police accountability

In the midst of public outcries against the racism and violence of the criminal justice system in the United States, police departments are trying to repair their images with the same lack of grace as Bill Cosby’s Far From Finished comedy tour.

“It’s not the race or ethnicity, it’s the behavior,” Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland said when asked why people of color had their vehicles searched at disproportionately high rates.

While speech like this is not uncommon in police departments, the McClelland’s choice of venue was questionable, as his voice filled the auditorium of Texas Southern University, a historically black college located at the center of a historically black community currently being ravaged by gentrification.

Two days before Christmas, a “thug” launched an “unprovoked attack” on a female MTA employee on a Bronx subway platform, “choking her” and causing injuries, according to the Daily News. The “hulking brute” then fled the scene, “grinning as he made his may through the turnstile.”

The newspaper’s description conjures images of a fanatical psychopath, aggressively assaulting an innocent victim and showing a twisted pleasure in his deranged actions while escaping. Several days later the perpetrator was located, but he was not arrested. On Friday, more than a month later, police announced he will face only misdemeanor charges.

The perpetrator was allegedly discovered when he saw video of himself on the news and turned himself in, police said. Incidentally the man, 37-year-old Mirjan Lolja, is himself an NYPD policeman.