About Cops in New York
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Snippets from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/nyregion/black-hispanic-officers-nypd-protests.html
In the wake of Mr. Floyd’s death on May 25, some black officers felt a duty to speak out. Two days later, Dmaine Freeland, a black detective in Brooklyn, put on his uniform, sat at his kitchen table, clasped his hands and recorded a video on his cellphone.
The detective denounced the officer who had knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while three other officers watched. He called him an “enemy” and asked “every good cop to speak up.” Then he posted the two-minute video on Facebook.
“I just spiritually felt the need to speak for good cops out there,” Detective Freeland, 44, said in an interview, so “that we don’t get bunched in with the actions of one or four bad cops.”
Edwin Raymond, a black lieutenant in the Police Department, heard racial insults — “Sellout!” and “Uncle Tom!” — rising above protesters’ chants as he helped to control the crowds at recent demonstrations in Brooklyn against police brutality and racism.
He said he understood the words were aimed at black officers like him. He tried not to take them personally, but the shouts were particularly painful, he said, because he has long been an outspoken critic of what he sees as racial discrimination within the department.
“I’m not blind to the issues, but I’m torn,” Lieutenant Raymond said. “As I’m standing there with my riot helmet and being called a ‘coon,’ people have no idea that I identify with them. I understand them. I’m here for them. I’ve been trying to be here as a change agent.”
White officers now make up less than half of the 36,000 uniformed members of the force. The number of Hispanic officers has grown to make up 29 percent of the force, while the percentage of Asian officers in the force doubled to 9 percent, according to the department’s data.
More at the site. Recommended reading.
(People are still using the epithet Uncle Tom in this day and age? Kin you blee dat???)
