There is not one single police officer in America that I am not afraid of and not one that I would trust to tell the truth or obey the laws they are sworn to uphold. I do not believe they protect me in any way.
Avoid being seized by the police. The cops are not your friends. Don't tell them anything.
It goes back in the black community that the police are not your friends. That's an old, old, deep understanding that we have, that it's going to take a lot to undo that in our minds.
I grew up in an environment where it was permittable to use violence to solve a problem. But it was not permittable ever to call the police under any circumstances. That was the kind of doctrine of my household. My dad was a career-long criminal, and you weren't calling the police for any reason.
Growing up as a little kid, you're always told, 'If you see the police, tell us.' So you're like, 'Whoa, are they the bad people or not?' It makes you think.
This feeling African-Americans have, this skepticism towards the police and the skepticism that the police show towards African-Americans is actually quite old. And it may be one of the most durable aspects of the relationship between black people and their country really in our history.
The police feel that most of the public are against them and that there is a lot of bad feeling.
I've always been politically minded and against the status quo. It's pretty basic when you're brought up, like I was, to hate and fear the police as a natural enemy and to despise the army as something that takes everybody away and leaves them dead somewhere.
In my neighborhood... they view the police as someone who comes to take their loved ones away.
I have absolutely no confidence in the Ferguson police, the county prosecutor.
Stop-and-search has the potential to cause immense resentment and honesty to the police, with all the implications that has for generating distrust and ending co-operation from the public, if it is not used fairly.
I was raised to be very wary of the police. I was raised to stay away from them unless you absolutely have to. Because they're dangerous.
