Police Download ReportRev. Calvin O. Butts II wants NYPD reform
Does Rev. Butts really think anything will get done? I wish him luck, but it doesn’t seem like he has enough inertia behind him to get anything done. Bloomberg is only pretending to care, and for some reason Al Sharpton was standing there with Butts yet the article is quoting Butts instead of Sharpton. Sharpton has clout on a national level, so why wasn’t he the figurehead for this call for reform in the New York Police Department if they really think it’s going to accomplish anything?
From The New York Times:
The Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, one of New York’s most prominent and moderate black clerics, demanded yesterday that the city rein in rogue members of the Police Department whom he described as “ignorant savages who continue to prey upon our people as if we have no respect by virtue of our humanity or our citizenship.”The surprisingly sharp comments by Mr. Butts were made at a news conference outside City Hall that was called to announce a march for today to protest the killing of an unarmed man, Sean Bell, on Nov. 25 by the police.
At yesterday’s event, political and community leaders said they planned to challenge Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to adopt a list of proposed changes in policing including several that were presented after Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, was killed by police officers in 1999. For Mr. Butts, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, the pointed remarks represented a marked change.
