University of Memphis
Project Coordinator at the Crisis Intervention Training Center at the University of Memphis; veteran officer who retired from the Memphis Police Department as a Major after serving 31 years
PROFILE
Sam Cochran
Guest
FROM Sam Cochran
To the Point
Mental Illness and Law Enforcement Last year in Fullerton, California police officers beat a homeless schizophrenic into a coma. After he died, the district attorney of conservative Orange County prosecuted two of the cops for manslaughter and second-degree murder. The trial took three weeks and evidence included a videotape featuring police batons, multiple strikes with a Taser and the voice of Kelly Thomas. After less than two days of deliberation, the jury acquitted both officers of all charges. As many as half the people killed by police in the US are mentally ill. Deadly violence occurs after cops have been called to deal with a crisis caused by disease, rather than criminality. But police training calls for the use of force, rather than empathy, and the public tends to side with officers of the law. With mental hospitals closed down and services cut back, confrontations may be inevitable. We look at potential solutions to a humanitarian problem.
Recommended
To the Point
Terrorism and tweets, hate speech and murder Just days before an election, Britain is coping with a rash of deadly terrorism, and Prime Minister Theresa May is on the defensive. And again today, President Trump has tweeted criticism of the Mayor of London. Later, a double murder in Portland, Oregon has revealed the ugly past of a supposedly “progressive” city. One immediate question: is “hate speech” protected by the First Amendment?
To the Point
What happens when America retreats from the world? Is President Trump taking his "America First" agenda to extremes, withdrawing the country from the international stage on trade and climate change, distancing America from its traditional allies across the Atlantic and even threatening to physically isolate the country through the building of a wall along its southern border? León Krauze guest hosts.