COPS Reno police reach out to troubled people
W
hen I talk about the Fatal Encounters project, which focuses on people who’ve
been killed by law enforcement in the United States since 2000, people often ask me if I’m scared of police. And except for times like this, standing outside the Reno Police Department’s main building—that white, vaguely Orwellian building on East Second Street—I’m not. Sure, I’ll never be able to be unaware where my hands are when I get pulled over again, but afraid? Don’t be ’noid. But at 7:45 a.m. on a spring morning, a couple of weeks after a mostly satisfactory but woefully inadequate story about law enforcement-involved deaths was on the stands, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t worry that I’d forgotten to pay a ticket during that whole parking meter fiasco with the city of Reno. And after months of doing research on the depressing topic of police killing Americans, it’s probably not all that surprising that the stuff gets into my head. I was there at the invitation of Reno Police Officer Travis Warren to do a ride along with a MOST squad, so my presence couldn’t have been under friendlier circumstances. But still. The MOST squad is those men and women who drive around in the white police vans with the green, blue and sky-blue racing stripes, the police badge in the “O” and the words “Mobile Outreach Safety Team” underlining the acronym.
This is the third installment in our year-long project looking at the issue of fatal encounters between law enforcement and people. WRITTEN D. BRIAN BURGHART ILLUSTRATED JONATHAN BUCK DESIGN BRIAN BRENEMAN
12 | RN&R |
JULY 10, 2014
