“
I didn’t kiss him back even as my body went wild internally, blood being police escorted to certain extremities, endorphins diving out of my pituitary gland like they were in a Busby Berkeley musical, my heart going all heavy metal.
”
”
Eli Easton (Superhero)
“
Ove could remember and told him, with fire in her eyes, about her boys and girls. The ones who arrived in the classroom with police escorts yet when they left could recite four-hundred-year-old poetry.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Otto)
“
The TV screen switched back to a picture of the crime scene, just in time to capture footage of my bod being police escorted out of the building, my shirt unbuttoned sufficiently for the entire State of Israel to know that I wear pick lace, push-up bras.
”
”
Kate McVaugh (Jaz, Tall Men, & Mayhem (A Jazmine Davidson Adventure #2))
“
Every race proves a new opportunity to educate myself about what it means to be a runner and what it means to run.
”
”
Jill Grunenwald (Running with a Police Escort: Tales from the Back of the Pack)
“
Step my step, mile by mile. These were my medals and I had worked hard for each and every one of them and no matter what happened, no matter who horrible I felt on race day, those medals represent the blood, sweat, and tears that went into making me the runner I am today.
”
”
Jill Grunenwald (Running with a Police Escort: Tales from the Back of the Pack)
“
As much as they were concerned about the police, the Panthers also took seriously the threat of crime and sought to address the fears of the community they served. With this in mind, they organized Seniors Against a Fearful Environment (SAFE), an escort and bussing service in which young Black people accompanied the elderly on their business around the city. In Los Angeles, when the Party opened an office on Central Avenue, they immediately set about running the drug dealers out of the area. And in Philadelphia, neighbors reported a decrease in violent crime after the Party opened their office, and an increase after the office closed. There, the BPP paid particular attention to gang violence, organizing truces and recruiting gang members to help with the survival programs. It may be that the Panthers reduced crime by virtue of their very existence. Crime, and gang violence especially, dropped during the period of their activity, in part (in the estimate of sociologist Lewis Yablonsky) because the BPP and similar groups “channeled young black and Chicano youth who might have participated in gangbanging violence into relatively positive efforts for social change through political activities.
”
”
Kristian Williams (Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America)
“
Catastrophic event? The plane was silent as people tried to grasp what this could possibly mean. Earthquake? Bomb? One man actually thought a meteor could have hit somewhere in America. And then, moments later, the stewardess made another announcement. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “I will now tell you what has occurred….” And for reasons I will never understand, she told our planeload of terrified people exactly what was happening: that planes had been hijacked by terrorists and flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There could be other planes involved, she said. The disaster was still unfolding. An hour and a half later, we landed in London. Police escorted us into the chaotic airport. Somehow, I tracked down my husband. It wasn’t until late that night that we were able to get a
”
”
Lauren Tarshis (The Attacks of September 11th, 2001 (I Survived, #6))
“
memory!” Never, ever forgive the parents that. Remembered our last send-off one drizzly autumn afternoon at Audley End, Adrian was in uniform, Pater clasping him. Days of bunting and cheering were long over—later heard Military Police were escorting conscripts to Dunkirk to deter mass desertions. All those Adrians jammed like pilchards in cemeteries throughout eastern France, western Belgium, beyond. We
”
”
David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)
“
On April 5, 1967, six weeks after the Black Panther Party’s well-publicized confrontation with police while escorting Betty Shabazz, Assemblyman Mulford introduced a bill, AB 1591, in the California legislature proposing to outlaw the carrying of loaded firearms in public.29 In response to the “increasing incidence of organized groups and individuals publicly arming themselves,” Mulford argued, “it is imperative that this statute take effect immediately.
”
”
Joshua Bloom (Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (The George Gund Foundation Imprint in African American Studies))
“
literally rocketing into the sky at a seemingly impossible steep pitch as it activated for the first and only time in its history a classified system the presidential plane possessed to speed emergency launches. “There are only two 747s in the world that can take off like that—and they’re both called Air Force One,” a flight steward said, leaning over to one of the passengers. On the ground, the local Sarasota police who had been on escort duty watched in awe. “I’ve never seen a plane take off like that,” Officer Kevin Dowd recalled. “From where we were looking at it, it looked like it was going almost straight up.
”
”
Garrett M. Graff (Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die)
“
Jay's downstairs waiting."
With her father on one side, and the handrail on the other, Violet descended the stairs as if she were floating. Jay stood at the bottom, watching her, frozen in place like a statue.
His black suit looked as if it had been tailored just for him. His jacket fell across his strong shoulders in a perfect line, tapering at his narrow waist. The crisp white linen shirt beneath stood out in contrast against the dark, finely woven wool. He smiled appreciatively as he watched her approach, and Violet felt her breath catch in her throat at the striking image of flawlessness that he presented.
"You...are so beautiful," he whispered fervently as he strode toward her, taking her dad's place at her arm.
She smiled sheepishly up at him. "So are you."
Her mom insisted on taking no fewer than a hundred pictures of the two of them, both alone and together, until Violet felt like her eyes had been permanently damaged by the blinding flash. Finally her father called off her mom, dragging her away into the kitchen so that Violet and Jay could have a moment alone together.
"I meant it," he said. "You look amazing."
She shook her head, not sure what to say, a little embarrassed by the compliment.
"I got you something," he said to her as he reached inside his jacket. "I hope you don't mind, it's not a corsage."
Violet couldn't have cared less about having flowers to pin on her dress, but she was curious about what he had brought for her. She watched as he dragged out the moment longer than he needed to, taking his time to reveal his surprise.
"I got you this instead." He pulled out a black velvet box, the kind that holds fine jewelry. It was long and narrow.
She gasped as she watched him lift the lid.
Inside was a delicate silver chain, and on it was the polished outline of a floating silver heart that drifted over the chain that held it.
Violet reached out to touch it with her fingertip. "It's beautiful," she sighed.
He lifted the necklace from the box and held it out to her. "May I?" he asked.
She nodded, her eyes bright with excitement as he clasped the silver chain around her bare throat. "Thank you," she breathed, interlacing her hand into his and squeezing it meaningfully.
