A perceptive work provides practical and timely suggestions for improving communication after critical incidents such as...
A police officer–turned-attorney examines the relationship between law enforcement and the media.
An officer-involved shooting almost guarantees a law enforcement agency will face intense media scrutiny, with today’s 24-hour news cycle only serving to inflame the often fractious relationship between the police and journalists. In this environment, as recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, illustrate, a police department that fails to deal effectively with the media after a shooting may end up with a public relations disaster. “The City of Ferguson Police Department was unprepared for the local, national, and international media attention,” writes LoRusso (When Cops Kill, 2012, etc.). “This was the beginning of a seemingly endless and perfect storm.” In his book, he offers a primer on how law enforcement officials can save themselves from a similar fate, arguing that mutual understanding must replace mutual distrust. “Conflicts between law enforcement and journalists often stem from a lack of understanding,” he observes. “My hope is to broaden the knowledge of both and thereby improve their relationships.” The author has something of a unique perspective, having served as a police officer in Georgia before becoming an attorney. In his practice, he has represented officers accused of misconduct related to shootings. “Although some agencies nail it and get it right every time, most are caught like a deer in the headlights when a critical incident puts them into the spotlight,” he writes. LoRusso’s prescriptions, expressed in clear, lucid prose, are pragmatic and sensible. Among other things, law enforcement agencies need to be proactive—“you cannot allow your agency’s response, or lack thereof, to become the news story”—and never miss an opportunity to educate the public about the work they do and the challenges they face. “Most journalists have no idea why a law enforcement officer would exchange their softball cap or campaign hat for a Kevlar helmet. Show them,” recommends LoRusso, who is also an enthusiastic advocate of police departments having a strong social media presence. The book may have somewhat limited appeal outside the law enforcement and media universes. But with attacks on police officers increasing sharply this year, the author provides a valuable contribution to fostering positive relationships with the media and the public after confrontations.
A perceptive work provides practical and timely suggestions for improving communication after critical incidents such as officer-involved shootings.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 289
Publisher: BookLogix
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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