The issue of policing is not an easy one. Oh, sure, everyone likes to make it an either/or thing. You either support the police or you don’t support the police.
We know it is not that simple, but when making arguments everyone runs to one extreme side of the ledger or the other.
There is no question, at least the evidence is overwhelming, that the police treat blacks and Latinos differently. And part of that problem is that our police force is not nearly as diverse as it should be.
I was never a fan of this “defund the police” movement. Or rather, I should say, I was never a fan of the wording. Transitioning the police into doing the enforcement they are trained for and moving other responsibilities to other organizations more capable of doing them is a good and proper thing to do.
The police are asked to do way more than they should be asked to do. Mental health, social work, counseling … it is all in there and is just too complicated to put in the hands of the men and women trained to protect and serve. That burden adds to the stress of a dangerous job. But because of that stress and danger, we have to carefully evaluate regularly whether the men and women of the police force are, individually, up to the job. It is not a weakness to succumb to that enormous stress, but in such a highly visible and necessary job, we have to require a higher degree of fitness for the job.
Although the vast majority of police really care about the job they do, and truly do excellent work, there are still too many who take their legally protected use of force to the utmost extreme. There must be an avenue for removal.
[image_caption]Dave Mindeman[/image_caption]
In the situation of police, unfortunately, we have bent over backwards to protect them from being held accountable. Limited immunity is a mistake. The police internal “code” is a means of limiting legal actions. Police hide behind their own lines and seem to believe that giving up a bad cop will somehow put all of them in jeopardy.
That culture has to change. Laws have to change. Police tactics have to change. Police accountability has to change.
The interaction between police and the community has become toxic, not everywhere mind you, but in very visible places. The Minneapolis police force has a terrible record in this regard. The police union acts as though anyone outside of its bubble is an enemy. And I fully believe that its president, Bob Kroll, is the toxic example of this and he needs to go.
I also believe that reforming police funding is necessary as well. We don’t need to “defund” but we do need to reallocate. Get more of our resources and departments involved. All hands on deck, so to speak.
President Donald Trump has poisoned the ability to have these discussions. We need to do better, and the racial disparity has to end.
Dave Mindeman, of Apple Valley, is a retired pharmacist. His writing appears on MN Political Roundtable.
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Eliminate insurance and without fault settlements! If city councils were forced to admit guilt and assign blame for police actions they might do corrections!
Yes mental health and social work often times are too complicated to put in the hands of police, however, and its a big one, often times there is a safety factor, or usually an unknown factor. Police are needed to first assess safety. Again and I will say this over and over, you need to have those who do the actual work at the table when discussing reforms as part of the solution. And yes Kroll is not helping the situation.
Since something like 5% of police calls involve violence, and that is usually known by the dispatcher, it would be better to send a police officer along with the social worker in those cases; particularly when a social work expert does not feel that de-escalation would be effective. This would still greatly reduce the number of calls involving police.
I think we should hear from social workers first, before using them “on the street” for intractable symptoms of mental health, petty crimes borne of poverty and those social problems that cannot be addressed in crisis situations.
That said, police dispatchers seem to be the place to intervene in patterns that often reach bad results. EMTs should not be administering drugs to control situations at the order of police. What they should do? I’d like to hear from them, too.
Which warrants should be executed by arrest at traffic stops? Parking fines? Expired tabs? There should be a minimum seriousness. Let’s hear from the courts about “outstanding warrants” and when to use force to take someone in to custody. (maybe they are easy to find later.)
The NFL and other new scholarships aimed at the encouraging scholars who achieve in the Black community are by far the best response we have seen from the so-called “private sector”. We MUST reward and encourage everyone who has been marginalized but keeps doing quality work to help them overcome their circumstance. This is the best long term answer outside of an enlightened political class. IMHO
If you have a problem with police union rules, get new people to negotiate the contact the police operate under. The overseers of the police department is the Mayor and city council, if you don’t like the job they are doing, vote in new people. If you want more transparency put that in the collective bargained agreement that police officers have worked out, through their union, with overseers. The knee on the upper back, neck area was used 247 times since 2015 by Mpls police. If people want that banned, put what holds are acceptable in the next agreement. You get the police force you vote for, plain and simple. If their is systemic racism in the police force, do you blame the police or the overseers of the police?