She reluctantly used the crutches to get out to the car, since there were no handrails for her to hold on to. She left like they ruined the overall effect she was going for.
Jay's car was as nice on the inside as it was outside. The interior was rich, smoky gray leather that felt like soft butter as he helped her inside. Aside from a few minor flaws, it could have passed for brand-new. The engine purred to life when he turned the key in the ignition, something that her car had never done. Roar, maybe-purr, never.
She was relieved that her uncle hadn't ordered a police escort for the two of them to the dance. She had half expected to see a procession of marked police cars, lights swirling and sirens blaring, in the wake of Jay's sleek black Acura.
Despite sitting behind the wheel of his shiny new car, Jay could scarcely take his eyes off her. His admiring gaze found her over and over again, while he barely concentrated on the road ahead of him. Fortunately they didn't have far to go.
”
”
Kimberly Derting (The Body Finder (The Body Finder, #1))
“
In the shock of the moment, I gave some thought to renting a convertible and driving the twenty-seven hundred miles back alone. But then I realized I was neither single nor crazy. The acting director decided that, given the FBI’s continuing responsibility for my safety, the best course was to take me back on the plane I came on, with a security detail and a flight crew who had to return to Washington anyway. We got in the vehicle to head for the airport. News helicopters tracked our journey from the L.A. FBI office to the airport. As we rolled slowly in L.A. traffic, I looked to my right. In the car next to us, a man was driving while watching an aerial news feed of us on his mobile device. He turned, smiled at me through his open window, and gave me a thumbs-up. I’m not sure how he was holding the wheel. As we always did, we pulled onto the airport tarmac with a police escort and stopped at the stairs of the FBI plane. My usual practice was to go thank the officers who had escorted us, but I was so numb and distracted that I almost forgot to do it. My special assistant, Josh Campbell, as he often did, saw what I couldn’t. He nudged me and told me to go thank the cops. I did, shaking each hand, and then bounded up the airplane stairs. I couldn’t look at the pilots or my security team for fear that I might get emotional. They were quiet. The helicopters then broadcast our plane’s taxi and takeoff. Those images were all over the news. President Trump, who apparently watches quite a bit of TV at the White House, saw those images of me thanking the cops and flying away. They infuriated him. Early the next morning, he called McCabe and told him he wanted an investigation into how I had been allowed to use the FBI plane to return from California. McCabe replied that he could look into how I had been allowed to fly back to Washington, but that he didn’t need to. He had authorized it, McCabe told the president. The plane had to come back, the security detail had to come back, and the FBI was obligated to return me safely. The president exploded. He ordered that I was not to be allowed back on FBI property again, ever. My former staff boxed up my belongings as if I had died and delivered them to my home. The order kept me from seeing and offering some measure of closure to the people of the FBI, with whom I had become very close. Trump had done a lot of yelling during the campaign about McCabe and his former candidate wife. He had been fixated on it ever since. Still in a fury at McCabe, Trump then asked him, “Your wife lost her election in Virginia, didn’t she?” “Yes, she did,” Andy replied. The president of the United States then said to the acting director of the FBI, “Ask her how it feels to be a loser” and hung up the phone.
”
”
James Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
“
She drifted down the walk carelessly for a moment, stunned by the night. The moon had come out, and though not dramatically full or a perfect crescent, its three quarters were bright enough to turn the fog and dew and all that had the power to shimmer a bright silver, and everything else- the metal of the streetlamps, the gates, the cracks in the cobbles- a velvety black.
After a moment Wendy recovered from the strange beauty and remembered why she was there. She padded into the street before she could rethink anything and pulled up her hood. "Why didn't I do this earlier?" she marveled. Sneaking out when she wasn't supposed to was its own kind of adventure, its own kind of magic. London was beautiful. It felt like she had the whole city to herself except for a stray cat or two.
Despite never venturing beyond the neighborhood much by herself, she had plenty of time with maps, studying them for someday adventures. And as all roads lead to Rome, so too do all the major thoroughfares wind up at the Thames. Names like Vauxhall and Victoria (and Horseferry) sprang from her brain as clearly as if there had been signs in the sky pointing the way.
Besides Lost Boys and pirates, Wendy had occasionally terrified her brothers with stories about Springheel Jack and the half-animal orphan children with catlike eyes who roamed the streets at night. As the minutes wore on she felt her initial bravery dissipate and terror slowly creep down her neck- along with the fog, which was also somehow finding its way under her coat, chilling her to her core.
"If I'm not careful I'm liable to catch a terrible head cold! Perhaps that's really why people don't adventure out in London at night," she told herself sternly, chasing away thoughts of crazed, dagger-wielding murderers with a vision of ugly red runny noses and cod-liver oil.
But was it safer to walk down the middle of the street, far from shadowed corners where villains might lurk? Being exposed out in the open meant she would be more easily seen by police or other do-gooders who would try to escort her home.
"My mother is sick and requires this one particular tonic that can only be obtained from the chemist across town," she practiced. "A nasty decoction of elderberries and slippery elm, but it does such wonders for your throat. No one else has it. And do you know how hard it is to call for a cab this time of night? In this part of town? That's the crime, really."
In less time than she imagined it would take, Wendy arrived at a promenade that overlooked the mighty Thames. She had never seen it from that particular angle before or at that time of night. On either bank, windows of all the more important buildings glowed with candles or gas lamps or even electric lights behind their icy panes, little tiny yellow auras that lifted her heart.
"I do wish I had done this before," she breathed.
Maybe if she had, then things wouldn't have come to this...
