Letter to the editor: Veto ‘mammoth, harmful’ policing bill, Kim

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Photo courtesy Iowa Department of Human Rights

To the editor:

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds promised, in her Condition of the State address and elsewhere, to do something meaningful about the continued problem of racial profiling in our state. I am calling on her — as are others — to fulfill that promise.

Unfortunately, a racial-profiling measure is currently being packaged as a tiny part of a huge, ever-evolving policing bill.

This piece of legislation that is moving through the Iowa Legislature is more than 30 pages long, most of which has to do with giving police more power and less accountability. It heaps unnecessary penalties on protestors and gives problematic special immunity to police that makes it harder to hold police accountable.

This is exactly the wrong direction to be heading.

There is one small, positive part of the bill that addresses racial profiling by police, but it’s dramatically overshadowed by the remainder of this mammoth, harmful bill.

Overall, this bill stifles the free speech and assembly rights of Iowans, undermines progress toward racial justice in our state and does particular harm to Black Iowans.

Please, Gov. Reynolds, do right by Black people in our state, and veto any legislation that lands on your desk that penalizes protestors and gives harmful special protections to police, with a mere crumb to combat racial profiling.

Fredi L. Juri
Perry

17 COMMENTS

  1. I have no problem with peaceful protests. But when they turn to rioting and looting, they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Period. I guess you have missed the goings on in cities like Minneapolis and Portland.

    • I guess you have missed the point that the property crimes associated with these protests have been sporadic and limited in scope. I guess you have missed the point that as an ethnic group, African Americans have exercised an extraordinary amount of restraint when considering the hell they’ve been put through here for more than 500 years. I guess you have missed the point that the racial divide here is part and parcel of a class system exploited by the elite classes. I guess you haven’t noticed how the level of economic disparity usually falls along racial lines. It is apparently lost on you how this programmed poverty has fostered criminality in the nonwhite underclass and how some conservative white politicians have exploited this criminality as a way to engender fear and a gun-nutty siege mentality among their fellow white people. It is lost on you that the force used by police is far out of proportion when dealing with these protests. Yes, the African Americans have by and large been very patient with their white oppressors. Suffice it to say that the problematic protesters are not nearly so patient as African Americans as a whole. If I were a black man, I can’t say as if I’d have any patience at all. Instead of banning the use of racial profiling by police, the Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature has instead doubled down on its white supremacy by extending qualified immunity for law enforcement and stiffening penalties against protesters. This was the point of Ms. Juri’s letter, which was lost on you.

      • Property damage has been minimal? What is minimal? 10 miilion? 100 million? a billion? My God are you really that ignorant?

        • A million dollars isn’t what it used to be. Big deal. You must be a member of White Property Matters. We all have our values, I guess.

          • Any amount of money is a lot if it was your business or property that was destroyed. What is sad is that most of the looters and rioters burning and stealing couldn’t give a rat’s ass about George Floyd or anyone else that was killed by police.

  2. How do you know what their motivations are and what they care about? You are simply projecting your own callous indifference onto the protesters. It is you, Mr. Chiri, who “couldn’t give a rat’s ass” about George Floyd or police brutality or systemic racism or white supremacy, and you are projecting all your moral ugliness and deformity onto the protesters. What a joke! as if you know what they feel or think. Besides that, you’re reducing all the protesters to thieves and vandals, just so many “looters and rioters burning and stealing.” But you don’t know who they are. You don’t have any idea what motivates them, and you can’t seem to give us a breakdown on just how great the damages are. You don’t name neighborhoods, businesses or even the cities involved. Tell us what this has cost. Yes, opportunistic criminals have created a lot of havoc, but you don’t have any specifics for us. Your opinion as stated seems to be based on multiple faulty assumptions, but that’s okay. Go ahead and hunker down in your gun safe with your weapons cache and your White Property Matters signs and your cartoonish views. We can’t all be part of the solution.

    • Good God! Put your mask on and get back in your basement. You are just another whiny ass liberal sheep. lmao.

  3. “But when they turn to rioting and looting, they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Period. I guess you have missed the goings on in cities like Minneapolis and Portland.”

    I guess you missed the goings on in Washington DC on 1/6.
    Then again, maybe not.

    • I missed nothing. They destroyed nothing, and nobody inside the building was hurt. Two protestors were killed, and of course the media falsely claimed a guard was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher, which was totally false. And comparing that to doing over 500 million dollars in damages in riots in Minneapolis alone is absurd. Quit being a sheep. You keep showing how totally clueless you are as to what the left is doing to this country. Have a nice day.

      • I’m sorry, Greg, but this is Earth. We can’t tell where you are from, but it can’t be this planet.

  4. Quite right. A mob of rioters attempted to steal an election. When considering all the violence the Orange One has engendered since 2016, Greg Chiri has little room to complain.

      • So all you have left are snide comments? Me naive? You’re believing that I am naive proves beyond a doubt you are incredibly naive. I’ve been playing this game nearly 40 years, the last 20 online. I have had many worthy opponents whom I have dealt with over the years. You are not one of them. You have nothing to offer but lame sarcasm and a bad attitude. I am done here before I descend any lower to your level.

        • Declaring yourself the winner further proves you got your butt handed to you. But I see you are friends with Don Lehman, so you can’t be all bad. lol.

  5. My position is that the insurrection at our U.S. Capitol was terrifying. I watched it live. No one should describe the terror that the capital police, capital workers, elected officials and staff experienced as no big deal. The death threats, beatings of the capital police, destruction of property were real. Our country should not tolerate anyone who tries to dismantle our democracy. Hopefully, all those who dared to stop the lawful transfer of power after the November election will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. It is also unlawful to make death threats toward our elected officials.

  6. It is too bad that the original racial profiling policy was not addressed without name calling. We must agree that no one should be immune from prosecution when they purposely run a car over a protester as happened in Charlottesville.

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