The head of the biggest group of police chiefs in the US apologised on Monday for the role law enforcement has played in the country’s historical persecution of African Americans and other minorities. Cunningham, who is the police chief of Wellesley, Massachusetts, made his remarks to fellow law enforcement executives gathered in San Diego for the annual convention of the IACP, a 123-year-old association of about 18,000 senior police officers in dozens of countries. His statement was the deepest public expression of regret by a law enforcement official of his standing since unrest over police treatment of African Americans spread across the US after an officer fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Cunningham on Monday lamented that police officers had in the past been duty-bound to enforce laws “ensuring legalised discrimination or even denying the basic rights of citizenship”. “These are preliminary actions, but their significance is unmistakable,” Lynch told the conference earlier on Monday.

Source: The Guardian October 17, 2016 20:47 UTC