Letter from Edmonton
Editor’s Note: The United States is not the only country whose law enforcement officers are called to handle noncriminal situations for which they are poorly trained or ill-equipped. Not the only country where outraged citizens call for the defunding (or re-funding) of police because white cops are killing people of color at least partly because they are people of color.
Temitope Oriola, the author of the article at the link below, is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Alberta, about a seventeen-day hike mostly north, nonstop, from where I live (Boulder, Colorado, where people really like to hike). He recently edited, with Cyril Obi, a book called “The Unfinished Revolution,” about oil exploitation and environmental pollution in the Niger Delta and the hanging in 1995 of nine Ogoni ethnic minority protesters. I only hope Donald Trump never hears about this method of dealing with peaceful protesters.
In this article originally published by The Conversation, an online independent global news forum, Professor Oriola posits that before any defunding of police can happen, the institution must first be demystified.