Philadelphia's top cop apologizes for wearing shirt that mocked Rodney King beating

[Demovictory9]

Philadelphia’s interim police commissioner has apologized for wearing a T-shirt in the 1990s that mocked the notorious Los Angeles police beating of Rodney King, saying she’s “profoundly sorry.”



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The photo, from 1994, shows Christine M. Coulter, who is white, wearing a shirt that read: “L.A.P.D We Treat You Like a King,” a pointed slogan stemming from the 1991 videotaped beating of King by LAPD cops, whose acquittals sparked riots a year later.

An anonymous source sent the photo to the Philadelphia Inquirer in late August. Coulter, the first female commissioner of the 6,500-member department, said during a city council hearing Tuesday that wearing it was a “careless decision,” the Inquirer reports.

“I should have known,” Coulter said, referencing how the shirt may have been interpreted. “I am profoundly sorry that anything I would’ve done could’ve caused such hurt.”

Coulter said she wore the shirt at a gathering of cops at a hotel in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, sometime in 1994 and insisted she “never even thought of it as anything other than an LAPD shirt,” according to the newspaper.

But one city councilwoman was unmoved by that explanation and called on Coulter to “step down immediately” in a letter she wrote to Mayor Jim Kenney, prompting cheers from the audience in the packed hearing, WCAU reports.
https://nypost.com/2019/09/11/philadelphias-top-cop-apologizes-for-wearing-shirt-that-mocked-rodney-king-beating/

[Aristus]

1. Translation: "I got caught."

[Sherman A1]

2. Precisely

She should step down yesterday.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. "never even thought of it as anything other than an LAPD shirt"

What, exactly, did she THINK that was referring to?

[Downtown Hound]

4. I knew people who wore this shirt back in the day

But they were mocking the L.A.P.D., not supporting the beating. Not really enough info here for me to jump on the "fire her" bandwagon. That photo is 25 years old. Sometimes I think we should move on.

[Demovictory9]

7. I do remember there was lots of mocking of LAPD for its reputation for violence

[Nitram]

5. Disgusting. More evidence that cop culture in the US is rotten to the core. the problem is not

"bad apples." The problem is that most of the apples in the barrel are infected with a racist, authoritarian culture.

[Blue_true]

6. The previous person in the job stepped down because some officers under his command

did sexist actions, though he himself was not accused of any impropriety.

She willing wore that shirt. The Mayor must ask her to resign like he did the previous person. Her action is much worse that having a head in the sand about what was happening below.