My 2 Cents

So I received a comment on one of my posts that really made me think.... Why do people feel this way? Where's the disconnect? What can we do to fix it? Here's the comment & here's my response:

Comment:

"I was thinking the same thing for 'them' when they mow down unarmed black people like they are dogs.. let justice be for all. I have many police officers at my home weekly and we discuss this. Freedom and Justice for all in America. Let's be honest above all, and equitable, and fair in our dealings from top to bottom. Amen?" 

Response:

"I agree with everything in your statement with the exception of one part. I'm assuming you mean Police Officers when you are referring to "they" and how they "mow down" unarmed back people. I think your comment needs a little tweaking. 

I have yet to see an officer "mow down" unarmed black people as if they just drove up and opened fire on them. Or even contacted them because 1. They were black, 2. They were unarmed. In many circumstances, the officer wouldn't have been there in the first place if it weren't for the actions of the other party. If people would simply respect the law and authority a lot of this would change. 

The problem is when people do not respect the law or those sworn to uphold the law and continue to resist, fight, and blatantly refuse to accept that they are being held accountable for their actions. I cannot tell you how many times I've made arrests where if that person simply complied, they would've been on their way.

We don't ask you to step out of the car, or detain you because we're on a power trip or to embarrass you. We do this 1. For our safety 2. That's how we were trained to handle certain situations. 

We don't put on a uniform every day, get in our squad car and say to ourself "Hmmm I wonder if I can find an unarmed black person to mow down today" that's just not how we operate. Do you really think that we want to do that? Do you really think that we want to take another persons life, have the possibility of losing our job and be imprisoned for "mowing down" unarmed black people? C'mon, gimme a break! 

Are there bad officers out there? Yes there are bad apples in every profession/community. There are bad apples in the medical field, education industry, white community, Hispanic community, black community, baptist community, catholic community etc... Unfortunately that's just life and although we take precautions like background checks etc... some can slip through the cracks. 

That said I do feel that we are failing our law enforcement officers in several ways that could correct and prevent a lot of things...

Most importantly we are failing them in the training department. Too many agencies rely on old training that simply isn't effective anymore. Life evolves, people evolve, and things change. Officers need to be trained on how to handle these changes. Often departments use their training budget for basic death by PowerPoint classes. Although some of these courses are needed, many of them do not provide effective training for their officers to handle the stresses of law enforcement today.

Secondly, we aren't engaging with, communicating and educating the public. We need to build relationships with community not only on social media, but by joining with them in every day activities, events etc... We are just now beginning to do this effectively. We also need to educate the community on our training, policies & procedures, and why we do some of the things we do. Bridging the gap between law enforcement and the community should be the ultimate goal for any law enforcement agency. 

All of this starts at the top with the administration and boils down to providing (room in the budget and manpower) the proper type of training. The best training for this is reality based and scenario based training that places officers in various scenarios with real life role players and training them on how to respond. There is no PowerPoint, war story, simulator or video response training that can even compare to training with live scenarios, real life role players and proper training equipment. PERIOD!

Until we (both LE and the community) change our "Us vs. Them" mentality we will continue to see the same problems perpetuate. So let's join together and focus on the bigger picture and that's building a healthy flourishing relationship between Law Enforcement and the community."