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No Special Duty

What are the police for? Producer B.A. Parker started wondering this back in June, as Black Lives Matter protests and calls to “defund the police” ramped up. The question led her to a wild story of a stabbing on a New York City subway train, and the realization that, according to the law, the police don’t always have to protect us. Producer Sarah Qari joins Parker to dig into the legal background, which takes her all the way up to the Supreme Court... and then all the way back down to on-duty officers themselves. This episode contains strong language and graphic violence. Reported and produced by B.A. Parker and Sarah Qari, and produced by Matt Kielty and Pat Walters. Special thanks to April Hayes and Katia Maguire for their documentary Home Truth about Jessica Gonzales, Cracked.com for sending us down this rabbit hole, Caroline Bettinger-López, Geoff Grimwood, Christy Lopez, Anthony Herron, Mike Wells, and Keith Taylor. Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.      
Duration
46m
Broadcast on
02 Oct 2020
Audio Format
other

What are the police for? Producer B.A. Parker started wondering this back in June, as Black Lives Matter protests and calls to “defund the police” ramped up. The question led her to a wild story of a stabbing on a New York City subway train, and the realization that, according to the law, the police don’t always have to protect us. Producer Sarah Qari joins Parker to dig into the legal background, which takes her all the way up to the Supreme Court... and then all the way back down to on-duty officers themselves.

This episode contains strong language and graphic violence.

Reported and produced by B.A. Parker and Sarah Qari, and produced by Matt Kielty and Pat Walters.

Special thanks to April Hayes and Katia Maguire for their documentary Home Truth about Jessica Gonzales, Cracked.com for sending us down this rabbit hole, Caroline Bettinger-López, Geoff Grimwood, Christy Lopez, Anthony Herron, Mike Wells, and Keith Taylor.

Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.    

 


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WNYC Studios is supported by WISE. WISE, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the world. With a WISE account, you can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies, with only a few simple taps. Be smart, get WISE. Download the WISE app today. Terms and conditions apply. Oh, wait, you're listening to RadioLab. From WNYC. Hey, I'm Jad Abumra. This is RadioLab. Quick warning. This episode contains some strong language and graphic violence. So if you are listening with kids, you might want to set this one out. But OK, with that out of the way, we'll start things off with recording. Producer B.A. Parker. Oh, boy. All right. Do you know, I mean, do you have a sense of where you want to start? Mm-hmm. Sure. OK. But I'll begin, I think, in June, you know, the George Floyd protest were happening in full flux in New York. And Parker says, since she was a journalist and forbidden from protesting, she was just stuck in her apartment. Feeling kind of helpless. And just spending a lot of her time thinking. Do you fund the police department? And I wound up having this, like, genuinely befuddling thought of just, like, wait, what exactly is the police for? Mm-hmm. You mean, like, what is their job? Yes. Like, that was just something that I was really trying to figure out for myself. No, I have to confess. Initially, I didn't see how that was even a question. I mean, there are a lot of things that need to be talked about when it comes to policing in America. But their job description didn't seem to be one of them. I mean, that felt pretty clear to me. Police are supposed to enforce the law, yes, but more than that. Police are sworn to protect and serve. They're supposed to protect us. To protect and serve. It's what they say, right? I mean, it's the thing you see written on the sides of their cars. Protect and serve.

Transcription truncated.

What are the police for? Producer B.A. Parker started wondering this back in June, as Black Lives Matter protests and calls to “defund the police” ramped up. The question led her to a wild story of a stabbing on a New York City subway train, and the realization that, according to the law, the police don’t always have to protect us. Producer Sarah Qari joins Parker to dig into the legal background, which takes her all the way up to the Supreme Court... and then all the way back down to on-duty officers themselves. This episode contains strong language and graphic violence. Reported and produced by B.A. Parker and Sarah Qari, and produced by Matt Kielty and Pat Walters. Special thanks to April Hayes and Katia Maguire for their documentary Home Truth about Jessica Gonzales, Cracked.com for sending us down this rabbit hole, Caroline Bettinger-López, Geoff Grimwood, Christy Lopez, Anthony Herron, Mike Wells, and Keith Taylor. Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.