The violence perpetrated by the [Prince George's County] cops is a curious development. [...] A bedroom community of the nation's capital, Prince George's county is the only suburban county ever to become richer as it became blacker. According to the Census Bureau, the county, which is 63 percent black, had a median income of $47,000 in 1997, more than double the median income for African Americans and almost $10,000 more than the median income for whites. [...] Prince George's shows integration taken to its most extreme, perhaps perverted, end---black people with the inalienable right to drive the same luxury cars, buy the same sprawling houses, and be just as apathetic as America's white elite. [...] Police brutality may help Al Sharpton garner a spot on "Rivera Live," but the black uppercrust sees little point in putting the police on trial here in Prince George's County, or anywhere else in the nation for that matter. Like their white counterparts, African-Americans will countenance a few police thrashings if that's the price of keeping their Jags from getting jacked.
For this examination of shootings by Prince George's County police, databases were built to track and measure the rates at which county officers and their counterparts at 50 other agencies resorted to deadly gunfire over the decade [...] By any measure, Prince George's County police have shot and killed people at rates that exceed those of nearly any other large police force in the nation. Since 1990, they have shot 122 people, killing 47 of them. By one standard – the number of fatal shootings per officer – they killed more people than any major city or county police force from 1990 through 2000.
Prince George's County lawmakers and community leaders said yesterday that they have lost confidence in Police Chief John S. Farrell, and several called for his resignation. More than five years after County Executive Wayne K. Curry (D) brought Farrell in to reform a long-troubled department, criticism mounted from those who say he has allowed a pattern of abuse and brutality to fester in the police force.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after] Archives before February 5, 2001
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12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!