I think I’m becoming increasingly bigoted in my semi-old age. Maybe just a touch cynical.
I’ve spent this week engaged in a series of very interesting and informative conversations with students in regards to the Micheal Brown shooting. Almost all who have some officer training or are officers themselves believe the shooting was just and preventable. I felt like there were really two conversations taking place at all times. One was about the specific issue and the other was about the larger twin contexts of continued racial profiling/standardized behaviors towards black suspects while the other was about the blue shield and continued justification of negative police behaviors based entirely on the fact that police are putting their lives on the line. I stand by the ruling that it was a just shooting. Everything I’ve read or heard or seen point to the officer being a stand up dude. What happened to him is terrible. Still, not all cops are Officer Wilson. Some are Officer Pantaleo, hiding behind the thick legal paperwork and bond of the police association. Here’s what I feel: I feel like we do owe our officers something more than what we provide them (financially and respectfully). I don’t however feel like we owe them the benefit of the doubt. In fact I believe we need to hold the people we entrust with our safety to a higher standard. I need to be able to trust the person I turn to in a crisis, not worrying if I’ll be shot in my own driveway, yanked out of my car by cops with guns drawn and tazed in front of my kids because I asked to see a supervising officer, or merely stopped and frisked based on the way I was dressed. My grandfather was an officer. I grew up knowing the cops in my neighborhood. I grew up wanting to believe the cops were on my side. Some were. Some were not.
Cops are people and people can become jaded by seeing horrible things. Sadly, the profession (like teaching) protects everyone in the profession behind the same scratch-resistant, bulletproof wall. The same massive wall that says, ‘we will handle our problems internally’ and expects the rest of the world to stand by and wait patiently for that to happen–that expects the rest of the world to move on at let the wounds heal. Guess what: Wounds don’t heal unless treated. When they are left to fester they can kill the body or in the least leave an ugly scar.
It is time we stopped saying that just because someone was vetted and earned the right to wear a badge they are forever that same heroic person who first stepped into the job. I’ve watched the job jade people. I’ve watched it make people into racists, and stereotypers, and shoot first gunslingers. Its a hard job and we need to do more to protect the people who do it. That includes protecting them from the bad ones that make us all look bad.