There’s so much I want to write about today. So much is happening in politics. But, really, only one thing deserves attention right now–the horrible violence and division that is senselessly taking so many American lives. The shooting of twelve police officers, and killing of five, in Dallas last night is almost incomprehensible. The killing of innocent black men is far too common.
I’m in Minnesota. Yesterday, I stopped by the Governor’s Mansion where protesters were gathered demanding answers to the death of Philandro Castile, the second African-American man killed by police this week. Governor Mark Dayton said what most people know: Castile, who was pulled over for a broken taillight and was in the car with his girlfriend and her four-year-old daughter, probably wouldn’t have died if he had been white. That’s small comfort, but at least it’s recognition and admission of an ugly truth by the state’s top elected official.
Just a few hours later, the first tweets came through my feed indicating another terrible shooting, this time in Dallas. By the time I went to bed, four officers were dead. Another died before I woke up. Seven more were wounded. They were shot by a sniper who wanted to kill white people, especially policemen. The cops who were shot were policing a Black Lives Matters protest that, by all accounts, was peaceful and respectful.
After the shooting in Minnesota, I couldn’t stop thinking about an African-American friend who has two sons in their early twenties. What words of wisdom and reassurance can he offer those boys after events like these? Does he go to sleep every night worrying about their safety? I’m also reminded of how some things have not changed. Growing up in the rural South in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, his parents almost certainly had similar concerns for him. Those aren’t concerns I’ve ever had for my children and my parents never had for me.
After last night, I fear those who want to start a race war. We can’t have a civil society without a police force and we can’t blame all cops for the actions of a few. We need to address the underlying societal and systemic issues that lead to innocent black men dying. We should have zero tolerance for people who target police. The only thing I’m sure about right now is that more guns and more violence won’t solve anything.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Okay…let’s look at what we know.
We know that Baton Rouge police received a call of a man selling CD’s in the parking lot of some establishment and that he had threatened someone with a gun. Police arrive. What transpires next is anyone’s guess but I have an idea. Cut in video from bystander. Shows him on the ground, on his back and two officers trying to roll him over to handcuff him. They don’t have control of him. As they roll, he reaches back behind him. presumptively for the gun he has in his pocket. Why they go to guns rather than try to control his hands and arms…I don’t have an answer to that; I wasn’t there.
In St Paul, a car is pulled over for an equipment violation. There is nothing wrong there, it’s done thousands if not tens of thousands of times every day across this country. For whatever reason, the officer approaches the man in the passenger side of the car. I’m going to suppose that he was asked to identify himself since he was, in retrospect, reaching for his wallet, but at the same time pronouncing he has a weapon, albeit legally, as he’s reaching behind him. Yes, it was for the identification but having just announced he has a weapon…we know what happened next.
Now, if you read Graham v Conner and Tennessee v Garner you will find the two USSC precedent cases concerning police use of deadly force and force in general in this country. I’m not going to paraphrase what those cases entail. But you have to read the decisions and then weigh the facts against what is lawful. All with the overreaching concept of reasonableness of action.
Are people of color targeted for enforcement disproportionate to their representation of the population? I don’t know. There are certainly groups that say they are; notably, “The Sentencing Project” and a few others. Statistically speaking, they are. But how do you determine at what percentage break point to stop or not enforce the law and should enforcement be based on the act and state of mind itself or race? If we are truly a nation of laws and not men, that answer is easy. The solution is more complex however than it being a consideration of “people of color” and “rule of law.” That single premise is what groups like “Black Lives Matter” is premised on however. They demand justice. “No Justice, No Peace” after all. They argue that the system is stacked when the outcome is something other than what they demanded. But I can tell you this. The United States Department of Justice has a group of attorneys committed to investigating and prosecuting nothing but law enforcement. So you can rest assured that when the USDOJ exonerates you of criminal wrong-doing, then you have been through a process prior to that conclusion.
Don’t misconstrue; the police get it wrong too. They are, contrary to popular belief, human. They are not infallible. And if they act irresponsibly, then there are sanctions. No one, not one officer sets out at the beginning of their shift with the preconceived notion of taking a life. But they likewise realize that eventuality may knock at their door at some point. Of the officer involved shootings that I’ve witnessed thus far on the news, the only one that screams at me as maliciously perpetrated is the one from North Charleston. The most tragic I think is the gentleman in St. Paul.
Change through process. The candidates you’re getting have to have at least a high school education. They have to be at least 20 years of age. They have to complete at least 612 hours of basic training. They have to pass a psychological screening to ensure aptitude. And most departments require the candidate pass at least 12 weeks of field training once they begin. At any point along that roadway, they can wash out. At any point from 2-5 years after hire and they become a ‘permanent’ employee of the particular government entity, they can be released…with or without cause. I tell you that because as you can see, there is a reenforced emphasis on conforming to the status quo. No one enters the profession on the basis of becoming independently wealthy. You have to work 30 years in the State of North Carolina generally in order to draw 97% of your salary when you retire. The only employing entity that currently guarantees healthcare benefits is the State. While some municipalities do, the larger ones mostly, not all do and the NC League of Municipalities vehmently lobbies every session in Raleigh to ensure they aren’t required to. And as you’ve seen, the State is working hard to ensure they won’t have to in the future.
