Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Discussions around police use of force and disabled civilians usually turn quickly to training. In Chicago, for example, several high profile deaths resulted in mandatory CIT training for all Chicago officers – in policy anyway. It’s not clear whether funds have been allocated and to what extent the training is ongoing, but that’s another story. …
I spent the morning at Equip for Equality in Downtown Chicago, learning from attorney Amanda Antholt as she discussed policing and disability. “Where we see police misconduct, it’s the same sort of set of events. Gave an order, you didn’t comply, so I’m escalating.” @equip4equality — David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) March 30, 2016 Antholt has …
In response to the recent shooting of Quintonio Legrier and Bettie Jones, embattled mayor Rahm Emanuel has made a decision – give all cops Tasers. Chicago’s mayor and police superintendent will announce Wednesday afternoon that every police officer who responds to service calls will be equipped with a Taser and properly trained to use it …
Cincinnati has a new red and white placard that deaf and hard-of-hearing drivers can place in their car to inform police officers of their disability. Here’s an image from a local news tweet. .@CincinnatiPD & students at @uofcincy help design traffic stop safety placards for the deaf & hard of hearing. pic.twitter.com/M6C6fOcGvn — Angela Ingram …
This is a video of a school cop grabbing an African-American teenager by the throat for, it appears, trying to walk away. There had been a fight, the officer was telling him something, and the boy was trying to leave. Unless the boy was making some kind of threat, which no one has claimed he …
The front screen door opened and then closed. I thought it was a package. But then I heard male voices on my porch. Was the delivery man saying hi to a neighbor? After a few minutes, when they continued, I opened the door to find a police officer on my porch, another on the sidewalk …
Yesterday, I wrote about the death of Anthony Hill, a man with bipolar disorder, who, while naked and unarmed, was killed by police in the Atlanta area. Here are three stories on how police should respond to these sorts of situations (I’m guessing there are 500+ related deaths a year nationally, but numbers are hard …
This appears to be Grade-A policing…restraint/stabilization until action/force is unavoidable. http://t.co/DxlzDLo1bw @Lollardfish ^lh — The Virtus Group (@TheVirtusGroup) February 7, 2015 I write a lot about bad killings and ugly use-of-force incidents. I then get asked, “well what should the cops have done?” which is a fair question. One of the people I rely on …
I started writing about police violence and disability because of the death of Ethan Saylor. I had read stories like this for years, but when Ethan died, unlike during previous tragedies, I had a few links to media. I first wrote this piece for The Nation. I then wrote this widely-read piece for CNN and …
Here are four stories literally just from last night (they happened at different times, but made news yesterday). They illustrate the way racism enables and is enabled by the cult of compliance. The cult provides an intersectional lens in which race and class dominate the middle, with disability not far behind. When these categories overlap in …