Georgia State University Law Review Volume 34 Article 1 Issue 3 Spring 2018 5-1-2018 Dead Canaries in the Coal Mines: The yS mbolic Assailant Revisited Jeannine Bell Indiana University Maurer School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://readingroom.law.gsu.edu/gsulr Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Constitutional Law Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Fourteenth Amendment Commons, Fourth Amendment Commons, Law and Race Commons, Law and Society Commons, and the Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons Recommended Citation Jeannine Bell, Dead Canaries in the Coal Mines: The Symbolic Assailant Revisited, 34 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 513 (2018). Available at: https://readingroom.law.gsu.edu/gsulr/vol34/iss3/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Publications at Reading Room. It has been accepted for inclusion in Georgia State University Law Review by an authorized editor of Reading Room. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Bell: Dead Canaries in the Coal Mines: The Symbolic Assailant Revisited DEAD CANARIES IN THE COAL MINES: THE SYMBOLIC ASSAILANT REVISITED Jeannine Bell* ABSTRACT The well-publicized deaths of several African-Americans—Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, and Alton Sterling among others—at the hands of police stem from tragic interactions predicated upon well-understood practices analyzed by police scholars since the 1950s. The symbolic assailant, a construct created by police scholar Jerome Skolnick in the mid-1960s to identify persons whose behavior and characteristics the police view as threatening, is especially relevant to contemporary policing.