Police Reform: A Biting Commentary!
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By Ron Signore
The Black Lives Movement has sparked a lot of calls to action, questions and as much, if not more, misinformation as facts around the topic of Police Reform. I do not pretend to be an expert, but I do have some thoughts on the topic. Some of those thoughts may be popular, some not so much. The beauty of being able to get these thoughts down and out there is the ability to learn as much as I think. I am not ignorant enough to believe this is a one view solves all. I am not naïve enough to think my ideas are the only out there. I always welcome readers to challenge back and educate me to their views as well.
Writing about Police Reform is a difficult topic for me because of the upbringing I had. We were always taught to respect police officers. In fact, my father always told me growing up to not come home in the back of a police car, and we will be ok. I never did, nor have I had any bouts with the law outside of one or two speeding tickets in my 20 years driving.
However, I also have friends and family tied to Police Departments. The family portion very specifically has been involved for over 20 years, including the death of a family member in the line of duty. The ongoing involvement of the department and their fraternities around surviving families is outstanding. Surviving families become their own fraternity and support the unfortunate continued cause of Gold Star Families.
Someone I consider a very dear friend of mine is a police officer for a major metropolitan police department. That department has also somewhat been going through reform in the sense that budgets have already been in a state where you may consider the department “defunded.” I have often shared my support for the brothers and sisters in blue. With all that has gone on triggered by the death of George Floyd, I find myself worried for his safety. I have been part of the literal movie where a family gets a knock on their door, no one should have to have that happen.
Recently, the most interesting topic of conversation is around statistics, both general and a little more specific. This topic is interesting for some obvious reasons. I can recall a lesson being taught during a DARE class back in the early 90’s where the officer explained that in his many years on the force, had never had to draw his weapon. Of course, that is the result of living in a suburban community that was still developing. But then I hear the information generally presented to me by my friend.
When you consider their 10-year career to this point working an average of 20 days per month with about 10 interactions per shift. Estimating somewhere in the low 20,000’s for total interactions, the guess is 10-12 may have been truly violent. These interactions were never instigated, unwarranted or illegal on their part. Never resulting in the discharge of their firearm or leaving anyone incapacitated or permanently harmed. When you break that down, it results in somewhere of 0.0005% of their interactions are violent in nature. Which also closely align to the statistics of the 800,000 police officers around the country.
When you think about it, the magnification to incidents by the media surely make things much worse in general. Make no mistake, this does not take away from the disgusting and awful nature of these types of police brutality events. Let us start with “is police brutality out of control?” Our conversations went along the line of them not being out of control. Specifically, statistically speaking, it is more the exception than the rule. In my opinion, this is a far better condition to the current state of policing, because in very general instances, the reform or update in training is a lot smaller of an obstacle to overcome. Police brutality is out there, it’s happening, and some reform in the way of better hiring and training standards and consequences to officers violating people’s rights being far more stringent could help dwindle the amount of events we see and hear about to almost none.
The harder topic to tackle is systemic racism. It is a topic we as a country have been battling for hundreds of years. Outside of the Confederate Flag waving, swastika tattooed extremely proud vocal racists we all shake our heads at when we see, racists are not always easy to spot. It is a degree of mental cognizance that people hide. The stereotype of the person who knows someone of an older generation who makes the prejudicial ignorant comments, the Archie Bunker type, but tames it and controls it in social instances. How do you really know that the person you work with or talk to every day does not value all human life the way you do? Which further begs the question, how you weed that out during a hiring perspective to eliminate the racial prejudice that may currently exist in law enforcement agencies across the nation? Obviously, if it becomes uncovered during employment, the consequences should and would be swift and immediate.
Without going into too many details, we are also aligned on the left side of the political spectrum, most specifically, there is a mutual disgust with Cheeto Man and the ignorance of many of his followers. In my many discussions with this friend, we have touched on the topic of racism. It was noted that there are members of the department that speak using terms no person should use with connotations to race and ethnicity. One correlation that I found disturbing from these talks is the assumption that if you are an officer, you support Trump, furthermore that the disturbing language is ok due to that. The strongest irony is when my buddy calls out the other officers for using the racially charged language with the notion that my friend’s beat partner is African American. I share the laugh at how cowardly they are to use that language when called out around their brother in blue
It can be argued from a few different angles about the existence of racism within law enforcement. The presence of racism goes far beyond any one entity, and I would argue those prejudices are formed from not only the culture one grows up in, but also the environments where crime is highest. It is a far deeper sociological problem than limiting the systemic scope to just law enforcement. It is systemic from a country, region, geographic perspective first. The path of which this ignorant behavior stems is from hundreds of years of ignoring, thus allowing fears and paranoia to what people do not understand about people of different ethnicities and cultures.
No one should die unnecessarily; all life should be valued equally. Where the problem with the right rests currently is, they are constantly trying to trump “Black Lives Matter,” with “All Lives Matter.” They are missing the point of the movement. The history of the terror African American’s have endured since being brought to this land is unmeasurable. There was a tweet from Peter Frampton I saw a few weeks back that really highlighted a strong understanding where no one is saying that all lives do not matter, but there is effort needed to support our black friends, families and colleagues.
“Defund the Police” is not meant to dissolve policing. There are some areas of reform where I see benefit for the nation, but how do you manage areas of higher crime? How do we keep those who are risking their lives as officers safe? The unfortunate result of the recent events has allowed for fear and paranoia to raise tensions in situations that can escalate when there is no need. As tensions rise and split-second decisions could be the difference of life and death, we run the risk for continued publicized events. I beg the country to take the viewpoint of not all police are bad. Some are, no argument. Some deserve the consequences they are handed. But there are those who uphold the oath as to why they went into law enforcement to begin with and do their job as expected. No innocent person deserves to be a victim of violence.
If it means reform to hiring, training or even role responsibility, then let us work together to resolve this in the best fashion possible. We need to build trust within our communities, of which law enforcement is a part of. As a country, we need to find a way to fix the much larger problem of racism and support the understanding of the Black Lives Matter movement. We are one country; we are all equal citizens. We all should be striving to unite and find a peaceful way of living. We need people to police the laws in place, so liberties do not become infringed on; this includes not infringing the liberties of suspected violators of said laws. With that in mind, we cannot allow for potential violent acts targeting police, the same way we want to stop police from potential unwarranted brutality acts against citizens. It is not our place to pick and choose what we believe should be law if we knowingly break it, we have channels for our voices for that. If law enforcement is serving to uphold those laws, they should not be at risk for possible death either. Furthermore, it should never be a topic of boasting of the force the authorities can have over the country’s citizens. It sickens me when the big orange turd brags that he can enforce authorities or military policing to cut through a crowd like a knife through butter.
It is a very tough line to toe. There is no excuse for the actions of police that violate that trust from the people it is meant to protect and serve. There is no excuse this day in age for racism and crimes of hate in any way shape or form. Being white, again, I cannot fathom the fears that may go through the mind of an African American if there is an encounter with the police. My opinions are not meant to be insensitive to that, in fact, I hope from a conceptual point of trying to achieve a peace for the greater good, the fight for equality is clear from me. Human rights should not be political debates. I believe you can support BLM and all our first responders, and damn the evil of any origin.
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