Now It Is Time for Some Solutions

Now It Is Time for Some Solutions

All of the protests in the world don’t mean a thing unless some workable solutions come from them.

It is the responsibility of all sides to now sit down at the table and fix it.

I’m pretty sure that the news cycle will shift, again, to the Covid-19 pandemic and its frightening toll on the world. We’re not out of the woods on that one yet and, quite honestly, I don’t think anybody has any idea when that might occur.

The danger here, of course, is that like so many other things, it could come back to dominate that space in our brains where we contemplate the troubles of a world gone awry, inflamed by the dog-whistle racism tweets from the West Wing.

I mean, we’ve seen this in the tragic aftermath of mass shootings, where we are shouted down by the redneck politicians who insist that “it is too early, the wounds are still too fresh” to open meaningful dialog about solving the problem of the killing fields of America. Then, before you know it, the issue is hijacked by whatever news du jour story captures our fancy, the outrage dissipates, and dialog is shelved.

It’s why we have unresolved issues with healthcare, gun violence, and, of course, racial injustice. These deflections only exacerbate the problems, compounding the severity of predictable reactions when such things go unchecked.

So it is time for solutions.

The protests were spurred, of course, because of the mostly negative relationship between law enforcement and the African-American community, the violence perpetrated upon black America, the murders at the hand of police officers, the racism that has seized the heart of a good portion of the nation, the willingness to turn soldiers against the civilian population.

We can point to a systemic root, of course, as ignorance begets more ignorance. It’s a learned thing, not genetic. We don’t come out of the womb predisposed to dislike each other, it is a behavior we develop as a result of our environment, our culture. We will never get it right until we fix things at that end and since cultural change moves at glacial speed, we had damn well start working with our kids right now, today. They need to learn, in their schools, their churches, their homes, that racism is an unforgivable sin, and we can only hope they teach their parents the same.

They need to learn that it is not enough to just denounce racism but to live and set an example of embracing all of humankind. Simply saying that you are saddened by the death of George Floyd and the many, many others is not enough. It doesn’t give you a pass.

You’ve got to live it, embrace it, preach it, set an example in not only word but deed.

We also must realize that changes are demanded in our policing procedures.

It is time that we demilitarize our police departments.

We do not need cops on the street with military-grade weapons.

We do not need cops driving around in armored vehicles.

We do not need tear gas, flash bombs, and smoke bombs.

They may be less lethal, but if you take a close look at the rubber bullets they use for crowd control, and how often they are used, it amounts to excessive force.

And, there is no call for chokeholds, whether it is a knee on the neck or the crook of the elbow that suffocates another human being. These actions are all incendiary in nature and do nothing to foment cooperation and respect in the black community.

There is no room for profiling, which no matter how much the cops deny, is a staple of policing.

Most importantly, we cannot allow the police to police themselves. It’s how a guy with 18
complaints on his record remains on the job long enough to kill a black man who may or may not have passed a bad $20 bill.

I saw the video from Buffalo, New York, where cops pushed a 75-year-old man to the ground.

As he lay there bleeding from his right ear, another cop tried to stop and come to his assistance but was pushed forward by another cop.

I saw the video from Atlanta where a young girl was beaten and bleeding from the head after a cop worked her over with a billy club.

I saw the cops in Los Angeles free-swinging at protestors, pounding those at the front of the line with batons and fists.

I saw the wannabe soldiers all dolled up in camo and Kevlar, armed to the teeth and looking for a fight against unarmed civilians. It was like watching a Third World uprising, an insult to liberty and freedom as they trampled the Constitution by stifling our 1 st Amendment rights. Want to be a soldier? Drop by your local recruiting office. But, be wary, the military is looking for a few good men and women, not thugs.

I saw a member of the media handcuffed for no reason, a photographer for a major news
agency get hit in the eye and permanently blinded by a rubber bullet, a group of peaceful
protestors maced in front of a church so the president could have his blasphemous photo op with a bible.

It is clear that we do not do an adequate job of vetting applicants for the police force, that POST training is inadequate, that we have placed unwarranted trust in a corrupt and violent profession.

I understand police work can be tough, dirty, dangerous.

I get it.

But, so are many other jobs.

As a reporter, I’ve been shot at, I’ve seen things that can never go unseen, had some very
frightening experiences. I once told a police officer who I still hold in the highest regard that his job and mine were pretty much the same, that we basically were both seeking information, the only difference being he got to carry a badge and a gun.

This blue code, where cops turn a blind eye to improper behavior by fellow officers, has got to be quashed. If 10 “good” cops see one “bad” cop, violate another human being, and say nothing, what you really have are 11 “bad” cops. If you think differently, you are part of the problem.

Minneapolis needs to act immediately and fire the medical examiner for a bad autopsy. The city must fire its district attorney for being slow to press charges against the rogue cops.

The Democratic Party must kick Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s hopes for a place on the ticket with Joe Biden to the curb because of her blatant political shirt-tailing by insisting that she announce that the three other cops at George Floyd’s killing were being charged instead of allowing local officials to make the statement. It was political ugliness.

I’ve seen some cities where they set up civilian review boards, but the problem with that is the appointees are usually political buddies of the mayor and council and are usually not affiliated with any watchdog organizations that could render a fair decision on the behavior of the police force. And, they rarely have the authority to set punishments.

There are 28 states that have enacted three-strikes laws, where it is mandatory for a criminal who commits three serious felonies to receive a life sentence. Well, if it’s good enough for the bad guys, it should be good enough for the cops. Those who, upon fair and just review, are found to have three serious complaints in their file should be booted from the force, their names placed in a national database, and their careers as law enforcement officers ended for good.

Cops used to walk the beat.

They knew their turf, each and every square inch.

They knew the residents.

They knew the businesses.

They had a connection to the streets they patrolled and didn’t simply do drive-by policing.

They didn’t cruise in armored vehicles with militarized weapons, they did police work, they were connected to the communities they were sworn to protect.

These changes won’t make a difference until they are implemented universally from Black Lives Matter Plaza to the Venice Beach boardwalk.

There are solutions to stop the killing.

It just takes guts to implement them.

Peace.

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