TO THE EDITOR:
This is the UNControllables’ response to The Daily Tar Heel article, “Chapel Hill police discuss response to Franklin Street storming,” particularly the quotes that encourage community policing.
Community policing is a despicable practice. While the role of terrorizing poor communities, especially communities of color, could in the past be mostly confined to cops and “law enforcement,” community policing has transferred a lot of that responsibility over to white, middle class rich people.
Very recently, Jesus Huerta, an 18-year-old Hispanic male, was killed in police custody.
The police were not transparent at all in providing the family answers, and there were a few marches in Huerta’s memory.
At one of the marches, the family tried to have a non-confrontation vigil in memory of Huerta, but as the protesters disbanded, they were pushed back with tear gas in the middle of downtown Durham by almost the entire Durham Police Department.
They hadn’t even walked on the street during the march. Durham Police Department Chief Jose Lopez was hailed as a great practitioner of community policing, which was partly what got him the role as Chief in Durham.
Yet, even one of the best practitioners of so-called “community policing” still managed to have his department use tear gas on peaceful protesters.
This is all to say that community policing is a farce.