”
”
Liz Braswell (Straight On Till Morning)
“
Eleven people have been killed as a result of violence targeted at abortion providers: four doctors, two clinic employees, a security guard, a police officer, a clinic escort, and two others. Anti-abortion extremists are considered a domestic terrorist threat by the U.S. Department of Justice. Yet violence is not the only threat to abortion clinics. In the past five years, politicians have passed more than 280 laws restricting access to abortion. In 2016, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that would have required every abortion clinic to have a surgical suite, and doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital in case of complications. For many clinics, these requirements were cost prohibitive and would have forced them to close. Also, since many abortion doctors fly in to do their work, they aren’t able to get admitting privileges at local hospitals. It is worth noting that less than 0.3 percent of women who have an abortion require hospitalization due to complications. In fact colonoscopies, liposuction, vasectomies…and childbirth—all of which are performed outside of surgical suites—have higher risks of death. In Indiana in 2016, Mike Pence signed a law to ban abortion based on fetal disability and required providers to give information about perinatal hospice—keeping the fetus in utero until it dies of natural causes. This same law required aborted fetuses to be cremated or given a formal burial even if the mother did not wish this to happen.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (A Spark of Light)
“
I turned and entered the airport with my escort. Suddenly, I had a horrible realization: in order to return to the flight line I needed to move through a modern international airport complete with metal detectors and X-ray machines and I had a loaded pistol in my fanny pack. And, because of the ongoing civil war, security was beefed up and the guards were extra wary. Before we reached the first checkpoint, I pretended that I needed to use the restroom and told my escort to go on ahead. I needed to think. One option was to drop my pistol in a trash can and exit the airport, later claiming I lost the gun somehow. The lost-gun option had serious flaws. I couldn’t ditch my pistol because I had signed it out by serial number. Police could easily trace the gun back to me. My personal interpretation of the, “no weapons” order would probably not be an effective defense at my court marshal. My other option was to try and sneak through the airport onto the flight line, somehow avoiding a gauntlet of security checkpoints. This was the ninja option. This daunting course of action was fraught with serious danger. If guards confronted me and caught me with a loaded pistol I knew I would not have a pleasant day. There was no telling where that situation would lead; there was a real possibility I could spend time in a Yemeni prison. Despite the risks I decided on the ninja option. I figured I might have one slim advantage. Maybe the guards would remember me coming through the airport from the flight-line side with the embassy official and not pay me much attention. I was sweating bullets as I approached the first checkpoint. I tried to act casual and confident, not furtive and suspicious like a criminal. I waited until the guard looked away, his attention elsewhere and boldly walked behind him past the checkpoint. When I approached the X-ray and metal detectors I strode right past the line of people, bypassing the machines. I had to play it that way. I could not hang out near the detectors waiting for guards to look the other way and then sneak past; there were just too many. As I brazenly strode around each checkpoint I feared to hear a sudden barked command, rushing feet behind me, and hands spinning me around to face angry guards with drawn weapons. The last part of my mission to get on the airfield was tricky and nerveracking. Imagine being at an American airport in the gate area where people board the airplanes. Then imagine trying to sneak out a Jetway or access door without being stopped. I remembered the door I had used to enter the terminal and luckily it was unlocked. I picked my moment and quickly slipped out the door onto the airfield. I boldly strode across the airfield, never looking behind me until I reached my plane. Finally, I turned and looked back the way I came and saw … nothing. No one was pursuing me. I was in the midst of an ongoing civil war, surrounded by fresh bomb craters and soldiers carrying soviet rifles, but as scary situations go, so far Tiger Rescue was a relaxing walk in the park compared to Operation Ninja Escape.
”
”
William F. Sine (Guardian Angel: Life and Death Adventures with Pararescue, the World's Most Powerful Commando Rescue Force)
“
We were escorted out by Police Constable Grant, a handsome black guy with a smooth voice and a very easy way about him. He held the door for Millicent, then shook my hand gently. His eyes widened slightly at the touch, as if he’d just sensed something about me, and he looked serious when he spoke. “If there’s anything you need help with, even the things you didn’t tell us – come find me.” It was my turn to be surprised, but I covered it with a nod. “Thank you.” I could feel his eyes on my back as we left the station, and I knew PC Grant understood that there may be things he didn’t know, but not knowing a thing didn’t make it any less real.
”
”
April White (Waging War (The Immortal Descendants, #4))
“
With the first rays of dawn coming from a huge orange sun, rising out of the Indian Ocean from the East, the Dominion Monarch passed the Durban bluffs and entered the protected harbor. A police boat escorted the ship in and stood by as it was secured. Everybody crowded close to the railings and looked down onto the concrete dock. From the ship you could see that there were police cars blocking the entry to the wharf area and it became quite apparent that something was amiss. The reason was soon made clear when the loudspeakers announced that before clearing the ship, everyone on board would be required to get a smallpox vaccination or present their international immunization card, to verify that they were in compliance. There had been an outbreak of smallpox and yellow fever throughout Africa especially in the Cape Province and in tribal areas. During the previous year, nearby Northern Rhodesia had reported several thousand cases of these diseases. It took hours, however everyone was happy when the health officials finally came aboard to do the vaccinating. The police boat lay in wait, until every last one of the passengers was immunized. Finally the announcement came that the ship was cleared so that we could go ashore. Not until then did the band strike up and play “God Save the King.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
With the first rays of dawn coming from a huge orange sun, rising out of the Indian Ocean from the East, the Dominion Monarch passed the Durban bluffs and entered the protected harbor. A police boat escorted the ship in and stood by as it was secured. Everybody crowded close to the railings and looked down onto the concrete dock. From the ship you could see that there were police cars blocking the entry to the wharf area and it became quite apparent that something was amiss. The reason was soon made clear when the loudspeakers announced that before clearing the ship, everyone on board would be required to get a smallpox vaccination or present their international immunization card, to verify that they were in compliance. There had been an outbreak of smallpox and yellow fever throughout Africa especially in the Cape Province and in tribal areas. During the previous year, nearby Northern Rhodesia had reported several thousand cases of these diseases. The police boat lay in wait, until every last one of the passengers was immunized. It took hours, however everyone was happy when the health officials finally came aboard to do the vaccinating. Finally the announcement came that the ship was cleared so that we could go ashore. Not until then did the band strike up and play “God Save the King.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
Zoey was about to protest she wasn’t an escort when the door to the waiting room opened and there stood the man in black pleather. “You?” “You,” he said back with a slow grin. “What? Why?” she asked as if she couldn’t gather any more words. The man cupped her elbow and led her from the police station.
