Opal Tometi Quotes

It is especially jarring when police officers are the killers because they are an entity of the state itself, so when the state shows a lack of sensitivity, community members feel it is an obvious example of abuse..

The police are not taking accountability for the violence that they enact in our communities, and yet there isn't as much outrage about that as there is about some broken windows and lost property.

We just were saying no more police brutality. And we had enough of police harassment in the Village and other places.

A recent police study found that you're much more likely to get shot by a fat cop if you run.

We need to work for a day when police shootings are rare and not the stuff of our daily news.

There is not one single police officer in America that I am not afraid of and not one that I would trust to tell the truth or obey the laws they are sworn to uphold. I do not believe they protect me in any way.

The black community has always complained about abuse from cops. It's nothing new. But now, more people are seeing visual examples of what they've been complaining about. That's one thing that has changed over time.

To indiscriminately cast all law enforcement as enemies of our communities is to engage in an attempt to divide our nation by turning Americans against each other.

Being a cop is often seeing the worst of the human condition and behavior. With all of that said, there is no reason that Mike Brown and also Eric Garner are dead today - except bad policing, excessive force, and the hunt-and-capture-prey mentality many thrill-seeking cops have adapted.

Do I acknowledge that there are some law enforcement officers that abuse their job? Yes.

Ultimately, policing in and of itself is problematic.

I know there are some good American police. But I grew up in a country where we were afraid of the police.

I definitely support cop acting more than cops, but all of them ain't bad, just some of them.

We're not anti-police... we're anti-police brutality.

I'm not against the police; I'm just afraid of them.

It's an issue that we need to have a national discussion about, the militarization of local police forces, and then when they are used to quell peaceful demonstration. Then we have a problem, and especially around this entire case of the murder of Michael Brown at the hands of a Ferguson police officer.

Anyone who wears a badge has the government’s go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens

The police seemed to lose their head completely as they dashed into the crowds on their horses and slashed out with their clubs.

We need the cops, especially in the black community.

There's no book to figure out how not to become a victim of police brutality.

I still have admiration for the vast majority of police officers, but there is no denying that some are guilty of mistreating the people they are supposed to serve.

Freddie Gray was a story I followed closer than others, for whatever reason, in this larger narrative of police brutality.

There is no such thing as a bad cop, only disturbing and dominant cop thinking that will invariably lead to excessive force and tragic outcomes.

I know a lot of police officers who are on the force to do the right thing to protect people. But how can you deny this pattern, this disturbing pattern, Alton Sterling, Mr. Castile in my own community, Philando Castile, but then Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland?

I think the only thing that's really going to make a change in terms of how we feel as citizens in terms of safety and our relationship with the police is if we start seeing more federal indictments, arrests, and convictions of police officers.