A group of Boy Scouts reportedly caught police officers in a Michigan town shooting their weapons at photos of Black men during shooting practice.
The men were reportedly seen shooting at the photos while the Boy Scouts were touring a police station. One of the Boy Scouts reportedly took a photo of what appeared to be Black men wearing hoodies that the officers were firing at.
The police chief apologized to the community during a city council meeting on Monday. Several people spoke at the meeting and expressed outrage over the training practice.
One officer with the department reportedly said the various images of targets are used to confront implicit bias.
A city council member said that Black men accounted for less than 10% of the 2,300 images of people officers used for target practice.
The mayor said the images have been removed.
An investigation into the trainings and images is ongoing.
More about the controversial practice can be found here.
Opinion: Ironic. Of all the people who could see this behavior on display it was a group of Boy Scouts. Other law enforcement agencies have been accused of similar practices in the past. Some worse. How effective a photo of a person can be versus a silhouette seems debatable but it certainly doesn’t seem reasonable.
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