Court Orders Memphis to Publish Cop Candidate List

Chancery Court judge Walter Evans ruled in favor of The Commercial Appeal's lawsuit against the city of Memphis and the International Association of Chiefs of Police seeking disclosure of everyone who had applied for the city's police chief job.  Click to see story in Daily News.

Scroll down to see our story on one Memphis chief candidate, Philadelphia Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan, who was in charge of Philly streets during the just-completed Democratic National Convention, and down one more to see our analysis, "Was City's Cop Search Doomed from the Start?"

This Top Cop Candidate Is in the National Spotlight for Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia

"They disrupt traffic, but so what?  The First Amendment is more important than traffic."  

Memphis police chief candidate and Philadelphia PD Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan will be the cop most on the spot in America next week as Philly PD’s point man for the Democratic National Convention.

Of the five out-of-towners who were turned up by a national search, Sullivan will be in the national spotlight like no other as it will be his task to keep peace on the streets outside the Wells Fargo Center. 

Sullivan has somewhat of a reputation for peaceful protests, and he says that during protest rallies, he is on the front lines with his men; that he does not want them to don tactical attire, and that “a verbal insult has never hurt me once in all my years.  People can scream and curse me all they want, and I’m not going to react.”

Was Memphis' Cop Search Process Doomed from the Start?

Was the city’s search for a new chief of police a political exercise in futility that cost taxpayers $40,000 -- or more?   

When Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland this spring asked his interim appointee, Michael Rallings, to apply for the permanent post of director of police services, it signaled to some potential national candidates that the mayor's mind was made up.  Moreover, why did Strickland or the search entity not even talk with arguably some of the top police administrators in the country -- even one who was a former Memphis police officer?

Now that city council has formally asked Strickland to appoint Railings -- as has the NAACP, the police union and even protestors against police violence -- is Strickland wasting taxpayer money and the time of other law enforcement candidates to continue the charade of a "national search?"  Strickland announced that he will be interviewing five out-of-town candidates in August, and the mayor even posted their bios online.  What the mayor failed to say was how much that will cost the city in travel and related expenses.   

At this point Strickland would seem to have no choice, this side of a political death wish, but to appoint Rallings.  That's not to slight Rallings, who may be the best pick.   

Memphis native Anne Kirkpatrick recently was named to head the city of Chicago’s new Bureau of Professional Standards with the huge task of reforming police culture into a force of “guardians, not warriors,”  as reported by The Chicago Sun-Times.  Kirkpatrick was a Memphis patrol officer in the 1980s; moved to Washington state where she got a law degree, and then climbed a law enforcement ladder that included serving as a police chief and as a trainer of police brass for the FBI.  

Freedom for Whom to do What? Is Valid Question on Fourth of July

Three Comforting Myths from the Declaration of Independence

By Ibram X. Kendi  truthout/op-ed

"We, the people" seem to enjoy sleeping on our comfortable bed of myths about the United States' "founding fathers," documents and creeds. Every 4th of July, we seem to remake this bed of mythology.

It is a bed that comforts our belief in American exceptionalism. It is bed that comforts our belief that the United States is the leader of the free world. It is a bed that comforts our belief that US ideals are inherently good. It is a bed that comforts our belief that the founders of the United States were great men who did great things for us, like creating this great country.

"We, the people" seem to avoid the hard floor of truth. And too often, our historians and memories are hindered by duty, blinded by patriotism and restrained by ideology in splashing water on us, in soiling our bed of mythology, in forcing us to wake up to the complex and sometimes awful truth of the American foundation.

Click to link to full story.