Page 29 - ATD 17OCT,2015

PEOPLE & ARTS A29
New York City police recruits
to watch a play for training
MARK KENNEDY
AP Drama Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — The New
York City Police Depart-
ment is turning to a new
tool in its effort to teach its
future officers about toler-
ance and understanding
— drama.
The city’s Police Academy
has added the one-act
play “Anne & Emmett” by
Janet Langhart Cohen to
its recruit training this fall.
The play is an imaginary
conversation between
Anne Frank, who died in a
Nazi concentration camp,
and Emmett Till, who was
killed by racists in Mississippi lowing years of rising mis-
in 1955.
The play will be performed
for some 1,100 recruits at
their academy in Queens
over two performances on
Thursday, part of a push
by the department to pre-
pare future police officers
to overcome community
mistrust and their own bias.
“Sometimes you can’t get
it in a text book. Sometimes
you can’t get it in a lecture.
But you can get it when hu-
man emotions are played
live on the stage and that
humanity can connect,”
Cohen said Friday.
“If the play can reach
one man or woman with
a badge and a gun, I’m
happy. Their training can
take them only so far. The
body cams will only cover
so much. At some point,
I’m hoping their humanity
will kick in and hopefully
this play with revive that
humanity.”
It was Commissioner Wil-
liam J. Bratton who, after
seeing a production down-
town, asked to take it to
the recruits. In a statement,
he called the play “a poi-
gnant and thoughtful pro-
duction that explores the
respective histories and
common experiences of
two people cruelly victim-
ized by racial and religious
prejudice.”
Since Bratton took office
In this Dec. 29, 2014 file photo, NYPD police commissioner Bill
Bratton stands on stage during a New York Police Academy
graduation ceremony in New York.
in 2014, he has sought to
change how the depart-
ment interacts with the
communities it serves, fol-
trust and a stop-and-frisk
policy that was found to
have targeted minorities.
But the death last year of
Eric Garner, an unarmed
black man, helped fuel a
national public outcry over
how communities of color
are treated by police.
In the play, the two teens
meet and find similarities
between their harrowing
experiences. Cohen, a for-
mer journalist who grew up
in segregated housing in
Indianapolis and is the wife
of the former Secretary of
Defense William S. Cohen,
said she jumped at Brat-
ton’s idea.
“I thought, ‘Where better
than at the tip of spear of
law enforcement, where
we African-Americans, in
particular, are having so
much trouble with exces-
sive force, with police bru-
tality, with disproportionate role.”q
Saturday 17 October 2015
In this Sept. 16, 2015 file photo, Republican presidential candi-
dates, businessman Donald Trump, right, and Ben Carson ap-
pear during the CNN Republican presidential debate at the
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley,
Associated Press Calif.
stop and frisks?’” Cohen Associated Press
said. “They don’t always
see us the way they see 3rd Republican
each other.” presidential debate
“Anne & Emmett” pre- to be capped at 2 hours
miered in 2009 at the United
States Holocaust Museum DAVID BAUDER
and has been performed AP Television Writer
in Washington, D.C., India- NEW YORK (AP) — CNBC and the Republican presidential
napolis and Chicago. Its candidates agreed on the format for their third debate a
message of humility, dignity day after leaders Donald Trump and Ben Carson threat-
and empathy has played ened to boycott unless they got their way, the network
for students and Supreme said.
Court justices. The New The Oct. 28 debate will be two hours long and will include
York police department is closing statements from the candidates, CNBC spokes-
discussing making it a per- man Brian Steel said Friday.
manent part of its recruit The billionaire businessman and the retired neurosurgeon,
training. in a joint letter to CNBC’s Washington bureau chief on
Thursday, had told the hosting network they would not
“We’re always looking for appear at the debate unless it was capped at two hours
new ways for recruits to including commercials and the candidates were allowed
tackle the challenges of to speak directly to the camera at its opening and close.
policing in a multicultural The Republican National Committee and candidates be-
society like we have in New gan discussing the format on Wednesday, RNC spokes-
York City,” said Inspector man Sean Spicer said.
Richard Dee, the execu- CNBC had proposed two hours of debating time not in-
tive officer of the police cluding four commercial breaks, meaning the time the
academy. “It’s a way for candidates would be onstage would be about 15 min-
recruits to self-reflect. I think utes longer.
the production is going to The most recent debate, on CNN, lasted three hours with
cause them to reflect on commercial breaks, a duration that left some of the can-
the history of race relations didates complaining. Since the debates have set records
and now their new-found for high ratings, television networks have an incentive to
keep the candidates onstage and on the air for as long
as they possibly can.
CNBC had initially called for no opening and closing
statements, which made some candidates unhappy be-
cause it would take away their best chance to speak di-
rectly to voters without having to be called on to respond
to a question.
Spicer confirmed the agreement.
Debate format squabbles are common in presidential
campaigns, an issue magnified this year because of the
number of candidates running and their popularity as
television events. Trump had threatened not to appear
on the second GOP debate on CNN unless the network
made a $10 million donation to charity; no donation was
made, and Trump appeared.q