What is one to think about what is happening in the U.S. with race relations and policing? I find it incredible that the many, many recent killings of black people by police does not raise even more outrage than it has. Sure, there have been marches and protests, in particular by the Black Lives Matter movement. And, certainly, some (maybe a large) degree of racism is involved. But, my view is that there is a much bigger problem. That is, we have way too many policeman who are just "criminals with a badge".
Only the willingly uninformed will not admit that certain policeman have a character that could have just as easily resulted in them being a street thug. They have a desire to dominate people and commit violence when someone fails to follow their instructions. On top of that, many police departments seem to have very flawed hiring practices that allow such persons to become policemen. And, to make matters worse, some police department training must, obviously, fail to curtail the authoritative and violent nature of such individuals.
It is not enough to say that the majority (even vast majority) of policemen do not fit into such a category, because there are simply way too many that do. When you look at the many recent videos of police killings, you cannot not fail to ask why a person, who is following instructions, already detained or otherwise clearly not putting an officer's life in danger, ends up dead.
Policing is not like military action. The police should not consider that they are at war with society, or certain segments of society. If a suspect slips away and is not obviously putting others or the officer in danger, the officer should not be allowed to just shoot the suspect in the back as he runs away. If the suspect is in handcuffs with multiple officers holding him down, the police should not be allowed to threaten the suspect with a gun and then shoot the suspect because he doesn't stop struggling. Yet, this type of thing happens way too often. How to explain these events other than a combination of poor hiring decisions, poor policies and poor training. Sure, there may be a racism element to these deaths, but a racist police officer doesn't automatically go about killing people. Bad police officers are who unjustly kill people. These are essentially just criminals with a badge.
Only the willingly uninformed will not admit that certain policeman have a character that could have just as easily resulted in them being a street thug. They have a desire to dominate people and commit violence when someone fails to follow their instructions. On top of that, many police departments seem to have very flawed hiring practices that allow such persons to become policemen. And, to make matters worse, some police department training must, obviously, fail to curtail the authoritative and violent nature of such individuals.
It is not enough to say that the majority (even vast majority) of policemen do not fit into such a category, because there are simply way too many that do. When you look at the many recent videos of police killings, you cannot not fail to ask why a person, who is following instructions, already detained or otherwise clearly not putting an officer's life in danger, ends up dead.
Policing is not like military action. The police should not consider that they are at war with society, or certain segments of society. If a suspect slips away and is not obviously putting others or the officer in danger, the officer should not be allowed to just shoot the suspect in the back as he runs away. If the suspect is in handcuffs with multiple officers holding him down, the police should not be allowed to threaten the suspect with a gun and then shoot the suspect because he doesn't stop struggling. Yet, this type of thing happens way too often. How to explain these events other than a combination of poor hiring decisions, poor policies and poor training. Sure, there may be a racism element to these deaths, but a racist police officer doesn't automatically go about killing people. Bad police officers are who unjustly kill people. These are essentially just criminals with a badge.
The most recent incident here in Miami defies explanation.
ReplyDeleteBut let me channel my inner wannabe Tyler Cowen and avoid the emotionally charged argument of thinking of cops as criminals. What % of police ever fire their weapons? This article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blake-fleetwood/how-dangerous-is-police-w_b_6373798.html - states that 1 in 850 NYC cops fired their weapon in 2013.
Why do we assume that training or hiring criteria would address how a cop would react under the most stressful and unique situations they are likely to encounter in their careers?
You can avoid thinking that some (even very few) cops are criminals with a badge, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. Stressful and unique situations are exactly why training and hiring criteria are important. Even the military, whose job is to largely kill people, rejects individuals who do not meet certain psychological measurements and training requirements. The job of the police should specifically be to NOT kill people and those criteria should be even more important. There are plenty of great and professional police, but that does not mean that the bottom of the barrel doesn't need to be cleaned up.
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