Recently in the news here in the USA, there has been a spate of incidents involving law enforcement and members of the public – in physical confrontation resulting in bodily harm and sometimes even death of either a citizen, or a police officer, or both.
This is a sensitive issue and there’s a lot of rhetoric emanating from both sides of the issue. It is tragic when a member of the public is brutalized by someone wearing a badge whose job it is to protect the public from the very same criminality. It is also fearful and heartbreaking when a criminal attacks and hurts or kills a member of law enforcement who is out there protecting us from violations of our person or property.
Those of us who respect the law and respect the constitutional and human rights of citizens to be safe from thugs, in uniform or out of uniform, or on either side of the law, are the true victims. We end up feeling a loss of security – from both the violent criminals among us who use race and other devious means to whip up a frenzy if it can help exonerate their evil , and from those wearing a badge who use it as a license to express their own personal deficiencies, frustrations, or bigotries.
Perhaps, we all need to take a step back and recognize that life is not always black and white, and that there are both good and bad guys in uniform, and out of uniform. We must examine each case thoroughly before jumping to the defense of either cop or alleged victim.
America has a documented history of thousands of cases of brutality, planted evidence, assault, murder, and other crimes against citizens by those whose job is to prevent the same. And those citizens have sometimes included minorities, women, and children. The record, though, includes the violation of the rights of individuals regardless of race – many white Americans also have been traumatized by thugs in uniform.
But we also have a longer and more horrific record of murder assault, rape, theft, and brutality against citizens and law enforcement by criminals of all pigmentations and group classifications. In the final analysis, when the smoke clears and the dust settles, we must recognize that evil and ugliness exist on both sides.
We are better served by working harder to weed out criminals among us and by working harder to vet those who enter law enforcement. For the former, we must not exonerate evildoers among us who use group association conveniently when the chips are down but who deprive us of our own rights to safety – regardless of whether we belong to the same group or not.
For the latter, we must recognize that cops are human too, and often bring baggage from their personal lives to their job. Therein lies the greatest danger, for when a criminal mentality is clothed in the attire of a law enforcer, all hell can break loose and we are doubly threatened as law-abiding citizens.
It is imperative, if we are to move forward together that we weed out the bad guys from both camps and work together to have cops whom we respect and who respect us. And we must not allow those among us to hide behind the cloak of race or religion or ethnicity when they have violated our individual and group rights to safety and security, and who cry injustice if there is none.
It’s not always a case of them vs. us. The record clearly indicates that each case needs to be evaluated separately.
