Journalist – Historian – Speaker
This case is from 2012, but I first noticed it on this DailyKos diary. It’s a perfect example of the “cult of compliance,” a phrase I’ve been using since 2013 to link otherwise discrete incidents of police brutality, creeping authoritarianism, and broader examples of cultural discourse that venerate compliance as the greatest of all virtues. …
When Brian Encina slammed Sandra Bland’s head into the ground, this happened: Encinia: Get on the ground!Bland: For a traffic signal!Encinia: You are yanking around, when you pull away from me, you’re resisting arrest.Bland: Don’t it make you feel real good don’t it? A female for a traffic ticket. Don’t it make you feel good …
When Eric Garner’s killers were not charged, I wrote a piece for CNN about the intersection of disability and race in his and other deaths at the hands of law enforcement. Ever since I heard that Freddie Gray asked for an inhaler before the police closed the door on the van and began give him …
The Washington Post has published a report based on a leaked document. We don’t know who leaked it to them. In it, a prisoner who was placed in the police van some time after Freddie Gray was restrained, claims that he heard banging from Gray’s compartment. At no time did this anonymous prisoner see Gray. That’s …
In 2010, Jeremy Hutton, a 17 year-old-boy with Down syndrome, was shot by a police officer who claimed Hutton was driving right at him. That claim held up in the post-incident review. Here’s a video showing that’s untrue (original source), the officer was safely to the side. A video of police shooting a car driven …
Walter Scott’s killing has made national news, propelled by a cell phone video that allegedly shows the officer dropping a TASER by the body, trying to make the death look justified. When Scott died, I expected to hear defenders of the killing blame Scott for running, but there’s been relatively little of that. Instead, Officer …
Louis Hayes is a Chicago area SWAT and CIT trained police officer trying to change certain core strategic approaches employed by police. He’s got a new piece up about “lawful but awful” cases, many of which involve disability. Hayes writes: What I read from activists’ and advocates’ intelligent responses (SPECIAL NOTE: intelligent) to many of …
This story was just brought to my attention in the comment from “Mel” in my previous post. In 2010, John T. Williams, a Native Alaskan woodcarver, was walking down the street holding a 3-inch folding knife and a piece of wood. Officer Ian Birk approached him from behind, firearm drawn, and ordered Williams to drop …
It’s been a busy week of writing and I hope you are enjoying this holiday weekend. Most of the week was spent on the cult of compliance and police violence. I started with a piece on CNN on 4 police killings of people with mental health issues. I argued that we need to think about psychiatric disability …
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 …