”
”
Kathleen Brooks (Moonshine & Murder (Moonshine Hollow #1))
“
Before the 1940’s, if one woman in an audience stood up and shrieked at the top of her lungs throughout an entire show she’d have been carted off to an asylum. By the mid-forties, however, entire audiences behaved like that, screaming, tearing at their clothes and hair, leaving their seats to board the stage. On December 30th, 1942, while Frank Sinatra sang at the Paramount Theater in New York, the behavior of the audience changed, and a part of our relationship to well-known people changed forever. Psychiatrists and psychologists of the day struggled to explain the phenomenon. They recalled medieval dance crazes, spoke of “mass frustrated love” and “mass hypnosis.” The media age did bring a type of mass hypnosis into American life. It affects all of us to some degree, and some of us to a great degree. Before the advent of mass-media, a young girl might have admired a performer from afar, and it would have been acceptable to have a passing crush. It would not have been acceptable if she pursued the performer to his home, or if she had to be restrained by police. It would not have been acceptable to skip school in order to wait for hours outside a hotel and then try to tear pieces of clothing from the passing star. Yet that unhealthy behavior became “normal” in the Sinatra days. In fact, audience behavior that surprised everyone in 1942 was expected two years later when Sinatra appeared again at the Paramount Theater. This time, the 30,000 screaming, bobby-soxed fans were joined by a troop of reporters. The media were learning to manipulate this new behavior to their advantage. Having predicted a commotion, 450 police officers were assigned to that one theater, and it appeared that society had learned to deal with this phenomenon. It had not. During the engagement, an 18-year old named Alexander Ivanovich Dorogokupetz stood up in the theater and threw an egg that hit Sinatra in the face. The show stopped, and for a moment, a brief moment, Sinatra was not the star. Now it was Dorogokupetz mobbed by audience members and Dorogokupetz who had to be escorted out by police. Society had not learned to deal with this, and still hasn’t. Dorogokupetz told police: “I vowed to put an end to this monotony of two years of consecutive swooning. It felt good.” Saddled with the least American of names, he had tried to make one for himself in the most American way, and but for his choice of a weapon, he would probably be as famous today as Frank Sinatra. Elements in society were pioneering the skills of manipulating emotion and behavior in ways that had never been possible before: electronic ways. The media were institutionalizing idolatry. Around
”
”
Gavin de Becker (The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence)
“
Before the 1940’s, if one woman in an audience stood up and shrieked at the top of her lungs throughout an entire show she’d have been carted off to an asylum. By the mid-forties, however, entire audiences behaved like that, screaming, tearing at their clothes and hair, leaving their seats to board the stage. On December 30th, 1942, while Frank Sinatra sang at the Paramount Theater in New York, the behavior of the audience changed, and a part of our relationship to well-known people changed forever. Psychiatrists and psychologists of the day struggled to explain the phenomenon. They recalled medieval dance crazes, spoke of “mass frustrated love” and “mass hypnosis.” The media age did bring a type of mass hypnosis into American life. It affects all of us to some degree, and some of us to a great degree. Before the advent of mass-media, a young girl might have admired a performer from afar, and it would have been acceptable to have a passing crush. It would not have been acceptable if she pursued the performer to his home, or if she had to be restrained by police. It would not have been acceptable to skip school in order to wait for hours outside a hotel and then try to tear pieces of clothing from the passing star. Yet that unhealthy behavior became “normal” in the Sinatra days. In fact, audience behavior that surprised everyone in 1942 was expected two years later when Sinatra appeared again at the Paramount Theater. This time, the 30,000 screaming, bobby-soxed fans were joined by a troop of reporters. The media were learning to manipulate this new behavior to their advantage. Having predicted a commotion, 450 police officers were assigned to that one theater, and it appeared that society had learned to deal with this phenomenon. It had not. During the engagement, an 18-year old named Alexander Ivanovich Dorogokupetz stood up in the theater and threw an egg that hit Sinatra in the face. The show stopped, and for a moment, a brief moment, Sinatra was not the star. Now it was Dorogokupetz mobbed by audience members and Dorogokupetz who had to be escorted out by police. Society had not learned to deal with this, and still hasn’t. Dorogokupetz told police: “I vowed to put an end to this monotony of two years of consecutive swooning. It felt good.” Saddled with the least American of names, he had tried to make one for himself in the most American way, and but for his choice of a weapon, he would probably be as famous today as Frank Sinatra. Elements in society were pioneering the skills of manipulating emotion and behavior in ways that had never been possible before: electronic ways. The media were institutionalizing idolatry.
”
”
Gavin de Becker (The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence)
“
Right when the words left my mouth, I watched as two police officers escorted my mother out of the building. A sense of relief washed over me until I noticed that her hands were cuffed behind her back.
”
”
Chenell Parker (You're My Little Secret 3)
“
True censorship removes choice. It menaces and issues commands that few can ignore. Write a freethinking novel, and religious terrorists will come to assassinate you. Tell the world about your employers’ incompetence, and they will deprive you of your livelihood. Criticise a pharmaceutical corporation or an association of ‘alternative health’ quacks and they will seek to bankrupt you in the English courts. Speak out in a dictatorship, and the secret police will escort you to jail.
”
”
Nick Cohen (You Can't Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom)
“
Using the satellite phone connection, I finally reached Croc One. The captain, Kris, was in tears. I finally tracked down John Stainton, and he assured me that he hadn’t left Steve’s side.
“I’ve got a charter plane coming,” John said. “I’ll get him home, Terri.”
I asked about Steve’s personal effects. Steve had had on his khakis and wet-suit boots while he was diving, but because he had no jewelry or anything of value, the medical examiner had destroyed all his clothing.
I was devastated. It’s completely unpredictable what one will hold dear in a time of grief, particularly in the case of an accident. I remember thinking, I’ve got to sit down with the powers that be and change these regulations. The family should decide what should be destroyed and what should be kept. I needed to focus on something other than losing Steve. That fact was just too hard to get my head around.
