With everyone including politicians living in the ever influential world of social media,there seems to be a tendency to abandon the accumulated knowledge of the human race by tossing the baby out with the bath water in times of crisis. We have a fickle media who declares in blanket declarations, the police as heroes one week and not heroes the next. The threat of disbanding or defunding of police departments seems extreme. The large number of seemingly unsolvable social problems has created destructive and demoralizing scapegoating instead of problem solving.
It is hard not to conflate problems in the US to those in Canada because of our proximity as a country and how news of both are intertwined and often story matched, compared and contrasted. Issues meld mostly because of the way they are fallowed and presented. The single issue narrative does not stand alone in a multi narrative crisis world faced by police dealing with street crime ,drugs alcohol, guns, knives, drunk driving, terrorism, suicide by cop, mental health, physical health,diagnosing diabetic shock,the list goes on and any single incident could involve a combination of the above. Everything looks different in hind sight.
Can police do a better job,yes they can. Defund with care.
Racism or systemic racism is a single issue that has solutions but the brush is being used in broad strokes as it is being applied to both sides. This time after fifty years of multiculturalism, the election of minority mayors, premiers, police chiefs and federal politicians as well as activism that is so much more that ever before, much progress has been made. Policing still sits at the center of controversy and the dangers of street crime have also increased exponentially. There are entire counties being taken over by criminal organizations not that far away. Crime is an existential threat.
The act of involuntary arrest is messy, and when does it become brutality, and when does racism become a factor or a reality? The George Floyd case is defiantly rare and commonplace at the same time and the courts will figure that out.
The lack of trust in law enforcement has been strongly and loudly voiced in the many demonstrations and vigils over the years. Gaining trust is the biggest hurdles that police departments have to build. Years of trust building can disappear in just one incident as shown by the Floyd death.
Other visually documented cases have more of a commonality. These are actually life and death situations not faced by the average person while living their lives. These are often generally predictable repeating themes for local police and members of the public present and living their lives in various postal/zip postal codes. It looks like a problem of procedures meeting messy real life. Members of the police know everyday they will likely be in this precarious situation and they may be injured or killed on any given day. They still go into work.
There is no doubt that policing is facing ever increasing dangers, more often, not of it's own making, but also dangers that are self inflicted. The forces of politics and the trend of cost benefit economists have left law enforcement and the weakest members of society in a daily and without exaggeration, life and death struggle with each other. Doing what is right by any moral code is costed, strategized and communicated in order to create plausible denial when order breaks down. Racism and police brutality has become the easy answer to all problems. Secret,personal and profession codes of behavior have become outdated. They also may be the last strand attaching civilized society together in the age of relativity.
One very essential and practical question to be asked is how do police arrest someone who does not want to be arrested? It seems obvious by some videos that running away from police has a good chance of success. How can a police officer wearing all the protective gear they are required to wear chase and out run and apprehend a person who is equally as fast but not carrying the same extra weight. How can can a smaller officer subdue a much larger person who does not want to be subdued? Adding, failure to subdue results in death of one or the other. How does an officer know for sure if the person they are chasing is armed with a knife or gun or both? These questions are unknowable,so procedures and codes of survival kick in when the politics become entangled.
Does fear of arrest and incarceration, for both police and members of the public trigger extreme anxiety, mental health issues, professional burnout, PTSD a past terrifying situation displacement, arrest quotas, physical size, bias, burnout,training, fear of immanent death or injury,loss of a weapon, loss of life, stabbing or loss of eyesight, or racism,change the calculation if the offense is minor and the person is known. In a chase not so much, in a wrestling match all bets are off.
The final act of being handcuffed in a struggle ,actually closing the cuffs, locking them to both wrists seems to be fraught with difficulty during a struggle. The final act of cuffing seems to be done with great difficulty even when four police officers are present. In one video, a suspect spikes his gun to the ground as police move in. The first takes the person to the ground, two others struggle to grab at the suspects arms. One officer is using a knee to the face down suspects lower back to hold the suspect in place during the struggle to grab the arms. They try to get the wrists into the cuffs and then lock mechanisms together, the fourth officer with gun drawn watches from above for visible weapons, he sees a knife, kicks the suspect to release it and kicks it away. A fifth officer come in, one officer breathes a deep breath after it is all over. June 12 2020.Wpg Police release arrest video because it wasn't immediately clear to the public the knife was in play when the story was first released. In another place and time the suspect likely would have been killed. This may be cherry picking but in a year or two after defunding, would there be five police officers called to such an incident would there be five officers available to respond, would the outcome be different?
This is all unknowable, 30 years ago there may have only been a single officer police unit dispatched.
The studies into the causes of violence have some not so surprising observations.
The one that makes the most sense is steeped historically in religion and folklore. It is simply the capacity for extreme good vs evil is in every person, all the time and in the thought and action of everyday life. In the end, it leaves the grass roots to deal with each other by using what ever means necessary. They say men grow up learning to fight or negotiate.
The present politics of reaction and re-election has left the public with a sense the political leadership is all hat and no horse. The hats may be easily changed but the same problems persist.
Everyday we all make decisions that are mostly good but sometimes evil. For some these decision are reversed. There are cases when good people are moved to do evil either in a situation bargain, or a life altering pattern.
In general most people believe,most people are good and more than that all start out good.
The aspirations of goodness are expressed historically through religion, good behavior, sin and forgiveness. The modern legal systems believe in the same more or less.
For some, a good person can be fooled so the another person can benefit and move ahead of the good person. It seems taking advantage has become a good thing. “Greed is good,” is an acceptable practice.
It is “just business” all compartmentalize actions and insulate the practice from better judgment.
It is the nature of violence,fear, racism and sin the hardest to understand in real terms.
The idea is that people have the innate capacity for both. It maybe the parts that are good and are a component of human natural as the animal parts that are bad. It is only the percent that determines a consistent life path. It is part of a daily dialogue with ones self to be good or bad. The environment has a say. The visual concept of a good angel on one shoulder and a bad angle on the other is the simplest to understand.
In most life paths the good wins out with relativity minor transgressions.
Defunding police seems like a risk considering what is out there in the world.
Opinion by Ken Gigliotti
Topic: Defunding Police-The Chase-The Cuffs-The problems (Read 1161 times)