APD Used Noose As Unit’s Icon (No more, PC run amok in ABQ)

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | Friday, June 15, 2012 | Jeff Proctor

[CedarDave]

A hangman’s noose. For two decades, that’s what the elite Albuquerque Police Department unit assigned to the city’s worst criminals has used as its symbol.

It will no more. After Journal inquiries, Police Chief Ray Schultz said in an email late Thursday that he is doing away with the noose image. He ordered one of his deputy chiefs to remove it from all documents and apologized “to anyone who may have been offended” by it.

Two local civil rights attorneys said using the noose as a symbol for the ROP team goes far beyond creating an image problem for APD. Instead, it promotes violence and serves as another signal that APD is out of control, they said.

After putting the reporter on hold for several minutes, West [APD Cmdr. Doug West, who oversees the Repeat Offender Project, known as the ROP team] came back on the line and said it has been the ROP team’s “symbol” for 20 years and that APD now plans to change it. The ROP team often works undercover to do exactly what its name suggests: track and arrest repeat offenders.

The noose image is frequently used on internal documents such as wanted posters and is even painted on the wall of the unit’s office, officials said.

APD has faced repeated criticism in recent years over a litany of incidents that critics say points to a culture of brutality and disrespect toward the community within the department. Officers have shot 24 people since 2010, 17 of them fatally. ...

The U.S. Department of Justice has been considering since August whether to launch a full-scale civil rights investigation into APD, and many have called for Chief Schultz to resign.

[CedarDave]

Albuquerque is gang ridden and smothered with drugs. Shootings are initiated by those the police are trying to apprehend and the fatalities show the cops know how to shoot straight. The police have a hard time getting a handle on the problems and put their life on the line with their uniform. This will do nothing to reduce crime but will hurt officer morale.

[CedarDave]

This article is free to read.

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[arderkrag]

Pronouncing ROP as “rope” makes this story far mroe entertaining.

[FES0844]

Don’t know who’s more sensitive...muslims or blacks. They seem to get so easily offended at the small stuff. Whatever happened to.....”sticks & stones...!?!”

[ansel12]

They adopted the noose about the time of Ruby Ridge and Waco, civil servants can live without this kind of thing.

I remember back around that time cop publications and catalogs were advertising military style t-shirts, with slogans like ‘Don’t run, you’ll only die tired’ and such, I really did not like to see that trend.

[moovova]

...and apologized “to anyone who may have been offended” by it.

I'm offended that they REMOVED it.

[youngidiot]

Since when did blacks have a copyright on the noose?

[Valpal1]

A lariat symbolizing the roping in of criminals would be appropriate, not a noose. A noose is an executioner’s tool to be used AFTER a trial and conviction.

Law enforcement should not be using a symbol that implies they’ll just skip the judge and jury and become executioners. Using a noose as a symbol implies that they engage in lynching, transforming their elite unit into jackboots.

This tells me that whoever chose the image was lazy and stupid and lacked the intellectual capacity to recognize that words and symbols mean things.

[An American!]

Here is what they were using...

[CedarDave]

Gotta agree that a noose is offensive to Blacks, but the vast majority of those targeted here are non-Black gang members and criminals involved in drug-related crimes. A lariat would be more appropriate for a western city.

[oldbrowser]

After putting the reporter on hold for several minutes

OMG, the insolence of these people.

By the way, the noose to me is a symbol of justice and a warning to criminals.

[Boogieman]

I’m with you. I don’t care a bit about the “racist connotations”, I care about the equating of law enforcement officers with executioners. That is not their job, and having a logo that makes that association is not appropriate.

[Ken H]

Law enforcement should not be using a symbol that implies they’ll just skip the judge and jury and become executioners. Using a noose as a symbol implies that they engage in lynching, transforming their elite unit into jackboots.

Truth in advertising?

[marktwain]

I recall posting at least a couple of shootings involving the APD that seemed very problematical. There have been enough that I made a mental note to be extra careful in Albuquerque.