Training, salary, benefits. All are important, but they won’t replace trust. There isn’t any. And now, along with no trust, the police are being specifically targeted. How do you handle anything you do can get you killed; including nothing or walking down the street during a peaceful protest.
Solutions. I don’t have any. You can’t make people trust you. You can’t make people like you. Actions do speak louder than words however. So no matter what the dialogue, it is meaningless without action contemporaneous with that dialogue. This entire paragraph is all inclusive; it applies to all sides of the issue.
I will say this however. No decision has been rendered. No action has been taken concerning the shootings in Baton Rouge or St. Paul. But they are being investigated. As they should be. At the conclusion of those investigations, then a decision will be made as to whether or not the officers acted responsibly. Charges aren’t convictions however and as in Baltimore, there was a rush to charge and with three trials done and a fourth in progress, all the officers have been found not guilty thus far. The judicial process was adhered to, all the facts were presented, and a verdict rendered on that basis. And still, there is an outcry of “no justice, no peace.” I do understand that frustration.
Being a vigilante or a “revolutionary hero” however isn’t going to calm anyone down. It is only going to serve to get more people hurt or killed. The very thing no one needs.
How quick we are to rush to judgment. First of all, two separate incidents in two different parts of the country. Each being investigated as it should be and which is going to be viewed in the light of law based on the evidence and testimony provided before a decision is reached on whether or not the officers in Baton Rouge and St. Paul acted within the law and made the right decisions based on what they saw at that time. The only thing known for certain is that two black men were shot by white police officers. That was a public pronouncement within minutes of the news breaking. Watching the news break this morning from Dallas, we knew that 11 officers had been shot, 5 were dead. But the news outlets went out of their way to steer around saying whether or not the shooter was black, white, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, or pink. Why is race such an important aspect of reporting on the one hand and not so much on the other?
If the officers involved in the shootings this week were wrong, acted wrong and outside the law, then they should be held responsible. If. That has yet to be demonstrated or proven. People shout and scream wanting accountability, demand justice, and they take to the streets to protest to voice their displeasure. They want those things on their say so however without regard to jurisprudence or the rule of law. And yet, when confronted with the shoe being on the proverbial other foot, demand their day in court, loudly proclaim their rights as they understand them (not perhaps what they really are) and profess profusely their innocence to anyone that will listen. Yet, the police are the ones with the subjective double standard.
Are there bad cops out there? It pains me to say it, but yes, there are. Those individuals that allow their personal feelings and emotions rule how they enforce the law should find themselves another vocation. The law is the law. It should be applied fairly and impartially to all. Without favor or prejudice; with no regard to social standing or status in society. That’s what it means to be “professional”.
Everyone sees this as a call to action against firearms. Maybe. Wouldn’t have helped here. Those laws won’t help once they’re enacted. You can’t legislate good sense. You can’t write a law that prohibits bad judgment; all you can do is provide sanction for when you exercise it. Either we all work together and figure out how to get along as a group, or not. I know this though. The more devisive we are in our attitudes, our speech, our customs, and our society toward each other, the longer the void will remain in place and grow; it won’t get smaller.
I just copied these responses from the TMZ website. Interesting what people are willing to say sometimes. I found the second one to be the most convoluting though; cops as human beings too; what a concept.
“Micah Xavier Johnson is an all American HERO…he should be COMMENDED for his GOOD deed….We need MORE heroes like Xavier….Xavier set the STAGE for us to FIGHT back against oppression caused by Cops taking the lives of civilians….all of the chanting up and down the streets is ineffective but what IS effective is what Xavier STARTED and THAT will put an END to this nonsense…..R.I.P. Xavier….we commend you for your courageous acts.”
“Calling him a hero for killing an innocent human (even if he was a cop) is DISGUSTING!!!”
“Micah will go down in history like other REVOLUTIONARY GREATS who stood up and gave HELL to the EVIL authorities like Nat Turner, Cinque, Toussaint Louverture and Larry Davis.”
I was going to respond point by point Disgusted, but I don’t have it in me. After reading what I did on TMZ, I suddenly realized I’m tired of this. I’m tired of trying to reason, trying to understand, trying to empathize. Maybe that explains how a lot of people feel.
