Saturday, March 24, 2012

Before unarmed black teen was shot, Fla. city’s blacks complained of bias in police department - The Washington Post

Before unarmed black teen was shot, Fla. city’s blacks complained of bias in police department - The Washington Post: SANFORD, Fla. — Before the charges that police botched the investigation of the shooting of an unarmed black teen, there were complaints that they went easy on an officer’s son who beat a black homeless man, or that officers pull over black kids for wearing the wrong color hat because they suspect gang associations.

The furor over the failure to charge a neighborhood watch captain for shooting Trayvon Martin to death is the latest episode to inflame racial tensions that have simmered between police and blacks in this Orlando suburb for years. And on Thursday, the department’s chief temporarily stepped aside.