By Police1 Staff
LOS ANGELES — An LAPD officer took to Facebook on Sunday to write an open letter to Lakers star LeBron James. In the wake of a controversial tweet by James, Officer Deon Joseph asked to sit down and have a conversation with the NBA player about policing.
The request came after James posted a now-deleted tweet about the police shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio. In the tweet, James posted a photo of the officer believed to have shot Bryant as she attacked someone with a knife, with the caption, “YOU’RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY”. The text is an apparent reference to Derek Chauvin’s recent guilty verdict.
Joseph starts the letter by saying, “I am not going to come at you from a place of hatred. There will be no name-calling.”
He continued, “But your current stance on policing is so off base and extreme. Your tweet that targeted a police officer in Ohio who saved a young woman’s life was irresponsible and disturbing. It showed a complete lack of understanding of the challenge of our job in the heat of a moment. You basically put a target on the back of a human being who had to make a split-second decision to save a life from a deadly attack.”
Joseph ends his letter with an offer to sit down and have an open conversation with James.
“I think if you yourself actually sat down and had a real honest and open conversation with a cop, there is a strong chance you may discover we are not the monsters you have come to believe we are,” he wrote. “No cameras. No fanfare. Just two men who care talking. I know it’s a long shot. But this division and hatred must stop.”
James has not responded to the letter as of Tuesday morning.
https://www.facebook.com/OfficerDeonJoseph1/posts/152213183570985
https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1385013333007343619