As John arranged to bring Steve home, the media pressure steadily increased. I told Wes I wanted to go meet the plane, but that I wouldn’t take the kids. This was my time to be with my soul mate, and I needed to do it on my own. I headed out with a police escort. The Queensland police were considerate and professional, and an officer named Annie was personally assigned to make sure the overwhelming media attention did not interfere with my private moment to say good-bye to Steve.
Wes accompanied me. It was night. As the seaplane came in, I recognized it as the same one that had taken Steve on many South Pacific adventures, in search of sea snakes, crested iguanas, or sharks. The ranks of police stood at attention. Many of them had met Steve previously. Once again, I was overwhelmed to see the looks of grief on their faces.
The plane landed, and I had a moment to sit with Steve on my own. It was a bit of an effort to clamber up into the back of the plane. A simple wooden casket rested inside, still secured. I knew that who Steve was, his spirit and his soul, were no longer there, but it was strange how I couldn’t cry.
I sat down and leaned my head against the wooden box that held his body and felt such strange peace.
In some way, we were together again.
”
”
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
“
As John arranged to bring Steve home, the media pressure steadily increased. I told Wes I wanted to go meet the plane, but that I wouldn’t take the kids. This was my time to be with my soul mate, and I needed to do it on my own. I headed out with a police escort. The Queensland police were considerate and professional, and an officer named Annie was personally assigned to make sure the overwhelming media attention did not interfere with my private moment to say good-bye to Steve.
Wes accompanied me. It was night. As the seaplane came in, I recognized it as the same one that had taken Steve on many South Pacific adventures, in search of sea snakes, crested iguanas, or sharks. The ranks of police stood at attention. Many of them had met Steve previously. Once again, I was overwhelmed to see the looks of grief on their faces.
The plane landed, and I had a moment to sit with Steve on my own. It was a bit of an effort to clamber up into the back of the plane. A simple wooden casket rested inside, still secured. I knew that who Steve was, his spirit and his soul, were no longer there, but it was strange how I couldn’t cry.
I sat down and leaned my head against the wooden box that held his body and felt such strange peace.
In some way, we were together again.
”
”
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
“
When I was dating this small, white girl, we got into one argument and I called her dumb, by her actions I knew that black lives didn’t matter. A few hours later, I was being escorted by the police to the office and was accused of assaulting the girl. It was amazing how they took her word over everything that I had said. I said one thing and they called me a liar and threaten to press charges, but luckily the administrator was there that actually believed me and told them to review the tape. They reviewed the tape and they saw that I didn’t lay not one hand on that girl and she was just upset and was trying to get me in trouble.
”
”
Zachary Turnage (Black Male Lives Matter: From a black males perspective)
“
Here I was, being escorted by police in front of the whole school and potentially going to jail if the cameras were not working. Then when she gets busted for lying, she gets a go ahead and goes back to class and I get the speech about women and how to avoid them?
”
”
Zachary Turnage (Black Male Lives Matter: From a black males perspective)
“
He circled the mahogany coffee table to where Lily sat.
He stopped and waited.
Slowly, her blond head tilted upward until her eyes met his. Enormous and wide, they looked like a winter sea, tossed with mystery. For the thousandth time, Sean wished he could ignore his feelings for this beautiful, intelligent, and damnably frustrating woman. That he could forget a lifetime of desire. Tamping down on the need to kiss Lily senseless, he pressed the whiskey into her hand instead.
Frustration came out as a low growl of warning. “Here. Try drinking it a little slower than you drive, or I’ll get a police escort to follow you to the condo.”
Icy sparks flew from her incredible eyes. Sean welcomed them. It helped that he could rile her, gave him the fleeting illusion that he had some defense against this cursed attraction. As an added touch, he laughed, taunting softly, “Careful there, Dr. Banyon, your temper’s showing.
”
”
Laura Moore (Night Swimming: A Novel)
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One cannot examine the actions of the Secret Service on November 22, 1963, without concluding that the Service stood down on protecting President Kennedy. Indeed, the 120-degree turn into Dealey Plaza violates Secret Service procedures, because it required the presidential limousine to come to a virtual stop. The reduction of the president’s motorcycle escort from six police motorcycles to two and the order for those two officers to ride behind the presidential limousine also violates standard Secret Service procedure. The failure to empty and secure the tall buildings on either side of the motorcade route through Dealey Plaza likewise violates formal procedure, as does the lack of any agents dispersed through the crowd gathered in Dealey Plaza. Readers who are interested in a comprehensive analysis of the Secret Service’s multiple failures and the conspicuous violation of longstanding Secret Service policies regarding the movement and protection of the president on November 22, 1963, should read Vince Palamara’s Survivor’s Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect. The difference in JFK Secret Service protection and its adherence to the services standard required procedures in Chicago and Miami would be starkly different from the arrangements for Dallas. Palamara established that Agent Emory Roberts worked overtime to help both orchestrate the assassination and cover up the unusual actions of the Secret Service in the aftermath. Roberts was commander of the follow-up car trailing the presidential limousine. Roberts covered up the escapades of his fellow secret servicemen at The Cellar, a club in downtown Ft. Worth, where agents, some directly responsible for the safety of President Kennedy during the motorcade, drank until dawn on November 22. He also ordered a perplexed agent Donald Lawton off the back of the presidential limousine while at Love Field, thus giving the assassins clearer, more direct shots and more time to get them off. Also, although Roberts recognized rifle fire being discharged in Dealey Plaza, he neglected to mobilize any of the agents under his watch to act. To mask the inactivity of his agents, Roberts, in sworn testimony, falsely increased the speed of the cars (from 9–11 mph to 20–25 mph) and the distance between them (from five feet to 20–25 feet).85 No analysis of the Secret Service’s actions on the day of the assassination can be complete without mentioning that Secret Service director James Rowley was a former FBI agent and close ally of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, as well as a crony of Lyndon Johnson. Hoover was one of Johnson’s closest associates. The FBI Director would take the unusual step of flying to Dallas for a victory celebration in 1948 when Johnson illegally stole his Senate seat through election fraud. Johnson and Hoover were neighbors in the Foxhall Road area of the District of Columbia. Hoover’s budget would virtually triple during the years LBJ dominated the appropriations process as Senate Majority Leader. Rowley was a protégé of the director and one of the few men who left the FBI on good terms with Hoover. Rowley’s first public service job in the Roosevelt administration was arranged for him by LBJ. The neglect of assigning even one Secret Service agent to secure Dealey Plaza, as well as cleaning blood and other relatable pieces of evidence from the presidential limousine immediately following the assassination, seizing Kennedy’s body from Parkland Hospital to prevent a proper, well-documented autopsy, failing to record Oswald’s interrogation—all were important pieces of the assassination deftly executed by Rowley.
