The
horrific deaths of Philando Castillo in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Alton Sterling
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, give us an updated and up-close glimpse of police
encounters gone bad—but they are rooted in decades of problematic policing in
America. "Historically in this country, the police have never really been the
friends of the black community," says Neil Franklin, a former officer with the
Baltimore Police Department and current executive director of Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition (L.E.A.P).
Franklin talked with Reason TV
Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie at this year's Freedom Fest in Las Vegas, Nevada,
pointing out that slavery may have ended officially in the late 1800s, but a lot
of policing was born out of that era and the one that followed, when police
deliberately enforced laws in ways that targeted black citizens.
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