What Happens When You No Longer Have Self Defense Rights?

The Question: What do you do when the police officer becomes the aggressor and the rules of self-defense don’t apply to you?

This is the question I come back to time and time again around the current police reform issues. The playing field is inherently not equal. The police force is sanctioned by the government to operate within certain guidelines and, if they step outside of those guidelines, there’s a process to follow to object to their conduct. But this process is administrative, cumbersome, and in many ways designed to prohibit objection to the conduct so that its opposition is eventually abandoned. To my attorney friends, it’s like tackling the monumental task of trying to sue the government through the administrative law process. But in this case, you have to weigh THE VALUE OF A PERSON'S LIFE against the effort and resources it takes to dispute the government. Also to my attorney friends, think about how daunting and singularly oppressive that is for an individual…

What we’re dealing with now - very oversimplified, I know - is individual police officers who have MURDERED American citizens, MANY AMERICAN CITIZENS, over the past months and, let’s not forget, the past centuries...

https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2020/06/we-are-done-dying-cornell-west.html

This is not new - this is not latest trend on social media - this is not a response to a new social condition. As my great friend, Terry Wilson said, this is a day in the life. It’s systemic, and it’s proliferation is built into our governmental infrastructure. Worse, these murderers are supported by the institutions that call them members. The systems that are responsible for holding individual police officers accountable for their actions (Police Unions, Police Departments, State and Local Governments, etc.) have actually been designed to protect and to shield the individual bad actors so that they don’t affect the rest – and so their actions don’t change the status quo. The problem is that the bulk majority of police officers are great people, they do a brutally tough job, and provide a service to our society that is critical to our American dna – TO PROTECT AND TO SERVE.

The issue we need to address is creating a culture of police officer integrity and a culture of pride in protecting citizens, not pride in bringing criminals to justice. When you’re always looking for a criminal, everyone looks like one until they show they aren't. And when you’re African-American and speak up, there a high likelihood that you’ll fall into that brutal category - go to jail and come out when you can show you weren't the person who did it. This intellectual predisposition actually castrates the other good officers from doing the right thing. The vast majority of responding officers in these situations are so afraid of liability and retribution from their own that they do nothing in the moment to stop the aggressor and quickly move into self and department protection mode. Say nothing and nothing bad will happen. A few recent atrociously clear examples:

·       A police officer kneeled on George Floyd‘s neck for over eight minutes after he was already detained. No responding officer said "stop choking the man". No responding officer suggested simply taking him into custody.

·       Rayshard Brooks was shot twice in the back running away from police. No responding officer said "let's let him run". They had his car and he was suspected only of DUI.

·       A 75-year-old man was pushed to the ground during a peaceful protest that resulted in a fractured skull. The Buffalo Police Department issued a statement that he tripped and fell before the video was released. No officer picked the man up.

I would suggest that the POLICE UNIONS are at the heart of this systemic behavior and should the be organizations fully accountable for its reform. These unios are designed to protect the group from any change and any reform. This is ATROCIOUS.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/us/police-unions-minneapolis-kroll.html.

Their leaders are PAID to be outraged at this behavior of their few, not of their many. They will either proactively step up and reform, or they will resist and reject in order to protect their collective whole and their paychecks. Please don’t just post on social media, require them to step up or be GONE. When you don't have self-defense rights and protections against aggressors, you have justified riots and revolt. It's uneccessary, please listen to each other and change. Be better.