Last Monday, LU ran a story about a white police officer who was beaten unconscious and bloody by a black man in Birmingham, Ala., and about the ugly reactions to the incident posted afterward on social media. It turns out that the comments, which celebrated the beating and intimated that the assailant overpowered the cop, were not only obscene but factually incorrect.
CNN reports via station KPIX that the detective said he resisted the impulse to use force against the suspect, whom he had stopped because his vehicle fit the description of one used in a string of burglaries, because he didn’t want to become the latest white police officer accused of needlessly killing an unarmed black man. The officer, whose identity remains unknown in order to protect his family, told reporters:
A lot of officers are being too cautious because of what’s going on in the media. I hesitated because I didn’t want to be in the media like I am right now.
We don’t want to be in the media. It’s hard times right now for us [police].
Heath Boackle, a sergeant with the Birmingham Police Department, concurs. He is quoted as saying that members of law enforcement are “walking on eggshells because of how they’re scrutinized in the media.”
The trend is measurable along other dimensions, including the sharp uptick in the murder rate in major urban areas as police presence decreases. The District of Columbia reports an increase of nearly 30% over last year, while Baltimore recently recorded its 200th murder this year, a dubious distinction that the city didn’t achieve until December in 2014.
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