133,022
edits
Changes
Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement by Frederick Reynolds (view source)
Revision as of 13:32, 1 April 2022
, 13:32, 1 April 2022no edit summary
''One more body just wouldn't matter''.
The death murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.
Frederick Reynolds wrote ''Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement'' as a way of putting the other side of the story, of providing a more thoughtful response. I'll confess that I was half expecting that there might be an attempt to justify the actions taken in restraining suspects but Reynolds is clear that what happened was deeply wrong. He also believes that there's at least one Derek Chauvin in every law-enforcement agency and the stories he tells do support this. This book is his personal story and the story of his life in policing.