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Roger Stone (The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ)
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Face the facts. Your life is too perfect. You probably lie awake at night, fantasizing about spicin’ up all that lily whiteness you live in.” But damn it, I get a whiff of vanilla from her perfume or lotion. It reminds me of cookies. I love cookies, so this is not good at all. “Gettin’ near the fire, chica, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get burned.”
“You touch her and you’ll regret it, Fuentes,” Colin’s voice rings out. He resembles a burro, with his big white teeth and ears sticking out from his buzz cut. “Get the hell away from her.”
“Colin,” Brittany says. “It’s okay. I can handle this.”
Burro Face brought reinforcements: three other pasty white dudes, standing behind him for backup. I size up Burro Face and his friends to see if I can take them all on, and decide I could give all four a run for their money. “When you’re strong enough to play in the big leagues, jock boy, then I’ll listen to the mierda flyin’ out of your mouth,” I say.
Other students are gathering around us, leaving room for a fight that is sure to be fast, furious, and bloody. Little do they know Burro Face is a runner. This time he’s got backup, though, so maybe he’ll stay to duke it out. I’m always prepared for a fight, been in more of ‘em than I can count on my fingers and toes. I’ve got the scars to prove it.
“Colin, he’s not worth it,” Brittany says.
Thanks, mamacita. Right back at ya.
“You threatening me, Fuentes?” Colin barks, ignoring his girlfriend.
“No, asshole,” I say, staring him down. “Little dicks like you make threats.”
Brittany parks her body in front of Colin and puts her hand on his chest. “Don’t listen to him,” she says.
“I’m not afraid of you. My dad’s a lawyer,” Colin brags, then puts his arm around Brittany. “She’s mine. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Then keep a leash on her,” I advise. “Or she might be tempted to find a new owner.”
My friend Paco comes up beside me. “Andas bien, Alex?”
“Yeah, Paco,” I tell him, then watch as two teachers walk down the hall escorted by a guy in a police uniform. This is what Adams wants, perfectly planned to get my ass kicked out of school. I’m not falling into his trap only to end up on Aguirre’s hit list. “Si, everything’s bien.” I turn to Brittany. “Catch ya later, mamacita. I’m looking forward to researching our chemistry.”
Before I leave and save myself from suspension on top of my detention, Brittany sticks that perky nose of hers in the air as if I’m the scum of the earth.
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Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
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It also had extraordinary acoustics: in the hush of the small hours, a goods truck smashing into a pothole sounded like an explosion, and the fantastic howl of a passing motorbike once caused Rachel to vomit with terror. Around the clock, ambulances sped eastward on West 23rd Street with a sobbing escort of police motorcycles. Sometimes I confused the cries of the sirens with my son's night-time cries. I would leap out of bed and go to his bedroom and helplessly kiss him, even though my rough face sometimes woke him and I'd have to stay with him and rub his tiny rigid back until he fell asleep once more. Afterwards I slipped out onto the balcony and stood there like a sentry. The pallor of the so-called hours of darkness was remarkable. Directly to the north of the hotel, a succession of cross-streets glowed as if each held a dawn. The tail lights, the coarse blaze of deserted office buildings, the lit storefronts, the orange fuzz of the street lanterns: all this garbage of light had been refined into a radiant atmosphere that rested in a low silver heap over Midtown and introduced to my mind the mad thought that the final twilight was upon New York.
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Joseph O'Neill (Netherland)
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Hatred of him was aflame’, and he added: ‘No insults were too gross to hurl at him. One, of course, the Dardanelles fiasco, regarded as his particular crime, was always brought up…. The opposition were determined to shout him down. He was always admirably self-controlled and good-tempered, and he never failed to quell the opposition and get a hearing.’ Whenever Churchill spoke, he was confronted by a vociferous group of hecklers, whom he dubbed ‘the Socialist travelling circus’. To one question about the Dardanelles, on November 27, he replied: ‘What do you know about that? The Dardanelles might have saved millions of lives.’ And he continued: ‘Don’t imagine I am running away from the Dardanelles. I glory in it.’41 On December 3 Churchill was in London, where he spoke to large, noisy meetings at Finsbury Park, Shepherd’s Bush and Walthamstow. After his final speech, at Walthamstow, he had to be escorted from the hall to his car by mounted police. Then, as the Leicester Daily Mercury reported: ‘A vast crowd closed round the car hooting and jeering.
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Martin Gilbert (Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V) (Churchill Biography Book 5))
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But I especially loved being able to cross a day off after that particular activity had been completed. There was nothing more satisfying than taking a pen and drawing a diagonal line across the designated square on my calendar.
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Jill Grunenwald (Running with a Police Escort: Tales from the Back of the Pack)
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Dickens’s visit to Five Points made it fashionable for well-to-do New Yorkers to go “slumming,” visiting Five Points as Dickens had done, with a police escort, to marvel at its poverty and gawk at its displays of vice. Indeed, the term “slumming” may have been coined there to describe such tours.
