Police Brutality
- Sung to
- Summertime
- Written by
- Nora Freeman
- Gaggle
- New York City Metro
Familiar with the tune? Grab a hat, gather some friends, and sing it at your next action.
- Read the lyrics through once silently before singing.
- If the original tune is unfamiliar, look it up first.
- Modify freely. Every gaggle adapts songs to local issues.
Sometimes cops, they just seem to lose itThat’s what dark-skinned people must fear
There’s a long list of abuses to prove it
Here are a few of those mournful names.
Patrick Dorismond, killed for refusing
An undercover cop’s request for drugs
Shawn Bell, never got to his wedding
The cops’ 50 gunshots got to him first
Remember Diallo, armed with a wallet
Clifford Glover, only 10 years old
Timothy Stansbury, on his way to a party
So many more whose names we don’t know
Abner Louima was raped in a precinct
He’s still alive so the criminal’s in jail
Because Louima was able to counter
The slanders and smears that came his way
If you are white, please take a moment
A brief speculation, and then you may know
Imagine your children, their skin a bit darker
What will you tell them, when outside, they go
Will you tell them, police are their friends
With a mission to serve and protect
Or will you beg them to give cops a wide berth
Because the black and the brown never know who’ll be next