Tiburon police barred from wearing ‘thin blue line’ flag while on the job
Tiburon police officers are no longer allowed to display the “thin blue line” flag while on duty after a citizen complained last month about an officer wearing a face mask featuring the imagery. What variously started out as a tribute to fallen officers, a representation of the barrier between order and chaos and a symbol of solidarity has since become increasingly viewed as a symbol of racism and white supremacy, frequently displayed in direct protest of the Black Lives Matter movement. The local directive was issued amid the fallout of two racially charged incidents involving Tiburon police and aligns with recent policy changes elsewhere across the country, including in Sausalito and San Francisco, to ban the symbol — an otherwise black-and-white U.S. flag with a blue line replacing the first stripe below the field of stars.
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