"WHY!!! So they set up to assassinate police officers now. Pray for those in Dallas this morning. 5 fellow officers are no longer going home to their families... This country has changed, there is a war in this country and your POLICE are the first line. People wake up here."
I know this police officer, and I believe him to be a good man. I would like to try to build a bridge to this police officer, because it seems we are very far apart in our understanding. I understand his anger. I'm angry, too. But his words frightened me. I hope, if he reads this, he can understand why.
I'd like to build the bridge on the points where we agree. We can agree on this: the police I know are people who care about their communities, about maintaining safety, about treating everyone fairly and equally, and who try very hard to resolve things as peacefully as possible. They have to put their lives on the line far too often. They are the last line of defense against crime: if all the social workers, rehab programs, and treatment centers fail, it's up to the police. They get a lot of grief for it. They don't make the rules. Whether they like a law or not, police have to enforce it, and put up with the people who complain that they are doing so.
Hopefully, we can also agree that there's a problem. Stories of police killing young black men who were not a danger are coming far too often. In almost every case, the police are held blameless. Typically, the rule that is applied is that if the police feel in danger, they are justified in using lethal force. This is a reasonable standard. Police must put themselves in truly dangerous situations, and it would be unfair to second-guess them from the safety of our armchairs. It would be unfair to tell a policeman, faced with a situation in which he believes he could be killed in a split second, he must carefully and accurately verify his danger before defending himself. It would be unfair to take a policeman who has tried to do his job, and perhaps mistaken the degree of danger, and put him on trial for murder. We can agree on this.
Hopefully, we can also agree there is a problem. There are places in this country where black men are afraid of police. They feel threatened in any confrontation with police. This, also, is not unreasonable. Every couple months there is another case of police unnecessarily killing black people. It would be unreasonable to not be afraid. It is a problem if a group of people view the police as dangerous.
Here is a difference of view, of course. The policeman sees a threat that demands action to keep people safe. The friends and family of the killed person see that the police would not, actually, have been hurt. They see that if police confront them, there could be a misunderstanding, the police could perceive a threat and kill. I'm not saying one view is right and the other wrong. I'm saying both are reasonable. I'm saying that police, like everyone, make mistakes, and that even though it is unfair to judge them harshly, when they make large numbers of mistakes with a particular group of people, it is also reasonable that that group is afraid.
Hopefully, we can agree that this is a problem.
Have you watched any of the videos of these incidents? I watched Eric Garner choked to death by NYPD, and I watched Alton Sterling killed in Baton Rouge. I watched them because I couldn't believe they were as bad as people said. They are very disturbing to watch.
I know the video doesn't tell the whole story. There are many gaps and unknowns. But consider the story the videos tell. In the case of Eric Garner, this is what I saw:
Eric Garner is surrounded by several police officers. There are at least six officers present, maybe ten or more. He is arguing, and upset, but doing nothing threatening. A policeman comes up behind him, and, without warning, puts an arm-bar choke-hold on him. He rides Garner to the ground, and holds onto Garner's neck until he is dead.
There is a lot more to the story than that. The officer was using a hold intended to subdue a man, not kill him. The hold had been banned by NYPD as being too dangerous. Garner probably wouldn't have died in that situation if he hadn't been grossly obese. Garner's great size and poor health would have meant any physical struggle would have been dangerous for both him and police.
But imagine Eric Garner is your friend. Imagine you have been confronted by police when you weren't doing anything wrong, and your friends and neighbors have, too. Imagine you don't trust police. Then watch the policeman kill Eric Garner. What it looks like--not what it must be, but what it looks like--is simple murder, and all the explanations sound like excuses.
Alton Sterling is worse. This is the story the video tells: two police officers have Sterling pinned on the ground. Sterling can't struggle effectively. With no provocation, one officer draws his pistol, presses it against Sterling's chest, and fires five shots into him.
Again, that may not be the reality. In particular, the videographer fumbles his camera, and we miss a second or two, including the actual moment of shooting. Sterling had something in his hand, it could have been a gun, or it could have been mistaken for a gun. I can't understand how drawing his own gun was the sensible thing for the officer to do, but that's armchair quarterbacking. There may have been a good cause.
But that's not the story the video tells. What is looks like--not what it must be--is a cold-blooded assassination.
I'm not saying these police officers should be charged with any crimes. Maybe they were entirely justified. I don't have all the facts. But just as we acknowledge that a police officer is justified in shooting someone if it looks like the officer is in danger, so too, people watching these videos are justified if they are angry and frightened. It looks like their friends and neighbors were murdered.
This is the problem. I defy anyone to watch those videos, imagine that the victim is your kid brother, your friend, your son, and come to any conclusion more forgiving than this: your son was needlessly killed by aggressive cops.
I don't know any aggressive cops. I've heard of some with bad attitudes. I was stopped by one who did not know the rules for a front license plate in his own state, and cited me incorrectly. But I don't know any aggressive cops.
I defy anyone to watch those videos, imagine that the victim is your son, and come to any conclusion more forgiving than this: your son was needlessly killed by aggressive cops.
You see the problem?
"There is a war in this country and your POLICE are the first line. People wake up here."
So imagine I'm the big brother of one of these men. I'm wrestling with these feelings that police were aggressive and reckless and killed my brother, and a policeman says he is fighting a war. An officer calls people to wake up, rally around, and win the war. I don't have to ask myself who this war is against, it's clear: the war is against me. Right? It's my little brother I'm burying. The police are fighting a war. Against who? Against me. So maybe it wasn't recklessness. Maybe it was the war.
Do you see why those words are so frightening?
"There is a war in this country."
Those are probably the very same words spoken by the snipers who killed those police officers. "There's a war on. Those cops are just going to keep killing us, it's time we fight back." When a police officer says "There is a war on," he's saying to those criminals, "You are right. We are fighting a war against you."
You see the problem?
Five families are missing a father, husband, or son tonight, because people believed there was a war in this country. People have died, pointlessly, on both sides, because of fear. War will only make the problem worse. If there is a war in this country, we need peacemakers, not soldiers.
Right now is a moment to choose. This attack on police has backfired on the perpetrators. The death of Alton Sterling has lost the headlines, and instead the country is rallying around our police officers. The injustice of Baton Rouge has been replaced with the injustice of Dallas, the Black Lives movement has lost the moral high ground. Right now, the police can talk peace with the black community, and people will feel they have to listen. Right now, the conversation can be about fixing the problem, not about whether or not certain officers should be prosecuted. When the next questionable killing happens, that opportunity will be gone.
Isn't that a better choice than war?
No comments:
Post a Comment