The recent unrest between law enforcement and residents of Ferguson following the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown showed the rest of the world that area police have a lot of learning to do when it comes to building trusting relationships with those they serve and protect.
And apparently, they noticed too. Sort of. The St. Louis County and Municipal Police Academy decided to be proactive and offer a continuing education course in October titled “Officer Involved Shooting — You Can Win With The Media.”
Because, obviously, the media is the issue here. Check out the flyer below, first flagged by activist Shaun King:
@WesleyLowery @goldietaylor @TalibKweli @akacharleswade @tanehisicoates @jbouie @cthagod @AnikaNoniRose see this? pic.twitter.com/xr7Z0q7i7i
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) September 20, 2014
Did we mention that the Ferguson-inspired training is “highly-entertaining?” With topics that range from “‘no comment’ is a comment,” (what?) to “feeding the animals” (excuse me?) and the obvious “Managing the Media When Things Get Ugly (Think Ferguson),” (yep, that really happened) there’s sure to be some good times.
More talk about managing the media, less about managing out of control officers. Way to put the onus on the people without guns for escalating events.
SOURCE: Twitter, Think Progress | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty, Twitter
