"When we talk about police shootings, we need to talk about gender"

"It seems that it isn’t just cops who are killing the Michael Browns and Eric Garners of America. It is male cops. At first, this seems unsurprising, given that only 11.4 percent of all police officers in the US are female. But, on this basis, female police should be responsible for more than 1 in 10 police shootings. They’re not...The question is: what about the combination of being black AND male invokes such fear in white male police?"

http://feministing.com/2014/12/17/when-we-talk-about-police-shootings-we-need-to-talk-about-gender/

Also this: "Cops aren’t shooting many women, but male cops are raping us. The CATO institute found, in 2010, that sexual assault was the second most common form of police misconduct — though the more correct term would be male police misconduct — and that women of color are disproportionately targeted."

A friend of mine once called me to see if I knew any lawyers in DC because her friend's mother had been sexually assaulted by a DC police officer and was trying to find help navigating a justice system that was not maintaining her safety.