Let me start with a question - a question I'm going to direct particularly at any Catholics who happen to be reading this.
Do you think all Catholic priests are pedophiles?
Of course you don't. I'm sure all of you, regardless of your religious affiliation, know that most priest are good men who do good work in their communities. Most Catholics reading this can probably recall a parish priest they admired.
At that same time, I don't think anyone, even the most religious Catholics, would deny that some priests have committed horrible acts of pedophilia. We also all know the church hierarchy has a shameful history of protecting and enabling pedophile priests by shuffling them between parishes rather than defrocking these priest or bringing them to justice. This may be a hard truth for many Catholics to face, but the evidence is incontrovertible, and every Catholic I know has accepted the truth. However, most Catholics I know haven't considered leaving the Roman Catholic Church. Most Catholics believe in the mission of the Roman Catholic Church, and consider the Catholic Church to be an important part of their lives. However, they all want the Catholic Church to clean up its act. They want the Catholic Church to be purged of all pedophile priests, and they want the church to fix the systemic problems in the church that enabled and protected these pedophile priests.
Still, they love the Roman Catholic Church, and none of them believe that defrocking and arresting all the pedophile priests would in any way be an indictment of all the good priests out there.
So, with all that in mind, why do so many people seem to believe that pointing out the failures of some cops is an insult to all cops?
Why do so many people think that pointing out systemic problems in our police forces is an insult to all cops?
I see a lot a parallels between the police issues with bias and deadly force and the pedophile problem with the Roman Catholic church.
Just like the vast majority of priest are good people worthy of admiration, the vast majority of cops do an extremely difficult job with honor and dignity and deserve to be treated with respect.
However, just like it is undeniable that some priests have done a terrible things, it's clear that there are both bad cops and incompetent cops who have badly failed in their mission to "protect and serve".
Just like the Roman Catholic Church has systemic problems that have protected and enabled pedophile priests, police forces and police unions have systemic problems that protect and enable bad cops. Cops stick up for other cops without fail. It's generally a good thing to have each's other's back, but it's detrimental to the force when cops support other cops who have done wrong. We've also see plenty of examples when District Attorneys have failed to indict cops who have may have committed crimes. DAs and cops often work closely to together to win indict/convict suspects, so DAs often take it easy on cops that have done wrong. More often than not, bad cops who escape conviction also get to keep their jobs, because police unions protect them. This is despite the fact that most of the cops who faced indictment clearly did their job poorly. If a police encounter ends with an unarmed person dying, I think it's fair to say the that at least some cops involved with that encounter did their job poorly. However, because of police union protection, almost all cops involved in such encounters get to keep their jobs
It can also be argued that both the the Roman Catholic Church and some police forces have a problem with recruiting. Police forces are clearly hiring some people who should not be given the power and responsibility that a police officer has, and the Roman Catholic Church would certainly be able to get a better set of people into the priesthood if they changed some of the requirements for entering the clergy ( for example, allowing women to be priests, and perhaps allowed married people to be priests ).
So much like the Catholic Church, America's polices forces have some members of the organization that should certainly be fired and/or jailed, and systemic problems that need to be fixed. However, just as Catholics are willing to admit these problems without thinking less of their parish priest, people who point out the problems with the police for should not be seen an the enemy of the police.
Criticism of the police does not undermine the police - on the contrary, it's helping the police to be more effective and respected. Every time there is a police incidents involving the potentially unwarranted use of deadly force, the public's confidence in the police drops. It's important that communities work with police to help keep communities safe. An engaged community make it easier for cops to do their job and it keeps cops safer. I'm sure most cops and people who care about them are aware of the "Stop Snitchin'" movement in urban African American communities. The "Stop Snitchin" movement is terrible for both cops and the Black communities they serve. There is plenty of blame to go around regarding this movement, but it's also clear that this movement did not develop in a vacuum . It's important that cops take step to make sure the worst members of the force do not alienate the Black community further.
The first step should be to make sure there are less bad cops on the streets. I'm by no means saying that there are a lot of bad cops, and I'm also not saying that all bad cops are bad people. In fact I believe that most "bad" cops are good people who are ill-suited for their job or just needed better training. I'm not going to pretend I understand how scary being a cop can be how it feels to put your life on the line every day. Being a cop is obviously an extremely stressful job, but it's also obvious ( in all phases of life ) that some people are better at handling stress than others. Some people are also better at recognizing and accounting for their implicit bias than other people. I'd like to believe that most cops would have handled situations like the Philando Castile incident better than the cop who shot and killed Mr. Castile.
I think it's just common sense that if Mr. Castile had intended to pull out a gun and shoot the officer talking to him, he would not have announced to the officer that he had a gun in the car. Common sense tells you that Mr. Castile made the announcement because he wanted to avoid being shot. However, I believe fear and implicit bias overrode common sense for the officer who shot Mr. Castile. If you watch the video of the aftermath of the shooting, it seems clear that office who shot Mr. Castile is in a state of fear and panic. He's still pointing his gun in the car and scream at the woman shooting the video to keep her hands where he can see them. I'm not denying that being a cop is an extremely stressful job, but it's clear that some people can't handle that stress. People who can't handle the stress simply should not be police officers.
As we all know, there have been many other similar incidents over the last few years ( and I'm sure there were many other incidents like this in the 200+ years in our nation prior to the invention of smartphones ), but I'm not going to review them all here. This is partly because I simply don't have time to give an analysis of most incidents, but mostly because I don't have all the facts on all the incidents. I'm not going to pretend that I'm 100% sure that deadly force was unjustified in every single one of those incidents. I'm sure there have been cases in which a white police officer was justified in using deadly force in self defense when a Black person was truly a mortal threat to the police officer. I'm sure the will also be plenty of cases in the future where deadly force will be justified. However, when those types of incidents happen going forward, a large percentage of people in this nation will not give the white police officer the benefit of the doubt. Assumptions will be made that the police officer is a racist loose cannon, even before all the facts are known. This truth should serve as motivation for police forces to clean up their act. Cops can't do their job affectively when a large portion of the population is under the false assumption that most white cops are racists. This bad reputation is a bad thing for cops, and the only way for cops to fix their reputation is to get rid of the cops who are giving all the good cops a bad reputation. Note, that when I say "get rid of", I don't necessarily mean permanently. I do believe that any cops who commits an unjustified homicide should be fired and/or imprisoned, but improved training on crisis management and bias could turn sub-par cops into good cops and make all cops better ( Let's face it, everyone has issues with racial bias. Anyone who says they are completely colorblind is either a liar or oblivious to their own faults ).
The bottom line is this, if you care about the police you should want all police forces to be full of well-trained individuals suited to handle the stress associated with the job. I know it is natural for any organization to want to circle the wagons and defend their own when members of the organization face criticism, but the truth is that most of the cops responsible for these terrible shooting are not doing all the good cops any favors. The police forces of America should not feel like they're under attack, just because citizens want to hold them to a higher standard. Higher standards are a good thing that we should all strive for. Nobody ever gets better if they're already convinced they are the best they can be.
Rich
P.S. Sorry if this blog was a bit rambling. I know is not my best work ( I've been too busy with my job and family this month to spend enough time on this ), but I hope I go my basic point across. I actually wanted to talk about Black Lives Matter and Kaepernick in the post, but I guess that will have to wait until next month.
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