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Tyler Anbinder (Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York City Neighborhood)
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Everything unique to the first race was a first. Meaning, for example, a sled dog race—nothing first, nor unique, here—but one of one thousand miles or more, using the same dogs, is decidedly a first and, without question, unique. There are many Iditarod Race traditions, whose origins are traced to the 1973 inaugural event. Easily coming to mind is the first weekend in March start, Anchorage start site (ceremonial, nowadays) trail mail (mine in 1973 was adopted by ITC in 1974), keeping record of the fastest time between Solomon (Port Safety or Safety, nowadays) and Nome, the town siren and police escort at Nome, use of veterinarians during the race, publishing dog deaths, employment of the “Iditarod Air Force,” multiple finisher banquets, red lantern award (adopted from earlier races), and reliance on volunteers.
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Dan Seavey (The First Great Race: Alaska's 1973 Iditarod)
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1. Body Language: Have a confident body posture, but don’t look too aggressive. Pay close attention to your emotions, and be cautious to avoid tensing up your shoulders, neck, hands, or face. If you’re unable to compose your emotions, they can (and likely will) be felt by the aggravated person and may cause your de-escalation efforts to fail, despite using an appropriate tone and words. Stand relatively still, avoiding sudden jerky or excessive movements. Make sure to keep your hand gestures to a minimum. Basically, think similarly to how you would deal with an angry dog. 2. Voice: You generally want to keep your voice calm, firm, and low while speaking slowly and evenly. The tone, inflection, and volume of your voice can increase or decrease the other person’s anxiety and agitation. However, if the person is yelling, you may need to initially speak in a louder tone in order to be heard, and then guide them to a softer and slower pace. • Listen actively. Gather information by asking questions to develop a rapport, if possible under the circumstances, and gather information in order to begin to guide the communication in a less volatile direction. • Acknowledge their feelings. Some agitated people are unable to problem solve until their feelings are dealt with. By acknowledging their feelings, it often lets them know that they’re being heard. • Communicate clearly by explaining your intentions and conveying your expectations. Repeat yourself as much as necessary until you’re heard. Certain behaviors have been found to escalate agitated people: • Ignoring the person • Making threats • Hurtful remarks and/or name calling • Arguing • Commanding or shouting • Invading personal space • Threatening gestures with your arms or hands, such as finger wagging or pointing Keep in mind that our natural instincts when in an aggressive or potentially violent encounter are to fight, flight, or freeze. However, in using de-escalation, we can’t do any of these. We must appear centered and calm even when we’re terrified. Therefore, these techniques must be practiced before they’re needed, so that they can become second nature. But keep in mind: It’s always important that you trust your instincts. If you feel that de-escalation is not working, STOP! You’ll know within as little as a few minutes to sometimes only a few seconds if it’s beginning to work. If not, tell the person to leave, escort him/her to the door, call for help, walk away, and/or call the police.
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Darren Levine (Krav Maga for Women: Your Ultimate Program for Self Defense)
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Darcy, what’s going on at your house? There are forty to fifty police cars, a SWAT team, and officers with guns surrounding your house. They just took John out barefoot in handcuffs. He wouldn’t look at us as they escorted him to the police car and drove him away. I don’t know what’s going on, but I wanted to call to ask where the girls are, because you definitely don’t want them to see this.”
I stood in the hallway, stunned. Paralyzed. Speechless. But there was no time for inaction. My mind flooded as I tried to make sense of what I needed to do next.
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Darcy Luoma (Thoughtfully Fit: Your Training Plan for Life and Business Success)
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an old childhood friend named Diego came to visit her. Now, he was a police officer. But he didn’t come to arrest her. He came to try to persuade her to turn herself in. After a few days, Sandra agreed to let him accompany her to the office listed on the reintegration website. He became part of the community that showed her a path out of conflict, just like Curtis and Billy do for gang members in Chicago. Escorts are critical on the path out of conflict, it turns out. If we want people to take a perilous road, it’s unreasonable to expect them to go alone.
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Amanda Ripley (High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out)
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The last time she was at the Dunwoody police station, she was in a tennis dress and being escorted in through the back doors.
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Karin Slaughter (Pretty Girls)
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Within five hours of his unpacking his first box, bricks and rocks rained down as a mob a thousand strong moved in to drive him out. With Detroit police officers watching, “he was compelled to sign a deed and relinquish ownership of the property” at gunpoint. The police then escorted Turner and his family back to the black side of town.88
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Carol Anderson (White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide)
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Iwalked home from the office and found Meg sitting on the stairs. She was sobbing. Uncontrollably. My love, what’s happened? I thought for sure we’d lost the baby. I went to her on my knees. She choked out that she didn’t want to do this anymore. Do what? Live. I didn’t catch her meaning at first. I didn’t understand, maybe didn’t want to understand. My mind just didn’t want to process the words. It’s all so painful, she was saying. What is? To be hated like this—for what? What had she done? she asked. She really wanted to know. What sin had she committed to deserve this kind of treatment? She just wanted to make the pain stop, she said. Not only for her, for everyone. For me, for her mother. But she couldn’t make it stop, so she’d decided to disappear. Disappear? Without her, she said, all the press would go away, and then I wouldn’t have to live like this. Our unborn child would never have to live like this. It’s so clear, she kept saying, it’s so clear. Just stop breathing. Stop being. This exists because I exist. I begged her not to talk like that. I promised her we’d get through it, we’d find a way. In the meantime, we’d find her the help she needed. I asked her to be strong, hang on. Incredibly, while reassuring her, and hugging her, I couldn’t entirely stop thinking like a fucking royal. We had a Sentebale engagement that night, at the Royal Albert Hall, and I kept telling myself: We can’t be late. We cannot be late. They’ll skin us alive! And they’ll blame her. Slowly—too slowly—I realized that tardiness was the least of our problems. I said she should skip the engagement, of course. I needed to go, make a quick appearance, but I’d be home fast. No, she insisted, she didn’t trust herself to be at home alone for even an hour with such dark feelings. So we put on our best kit, and she applied dark, dark lipstick to draw attention away from her bloodshot eyes, and out of the door we went. The car pulled up outside the Royal Albert Hall, and as we stepped into the blue flashing lights of the police escort and the whiteout lights of the press’s flashbulbs, Meg reached for my hand. She gripped it tightly. As we went inside, she gripped it even tighter. I was buoyed by the tightness of that grip. She’s hanging on, I thought. Better than letting go. But when we settled into the royal box, and the lights dimmed, she let go of her emotions. She couldn’t hold back the tears. She wept silently. The music struck up, we turned and faced the front. We spent the entire length of the performance (Cirque du Soleil) squeezing each other’s hands, me promising her in a whisper: Trust me. I’ll keep you safe.
