Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
How broken policing is breaking our democracy
Lonng, but.a really good read.
A body of political science research finds that our criminal justice system suppresses the votes of Black people — in ways beyond the obvious.
Days before a jury convicted Derek Chauvin of murdering George Floyd, a group of boys on bicycles were stopped by police officers in the town of Perth Amboy, New Jersey.
Footage uploaded by one of the boys shows the predominantly Black and Latino group riding close to cars and popping wheelies, but nothing seems illegal. Multiple squad cars appear; the kids, who say they’re far from home and afraid of losing their bikes, try to get away before being pulled over.
One officer tries to defuse the situation, promising the kids he won’t take their bikes if they stay on the right side of the road; the kids even applaud him as he walks away. But then a second officer, a sergeant, starts grabbing at one of the kid’s bikes. She yells at a Black boy for challenging her, arrests him, and seizes all of the kids’ bikes. The first officer, the one who seemed nice at first, backs his colleague.
The legal justification for the bike seizure is an obscure city ordinance, enacted in 1939, requiring that cyclists obtain a license to operate a bike and display a tag on their vehicle. The absurdity of the pretext helps illustrate the grim reality behind this interaction: For millions of Americans, this is what the government looks like. In many communities, especially poor Black ones, police harassment, arrest, and incarceration are routine parts of life — shaping how they understand the nature of the American state itself.
This has a dangerous — and not widely appreciated — effect on our democracy.
[/div
Footage uploaded by one of the boys shows the predominantly Black and Latino group riding close to cars and popping wheelies, but nothing seems illegal. Multiple squad cars appear; the kids, who say they’re far from home and afraid of losing their bikes, try to get away before being pulled over.
One officer tries to defuse the situation, promising the kids he won’t take their bikes if they stay on the right side of the road; the kids even applaud him as he walks away. But then a second officer, a sergeant, starts grabbing at one of the kid’s bikes. She yells at a Black boy for challenging her, arrests him, and seizes all of the kids’ bikes. The first officer, the one who seemed nice at first, backs his colleague.
The legal justification for the bike seizure is an obscure city ordinance, enacted in 1939, requiring that cyclists obtain a license to operate a bike and display a tag on their vehicle. The absurdity of the pretext helps illustrate the grim reality behind this interaction: For millions of Americans, this is what the government looks like. In many communities, especially poor Black ones, police harassment, arrest, and incarceration are routine parts of life — shaping how they understand the nature of the American state itself.
This has a dangerous — and not widely appreciated — effect on our democracy.
[/div
