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About That News Feed

By David Packman

Unfortunately, I've have decided to stop publishing the national police misconduct news feed from badcopnews.com. While that site does advocate a position against police misconduct, the content and opinions of feeds from that site are not necessarily the position of this site. This was made painfully clear to us after a recent headline from that site suggested that an officer who recently committed suicide had "done the right thing". An opinion as hateful as that is something we cannot condone and will not support.

We here at InjusticeInSeattle.org are saddened by the death or injury of any individual, including a police officer, and cannot condone the suggestion that the death of an officer, under any circumstance, is a good thing by any stretch of the imagination. Therefore I decided it was best to stop the feed from that site and continue on as we were before, being entirely independent and unique in our approach to the problems of police misconduct and detainee abuse.

I sincerely hope that readers understand that our position against police misconduct and abuses of authority is not a position against police officers in general nor one that advocates retaliation of any sort against any police officer or any other individual. The problem of police brutality and misconduct can never be solved through violence or antagonistic activity.

The only real hope to solve these problems is through informing the public of the problem of misconduct, through policy changes spurred by legitimate political activity and public pressure, and by offering to support victims of misconduct by giving them access to the resources they need and be their voice. I feel these things will never be effective by communicating messages of hate and intolerance towards any group as this only fuels the antagonistic and self-defeating attitude of "us vs them" by police officers and the public.

Even though I get angry letters from police officers for discussing issues of misconduct and angry letters from people who hate police officers for being so moderate in my opinions, it is my firm belief that the best chance to reduce misconduct is through an honest effort to understand the problem and discuss it both rationally, and empathetically.

Truly, I am saddened by the loss of any individual, and even more saddened that such a loss would be used to fuel such a message of hate. It was painful for me to read it, more so than it is to read such messages of hate that are directed towards me by police officers themselves. Sincerely, it was something I didn't expect to read and it bothers me greatly to think that what we try to do here might be wrongly associated with a message like that.

Our deepest apologies to any who were offended or hurt.

Full post as published by Injustice in Seattle on June 02, 2008 (boomark / email).