In March 2017, the small coastal town of Ocean City, New Jersey, painted a thin blue line down the middle of its main road to honor police. Other localities have moved decidedly in the opposite direction. And in July, the police department in Solon, Ohio, announced that it would stop flying a thin blue line flag on its property after a public outcry.
The same month, the chief judge for Maryland district courts ordered all court employees on duty to cease wearing thin blue line imagery, noting that it could impinge on the right to a fair trial. In May, the police department in Tacoma, Washington, removed thin blue line flag stickers from about 130 patrol cars, citing complaints from residents. Since last summer, numerous government bodies and officials have banned the imagery in police departments and other public institutions such as schools and courts. “They’re reacting by embracing an approach that is focused on backlash and ignoring the history, ignoring the fact that police have engaged in very violent behavior against Black people in this country, and they’ve done so in a racially discriminatory manner,” Thusi said. India Thusi, a professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, said when police departments embrace the symbol, it sends a message that they will not respond to calls to hold police accountable. Those police forces are also a lot whiter than the cities they serve.īut critics argue that the symbol’s meaning is unmistakable in today’s context: It has been adopted by hate groups and used to mock movements against police violence, especially in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Wisconsin cities with the highest numbers of Black residents tend to spend more on policing. Last year, Jacobs told the Marshall Project that the flag “has no association with racism, hatred, bigotry.” Read More Kenosha police shooting of Jacob Blake spotlights systemic racism, police spending in Wisconsin The flag itself was created by Andrew Jacobs, a white college student who went on to launch Thin Blue Line USA, an online retailer selling pro-police flags, T-shirts, and other gear. The term was appropriated by the Blue Lives Matter movement after New York City police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were killed on duty in December 2014. The concept of the “thin blue line” is decades-old, but it’s been used since at least the 1920s to refer to the solidarity between police officers and the act of closing ranks around those accused of wrongdoing. ‘An approach that is focused on backlash’ What’s more, the vehement opposition to its removal from many of Mount Prospect’s residents and elected officials demonstrates that the Blue Lives Matter sentiment in the community reaches well beyond the police. Regardless, the thin blue line flag will continue to appear on the police department’s patrol cars and inside the station - the advisory vote didn’t attempt to prohibit its use on other police property. 10 board of trustees vote asks Mount Prospect residents to oppose the removal of the ‘thin blue line’ from police patches. In a news release at the time, the Mount Prospect police department said “the thin blue lined flag honors the law enforcement officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their communities.” The statement didn’t mention the flag’s connection to the violence that had ensued in Charlottesville or the flag’s popular association with the Blue Lives Matter countermovement that arose in response to Black Lives Matter.īut in the years since, Mount Prospect has wrestled with whether the thin blue line belongs on police department uniforms - or anywhere - in this predominantly white suburb 24 miles northwest of Chicago.Ī flyer circulated on social media in advance of an Aug. That was four months after the infamous “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which white supremacists waved a pro-police “thin blue line” flag.
BLUE LINE FLAG PATCH
The shield-shaped patch overlaid an outline of Illinois and the year of the village’s incorporation, 1917, against the backdrop of an American flag rendered in black and white - save for one blue line. In December 2017, the village of Mount Prospect debuted a new symbol for its police department. 10 rally outside Mount Prospect’s village hall. Karen Thomas of the League of Women Voters speaks at an Aug.
0 kommentar(er)
