New York Professor Says US Police Reputation Tainted After Ferguson

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Usually, the police are a symbol of authority and respect, but incidents like the Ferguson shooting change their portrayal into a picture of racism, Candance McCoy, professor of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York said, sharing her opinion with Radio VR.

MOSCOW, August 23 (RIA Novosti) - Usually, the police are a symbol of authority and respect, but incidents like the Ferguson shooting change their portrayal into a picture of racism, Candance McCoy, professor of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York said, sharing her opinion with Radio VR.

Although police training has improved greatly over the last 40 years, the Ferguson shooting is absolutely overwhelming because of “how long it went on and how violent it was”, the expert remarks. Actions against law-enforcement essentially have a special feeling to them, she adds.

There has not been a civil unrest against the police community of this scale in the US since 2001, when African American Timothy Thomas was shot by a police officer in Cincinnati, Ohio, sparking mass street riots. Prior to that, in 1992, there was six days of protests and looting  in Los Angeles following the acquittal for assault of the white police officers involved in the Rodney King beating, the expert recollects. They had been videotaped beating  King, an African American man, after a high-speed police pursuit.

In the wake of the Ferguson killing, protests should transform into a big soul-searching and a fundamental dialog about how to reform the police, says Ms. McCoy, adding that the police department currently retains its old-fashioned way of “doing things”.

Each level of authority in the United States, from federal to local, would be called upon to respond.

For instance, in Ferguson, a predominantly black town, there have been calls for voter registration, as the voting rate among the black population is only around 10-12 percent, says Ms. McCoy, commenting on what measures could be taken on the local level. On the state level there can be a prosecution of the officer involved in the crime, which sounds a bit problematic since the court may be demanding a solid proof of intent to kill, which is apparently absent in the case.

The expert goes on to say that the federal government is also taking a vivid interest in the case, understandably enough, due to the large-scale riots Ferguson has seen for the past two weeks. The federal government does have the authority to go into a local jurisdiction and determine if there are any violations of the Constitution by the police department “through a custom, or practice, or policy, or an unconstitutional activity”, for example, racist policing. It’s not unusual, says the Ms. McCoy, as approximately 300 cities and towns have been subjected to that kind of scrutiny over the past decade.

Michael Brown’s death fuelled nearly two weeks of violent clashes between police and demonstrators, which peaked on Monday night with law enforcers coming under heavy gunfire. They retaliated with tear gas and stun grenades. On Wednesday night, protestors again gathered on the streets of Ferguson, but police said that the violence has largely subsided in the last couple of days.

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