DILEMMA; BLOG # 173; MAR 6, 2015

THE PADDY WAGON

THE MESSAGE:

F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, was discussing the difficult relationship between the POLICE and BLACKS at Georgetown University in Washington. He remarked, "Officers who work in the tough neighbourhoods where blacks commit crimes at a high rate, develop a cynicism that shades their attitudes about race."

He  acknowledged that law enforcement had a troubled legacy when it came to race. Police officers of all races viewed black and white men differently.  Mr. Comey said,  "Some officers scrutinize Blacks more closely  because in areas of high crime rates, black men are arrested at much higher rates than white men."

“All of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty,” he said. “At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a situation that was often brutally unfair to disfavoured groups.”

Mr. Comey went on to say that there was a significant amount of research showing that all people have an unconscious racial bias.

Law enforcement agencies need systems and processes to overcome this natural bias. It is imperative to design a model to achieve such a goal.

It is true that all groups of immigrants, back in the day, took their turn being treated unfairly and were regarded stereotypically as somehow inferior.  As Comey points out, the Irish in New York were regarded as a bunch of drunken hooligans always requiring special attention from the police. 

Hence the term 'Paddy wagon" became the name for police arrest vehicles. Many immigrants of Italian origin were branded as either turncoats or mobsters. Certainly these examples are relatively minor when compared to what blacks have had to undergo. The fact remains that law enforcement agencies have an incredibly difficult job in dealing with crime in too many neighbourhoods.

RESTRAINT IN DENVER

Denver's police chief told officers not to intervene, but to stand by and watch, as protesters threw red paint on a memorial for fallen officers during a weekend march against police brutality. The stand-down order upset some officers, who said it sends a message that protesters can get away with increasingly brazen crimes.

SERIOUSLY?

Some police departments have been criticized for using military-style methods of crowd control against protesters. Denver's approach of restraint is being shared by agencies across the country, as experts say police interference can actually escalate violence and erode trust.

REALLY?

OTHER POLICE AROUND THE U.S.

Dealing with protests should start before demonstrators even hit the streets, said Maj. Max Geron of the Dallas Police Dept. speaking in his capacity as a security studies scholar who wrote his master's thesis on policing and protests. 

He studied the responses of several police departments around the country to the 'Occupy Protests' and found that a hands-off approach works best whenever possible.

Portland, Oregon Police, for example, assigned specific officers to patrol Occupy encampments so protesters could become familiar with them. In Salt Lake City, police made arrangements with Occupy protesters so they could be arrested on their own terms.

Police chiefs in Chicago, Boston, Nashville, Tennessee, and elsewhere have taken a largely hands-off approach to demonstrations, shutting down streets to accommodate marches and opening lines of communication with protest groups.

LET'S TALK?

THE QUESTION:

What is the single most important process that must be developed to settle the issue of perceived unfair treatment of minorities by police?

THE QUOTE:

TWEET TWEET

“We must all learn to live together as brothers, or we will all perish together as fools.”
-M.L. KING

LAURELS:

M'LADY

To Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, for her quick wit, her clever mind and for falling asleep during Obama's State of the Union address.

THE CLIP: