’t really about the evidence, though. They are about maintaining the privileges of car culture as that culture …
I had 93 essays published in 2017. Whew. I published 55 in 2016, so it’s fair to say that things have escalated dramatically. I am still developing as an essayist, but am grateful to my editors, collaborators, interlocutors, and especially the folks who read me. Thank you. Here are a few pieces of which I …
911 for man in mental health crisis, family asks for calm intervention. Cops kick open door, tase and beat. He dies. https://t.co/6v7xgHbVsd — David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) March 29, 2017 It isn’t safe for families to call 911 when their loved ones have mental health crises. It isn’t safe for families to not call 911 …
The State of CT mandates the tracking of taser use by law enforcement, which is fairly rare across the country. We’ve got the 2015 numbers. From Connecticut Magazine: A total of 650 reported Taser incidents involved 610 people. Of those subjected to Taser use in 2015: 83 percent were unarmed53 percent were people of color49 …
Ryan Turk, then 14, gets free lunches at his Virginia school. One day, he forgot to grab milk, so went back to grab a 65 cent carton. The School Resource Officer assigned to the lunchroom accused of him of stealing and Turk, alas, did not instantly comply with the SROs orders. He might have talked …
Two deaths of disabled men at the hands of law enforcement have been in the news lately. One was black, a veteran, and a mental health crisis spun him into custody, where an officer (allegedly) broke his neck. The other was white, nonverbal, autistic, and walked away from his group at a park, where an …
Here’s a big study on taser use from Maryland, thanks to the hard work of the Baltimore Sun. In reporting Taser incidents to the state, police departments must record the reason for discharging the weapon. Officers have only three options: “non-compliant and non-threatening,” “use of threat” or “use of force.” Of all incidents from 2012 through …
There is new video of the death of Linwood Lambert. If police want to have TASERs, which they do and they should, then the people who abuse them have to be held accountable. When three Virginia police officers put Linwood Lambert in a squad car around 5 a.m. on May 4, 2013, they said they …