Political Commentary Corner

We review reports on Maryland medical examiner David Fowler. We show the racist roots behind the concept of “excited delirium” he used to cover up police involved deaths, and show the role race plays in commentary downplaying findings of his wrongdoing. We also use an analysis of the legislative work on police accountability to demand the left go beyond calls to punishment of individual "bad cops" and depictions of Black suffering to garner sympathy toward building community control of public safety and legislative reforms like making police disciplinary records public. 

Much was made of why the success of Baltimore's Gun Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS) disproves Trump's claim that Baltimore needs National Guard occupation. But what if Baltimore's supposedly more human "public health" approach to policing reflects the same logic as Trump's occupation? We counter pro-National Guard propaganda with an analysis of how grassroots violence prevention lies in its unique political, spiritual, and racial self-esteem perspectives. We then explain how GVRS, despite claims to the contrary, is not primarily an attempt to empower these violence prevention entities, nor a reflection of "public health" thinking, but a pro-policing strategy that reflects flawed criminological assumptions around deterrence and actually makes grassroots violence prevention work harder. Finally, we conclude by analyzing the work and media appearances of focused deterrence scholar Anthony Braga to show how this strategy mirrors the worst excesses of racist, pro-police, pro-National Guard occupation and allies him with right wing media & Zionist ideology. 

The shooting of Bilal Addullah rocked Baltimore, yet police used body cam footage to deem the shooting “justified”. This episode takes a nuanced look at the concept of the “bad guy with an illegal gun” used to justify Abdullah’s death, arguing the inability to see gun carrying as a rational response to conditions of Black life united center and left responses to the killing. We compare Abdullah’s death with an incident in Baltimore County, showing the role race plays in police response to gun carrying and threats. We conclude with an analysis of how progressive rhetoric public health and police reform has been coopted to justify more policing, and how the need to center community control of public safety is the key to getting community support for shifting resources from policing to community needs.