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Policing the USA

Our fresh takes on policing this week

News and opinion from outlets across the country culled by Policing the USA

USA TODAY
Author and feminist activist Gloria Steinem

We've put a new twist on our newsletter. We know you're busy, and we want to provide you with a news and opinion filled way to start your week — our fresh takes. We'll publish them every Monday morning. 

BLM rules keep working for feminist Steinem 

Feminist Gloria Steinem hasn't hidden her respect for and support of the co-founders of Black Lives Matter — Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors. In an interview last year with The Grio she credited the women for creating "a more inclusive movement." (More on that in a previous Policing the USA newsletter). She also stated the women "don't get enough credit" for tackling issues of sexism and racism that are at the root of discrimination in this country. 

Well Steinem put the work of these women on display again, this time in relation to an off-Broadway play about her work called "Gloria: A Life." A special showing of the play last week was followed by a discussion about feminism. And the rules of engagement that Steinem wanted the audience to use for the tough talk were created by Garza, Tometi and Cullors. According to a piece in Quartz about the event, those rules are: lead with love, have a low ego, focus on things that have high impact and move at the speed of trust. 

Perhaps those rules should also be used to tamp down divisive sparring among politicians in Washington when it comes to discussing, among other things, protesters and ending police brutality. 

It's now come down to yogurting while black? 

The 911 caller implied that the black man sitting at a table in his frozen-yogurt shop in Washington could have been a homeless drug addict prepared to shoot up in the restroom. "All my staff are women," the man said to the operator. "They're kinda just scared. There was multiple incidents in our store before. ... And also, we got robbed before." 

Although, there was nothing about Byron Ragland, an Air Force veteran, that implied that he was homeless or a drug addict or a robber, the women who worked there called the shop owner, who called 911. In fact, Ragland was at the yogurt shop doing his job — supervising a visit between a mother who had lost a custody hearing and her 12-year-old son. They all took an innocent car ride to their local shop to get a treat, because the boy requested ice cream during his visit.  

Police showed up in response to the 911 call, asked Ragland for identification and then (knowing that he was required to be there) asked him to leave. The 12-year-old boy and his mother also left. 

The most suspicious thing Ragland was accused of during the 911 call: looking at his phone and then looking up, repeatedly.

For more on the incident, check out this Seattle Times report. 

No safe place for female prison workers

The behavior described in a recent New York Times report is shocking: A female secretary at a California federal prison was locked in a ward so inmates could masturbate; another woman was discouraged by a male colleague from reporting an inmate who threatened to rape her; and the tables were turned on a Tucson case worker who reported being raped by a male inmate, but could now be locked up herself. The inmate said she raped him.  

And while women have been trying hard to protect themselves (they void tight clothing and makeup) and report incidents, the male managers who have been encouraging harassment in Bureau of Prisons facilities across the country and discouraging women from seeking discipline, have been getting promoted. 

Women are about 33% of the workforce in the BOP's 122 prison facilities. The incidents of harassment were so bad at one Florida facility, that the bureau paid $20 million to Coleman prison's female workers. The women there endured, among other things, male inmates exposing themselves. Calls for backup during incidents went unanswered.  

Check out the Policing the USA site for more information on police, policing and the justice system nationwide. 

Want to talk about police, race and the justice system in America? Reach out to Policing the USA editor Eileen Rivers on Twitter @msdc14 or via email at erivers@usatoday.com

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