Tuesday, September 05, 2006

ruminating on police

over the weekend, many of you may have heard about this story about steve foley. police in the san diego area shot foley, a member of the san diego chargers football team. heather and i were discussing this case while watching some program on msnbc about video and policing. the program looked @ several different angles of how video has helped and hurt police. from incidents like the rodney king beating to in-cruiser cameras that protect police against false accusation, it was all there. but, it reminded me of this incident that recently has had some fallout although it happened about 3 years ago in miami (here is also a youtube link with complete video footage & some intview with lady involved).

today, i saw a link to a story about houston's police department. here's the headline, "one in three shootings by law enforcement officers in harris county since 1999 involved unarmed people. the chronicle examined more than 180 such shootings and also found 20 percent of those hurt were never charged with any crime. see what's happened in your neighborhood." it then gives you a database that you can access.

i know that law enforcement is a high stress and often thankless job. so, to all you cops out there doing it right, thanks. but i'm also sickened when i see so many stories about the abuses of public trust.

No comments: