At the Detroit Free Press, columnist Rochelle Riley says there's no time to waste when it comes to law enforcement in her city.
We don't have six months.
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We don't have six days.
We had eight homicides and 33 nonfatal shootings in five days.
We had a 7-year-old boy who hung himself from a bunk bed in his home after being bullied at school.
It is not enough to say the number of killings hasn't changed much since last year and has been about the same for the past few years. Why? Because there were more people in Detroit five years ago, one year ago, one month ago.
It is not enough to focus on other problems: challenged schools, discriminatory insurance rates, the fight over Rosa Parks' legacy, abandoned buildings that sit like predatory ghosts, reminding of what once was and hiding terrors that can be.
Not when children are dying, not when children are bombarded every day by reports of people dying all around them.
Read Rochelle Riley's entire piece at the Detroit Free Press.
The Root aims to foster and advance conversations about issues relevant to the black Diaspora by presenting a variety of opinions from all perspectives, whether or not those opinions are shared by our editorial staff.
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