I think it is more than fatigue. Discussing anything with a bigot, regardless of the particular choice of the group or person they hate, just seems pointless. The irrationality and anger seems impermeable. The option to spew hatred on social media with no consequences has, I believe, made ugly remarks and conduct more acceptable. The saddest aspect is how many young people participate. But the absolute worst is genteel racism disguised as analytical thinking, which serves to protect the author from his/her own bias. It is clear from many of the postings here and elsewhere that few of those writing have ever been genuinely afraid of the police. I have and I still am. That does not mean I hate them, or am less horrified by the deaths and injuries in Dallas. But I have some grasp of the anxiety people of color feel around cops. Not the same, but at least an inkling, which I hope provides a modicum of humility about passing judgment on their outrage. As for the points in the posting by Disgusted, the NYC police dept has almost every protocol listed in place, salary is good, very good pensions upon retirement, strong (very) police union, extensive education requirements, and a Civilian Review Board, which is not entirely useless, just less than many had hoped. But anyone who thinks that police force is free of bad cops, free of racism or ethnic bias, free of sexism, etc etc is living on another planet. Hiring, training, and supervision do not eliminate bias. It probably makes it less frequently apparent — until a situation becomes very risky and then one had best hope for a lot of bystanders really watching. I would still rather have the NYC cops handling a protest or a major convention than any other in the country, but I am not naive about the difference between that and the day to day policing of black and Latino areas. Right now, I wish both political conventions were months away. I fear the next couple of weeks will see more of these terrible events.
The United States is far from a police state, and, by and large, we have some of the best-educated and best-trained police officers in the world. I have lived in countries where you fear for your safety when the police are near. The police in this country do protect and defend most people from harm, and they do so with pride and honor. When they run afoul of the law, there are protections built into our system which allow the private citizen to address them, most of the time.
Think of Somalia where war lords ran sectors of the country armed with technicals. No one in their right mind would try to enforce the law against the thugs under the protection of the war lords. Mexico is just one narco-state run by drug lords. A few years ago, the Texas border town El Paso had 5 murders in the same year that Juarez, the neighboring border town, had more than 3,500 murders. The economy of Afghanistan is 70% supported by heroin production. During Apartheid, the atrocities in South Africa committed by warring factions were unspeakable, and, in Rwanda, neighbors with machetes hacked a million of each other to death. There are hell holes all over this globe, and the United States is not one of them.
However, I have defended people who were beaten up by cowardly police officers who handcuffed them before wailing on them unnecessarily with clubs.. Anyone who has encountered rogue police officers understands that the charge “resisting arrest” is the blank check used to tune up someone during the arrest. With nearly a million men and women in uniform in communities large and small, there are vast differences in training and police culture. Dallas is one of the best police forces in the country.
Nationally our police have borrowed too much from the military and too little from Mayberry. Excess military hardware is donated to cities and towns which could not afford such exotic equipment but for the generosity of the Pentagon. Our military budget overflows with hardware which spills into small towns, giving every community access to tanks and high caliber weaponry suitable for defending against terror, but not much help in resolving the dog barking dispute on Elm Street.
July began with two horrific killings of black men whose offenses should not have involved capital punishment. It appeared that the nation would resume the killing season against black men we hoped we had left behind in 2015.
In our national defense the United States has leaned heavily on the poor and on minority servicemen. We have trained millions of black and Hispanic men and women and sent them into battle for us. It is not surprising that a black veteran in Dallas would see more senseless the killing of black men, and, expecting no consequences or justice, he took up arms against the nearest police force.
Technology has changed us. For decades, police killing of a citizen in the United States could be ignored as an isolated incident, unrelated to other tragic incidents. Those days are gone. The videos are on the internet almost as soon as the incident takes place. Police officers in the smallest communities are seconds away from being featured on every cell phone, every computer and every network. And, in the process, they become the catalyst for a national crisis.
I fear that some of the police really are crypto-racists and have used their positions to suppress African-Americans in many ways. The two recent murders fit that description. While everyone is entitled to their own thoughts and attitudes, police who interact with the public are not. I think all police departments should test their staff to discover who may not be qualified to interact with some people. They might not have to be fired, but only confined to duties where their attitudes will cause no harm.
Very well said. Sometimes I fear that our society is falling apart. I am 63 and cannot remember having a more hopeless feeling.
Today the right and left wing pundits and politicians will claim it’s the other sides fault and spew their vitriol. I can’t stand it anymore.
We are Americans dammit , and if we cannot come together as a society, we are doomed. At this point we need statesmen and true leaders for certain, but we all need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves what we can do personaly to be part of the solution
I agree. Somehow we simply must find common ground. A friend sent me this link, which I share because your concern for our personal efforts on these issues. Perhaps some aspect of the ideas will be useful. “15 Things Your City Can Do Right Now to End Police Brutality” https://mic.com/articles/121572/15-things-your-city-can-do-right-now-to-end-police-brutality#.992goOzcN
A horrible series of fatal events, all linked. Just heard the Dallas Police Chief say that the shooter stated he was upset with the Minnesota and Baton Rouge killings, and that, in his rage and sick mind, wanted to kill white cops. I was upset when I heard about Baton Rouge, more upset with news from St Paul, and outraged watching the news from Dallas on TV last night and this morning.
I cannot help but note how guns—their carrying (in the St Paul case, apparently legally), or their being used too quickly and indiscriminately (in lieu of other means to defuse/control a situation), or their easy availability (especially semi-automatic rifles)—were central to all of these deaths.