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Prince Harry (Spare)
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Following the early to mid-nineteenth-century laissez-faire ideas that positioned ‘crime-as-choice’ were new ideas that led to a view of ‘crime-as-biology’. Within this perspective, poor women who deviated from dominant gender norms were seen to be likely to reproduce an inferior ‘race’ of poor people and criminals. Such concerns were at least partly responsible for the concerted attempt to criminalize the sexual independence and deviance of certain women. For instance, in Canadian cities, women who were found on the streets at night without a ‘respectable’ male escort were assumed to have ‘an immoral purpose’, and, if they could not offer a satisfactory reason for being there, they were apprehended as moral offenders. The Contagious Diseases Act of the 1860s also empowered the police in particular British and American port and garrison towns to pick up, register and medically examine women suspected of prostitution.
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Adrienne Roberts (Gendered States of Punishment and Welfare: Feminist Political Economy, Primitive Accumulation and the Law (RIPE Series in Global Political Economy))
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I made it half a city block before falling on my ass again. Only this time I didn’t just fall on my ass and wound my pride: I broke my elbow. What kind of late twentysomething breaks a bone attempting to relive some naive dream to be a fucking roller derby girl?
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Jill Grunenwald (Running with a Police Escort: Tales from the Back of the Pack)
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He then pointed to the right, and I turned to look. Exactly on cue, something massive came around the corner: a snaking, vehicular army that included a phalanx of police cars and motorcycles, a number of black SUVs, two armored limousines with American flags mounted on their hoods, a hazmat mitigation truck, a counterassault team riding with machine guns visible, an ambulance, a signals truck equipped to detect incoming projectiles, several passenger vans, and another group of police escorts. The presidential motorcade. It was at least twenty vehicles long, moving in orchestrated formation, car after car after car, before finally the whole fleet rolled to a quiet halt, and the limos stopped directly in front of Barack’s parked plane. I turned to Cornelius. “Is there a clown car?” I said. “Seriously, this is what he’s going to travel with now?” He smiled. “Every day for his entire presidency, yes,” he said. “It’s going to look like this all the time.” I took in the spectacle: thousands and thousands of pounds of metal, a squad of commandos, bulletproof everything. I had yet to grasp that Barack’s protection was still only half-visible. I didn’t know that he’d also, at all times, have a nearby helicopter ready to evacuate him, that sharpshooters would position themselves on rooftops along the routes he traveled, that a personal physician would always be with him in case of a medical problem, or that the vehicle he rode in contained a store of blood of the appropriate type in case he ever needed a transfusion. In a matter of weeks, just ahead of Barack’s inauguration, the presidential limo would be upgraded to a newer model—aptly named the Beast—a seven-ton tank disguised as a luxury vehicle, tricked out with hidden tear-gas cannons, rupture-proof tires, and a sealed ventilation system meant to get him through a biological or chemical attack.
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Michelle Obama (Becoming)
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he asked a nearby police officer to help him get home and protect him from the white mobs. Instead, the officer escorted him to a police station, where he was tossed in a holding cell.
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Simon Balto (Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power)
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The decision to wear a one-piece Batman bodysuit to the race seemed like a brilliant idea until the moment I had to pee.
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Jill Grunenwald (Running with a Police Escort: Tales from the Back of the Pack)
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Dorothy Counts, wearing a new red-and-yellow dress made by her grandmother, with a long bow that flowed beyond her waist, waded into a sea of white rage. She was only fifteen years old, one of four black students chosen to integrate the schools in Charlotte. The other three didn’t face much resistance, because the White Citizens’ Council had chosen Harding as the place to make their stand. And stand they did. Dot Counts confronted a wave of hatred that morning, all captured by the camera of Don Sturkey, a photographer for The Charlotte Observer. As she walked toward the school, white students, their faces contorted with hatred and unmistakable glee, screamed, “Nigger go back home” and “Go back to Africa, burrhead!” They threw sticks and chunks of ice. They spat on her new dress. The police refused to protect her, staying at the other end of the street and watching the spectacle from a distance. No school officials or teachers were present to calm the crowd or escort Dorothy to class. Instead
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Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own)
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My particular favorite was the David Bowie–led masterpiece Labyrinth. I can say that it is without a doubt one of the best children’s films to come out of the 1980s, which is saying something as that particular decade was full of really dark, really twisted films aimed at children, and I was obsessed with each and every one. Upon reflection, that probably speaks to my current personality more than any other possible pop culture influence I had growing up.
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Jill Grunenwald (Running with a Police Escort: Tales from the Back of the Pack)
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An 1888 police justice came right out and declared that for women only, simply being out at night was probable cause. The way he saw it, “no decent, respectable woman would be found in the street without an escort after 10 P.M.,” and therefore, he told a Women’s Prison Association investigator, “any woman alone in the street after that hour ought to be arrested.” Accordingly, at night police would sometimes sweep up women by the dozens.
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Stacy Horn (Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York)
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So as I’m constantly relearning, perception can be entirely age-related.
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Jill Grunenwald (Running with a Police Escort: Tales from the Back of the Pack)
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When I arrived in the parking lot of the restaurant, my brother and father were separated by police and being questioned. The police turned me over to one of my brother's friends who had just arrived on the scene. They were told to take me home. I could hear the police discussing the situation and they decided to escort my father and brother home. Didn’t the police know that they would kill each other if they were set free? I tried to speak up and pleaded with the officers to take them away, but my cries went unheeded. No one was listening to me; no one cared. Once again, because they were Armand Hammer’s family, they were exempt from the law. They were told to behave themselves and to go home and sleep it off. The feeling of betrayal once again, filled my body. No one was going to help me.
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Casey Hammer (SURVIVING MY BIRTHRIGHT: THE AUTHORIZED VERSION)