Reimagine the Police

One political slogan that harmed the Democratic Party during the last election year was Defund the Police. I understood was advocates of police reform were saying, that some of the money in police budgets should be redirected toward social workers and mental health workers. But some folks, urged on by Trump’s law and order rhetoric, interpreted the slogan as abolish the police.

I regularly have to remind myself the most cops are good cops and they have a difficult and dangerous job. In many cities, there has been an upswing in gun violence, partly due to the stresses of the pandemic, but also do to the sheer number of guns in circulation. And I understand the additional stress that law enforcement is under coupled with the hatred towards police.

“…you can truly grieve for every officer who has been lost in the line of duty in this country and still be troubled by cases of police overreach. Those two ideas are not mutually exclusive. You can have great regard for law enforcement and still want them to be held to high standards.” – Jon Stewart

http://www.thewrap.com/jon-stewart-fesses-up-to-one-factual-error-in-his-police-shootings-report-then-curses-out-fox-news-video/

I have a problem with the thin blue line flag. For starters, it’s a violation of the flag code, a modification of the flag almost as egregious as an American flag with Trump’s picture on it. Leave the Stars and Stripes alone! To me, it’s a symbolic middle finger and people who display it or have a decal of it on their car are saying that they are OK with police brutality and extrajudicial killings of people of color. Just look at the color scheme: black and blue, colors associated with bruises and injuries.

I also don’t like the use of tear gas, pepper balls, and rubber bullets towards peaceful demonstrators. And it irks me that law enforcement treats right-wing domestic terrorists with kid gloves and that some officers support groups such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters.

So I like to use the slogan Reimagine the Police when it comes to police reform. Most cops are good cops who protect and serve, but there are more than a few bad cops. And when a person is unnecessarily killed by the police, they are often not charged because they were following procedure. In essence, they are being trained to be bad cops.

So if you want me to Back the Blue, take a good look at how law enforcement is trained and hold them accountable because Black Lives Matter.