COMMENTARY by Steven K. Haught, Editor
If you’ve been paying attention to the news of the past two weeks, then you know what’s been happening across the country and a fascinating situation that developed in Seattle.
Protestors and so-called anarchists seized a six block section of downtown Seattle and declared it to be an autonomous zone. Police withdrew and left the area to be controlled by the Black Lives Matters protestors.
While that certainly is news and unusual, what really stands out is what was said about the police. An Ethiopian immigrant said… “If there is no police, there is no problem.” The protestors even renamed the police station… “the Seattle People Department.”
A Seattle church pastor said… “It’s a re-imagination of what it looks like for a neighborhood to really look after itself.”
This may not happen in every city, but in Seattle, it seems clear that people are afraid of the police. People of all colors are uptight and uncomfortable when their behavior is under the watchful eyes of men and women who carry a gun and a club.
I am a white male, over the age of 65, living in a comfortable neighborhood in a suburban area of a large city in the eastern U.S.. I am afraid of the police. Can’t remember when I was not apprehensive at the thought of any interaction with cops. I have never been a law-breaker, but I still avoid them as best I can. Why is my feeling so prevalent in America today, regardless of color?
It goes back many years, at least 40 to 50 years ago, when most of the policing policies and strategies were born and taught at police academies across the country.
It was declared by more than one president of that era that America was going to be a nation of law[s] and order. Born of that political vision, and the experiences of suppressing the riots of the late 1960s, cops began exhibiting aggressive actions and tactics against any signs of disorder. The strategy was simple… ‘broken window’— send an armed white male to solve the problem.
Cops approached the community with a ‘zero tolerance’ for minor crimes, magnified by ‘protective policing’ exhibiting relentless, aggressive and frequently violent forms of enforcement.
For communities most affected by these tactics, it came to be seen that policing consists of stopping, frisking, clubbing, cuffing and arresting people of color in large and growing numbers. This of course has led to increasing prison populations, often characterized by excessive sentences for minor to trivial infractions of laws unevenly applied. The result? Look around America… you can see the simmering anger and hatred for the police and law enforcement policies.
American cities deploy their police forces as though they are an ‘all-purpose social-worker team’ who can solve any problem with tools and tactics more appropriate for the battlefield.
People with no place to sleep? Send the cops. Someone suffering from mental illness and acting erratically? Send the cops. Trouble with drugs? Send the cops. And it goes well beyond those things. Loose dogs, loud neighbors, and young bored teens just hanging out in a public place where they’re not welcome… ALL get a harsh dose of the cops.
Every societal failure is put off on the police to solve. Policing was never meant to solve all the problems they are currently tasked to handle. They are neither equipped properly, nor are they trained to handle with sensitivity the problems they are asked to resolve.
The problems police are called upon to handle, requires a set of skills mostly foreign to the ‘type’ of person who pursues a career in law enforcement. They need a wide range of skills that they simply do not have. They are trained to manage ALL problems with a rigid and if necessary brut force approach to maintaining ‘law and order.’
What about ‘mediation skills’ helping people grapple with that could lead to violence? Social work skills are essential in the inner-city areas of every major city in America. Most cops are not equipped to handle situations of homelessness. They lack the ability to diagnose substance abuse or mental illness or know how to intervene carefully in a dysfunctional relationship teetering on the brink of violence.
I hope you don’t think America could exist without policing in its communities. We cannot, and defunding the police is more a cry of frustration and anger, than a useful and meaningful solution to a systemic problem.
So what can be done to help police be more effective in working with the communities they serve? It has to start with tearing down the “macho attitude” associated with becoming a cop. The police academies and academic institutions that teach law enforcement have to drastically revise curriculums to meet the needs of the community.
The old saying… “if all you have is hammer, everything looks like a nail” is in fact the prevailing attitude of most cops, especially when dealing with what they have been taught to believe—that ‘people of color’ cause the most problems and commit the most crimes. Deal with them harshly if necessary, and it always seems like they live up to that mindset perfectly. The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The death of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta.
The mind of a typical bad cop: “I have a gun and I can suppress any situation I am called to fix. I can fire my weapon at the disruptive person [especially if he is black] and immediately bring the criminal into submission… or render him dead! I did my job… why do I have to explain what I did to anyone?”
Current police strategies across America have failed in their mandate… “to protect and serve.” In defense of police officers, they are only doing what they have been trained to do. They have no directive, other than to maintain law and order. Many police will say they are asked to do things for which they are not trained.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
America needs to rethink the kind of person that will be allowed to serve in community policing. There is no question the personality type must be reevaluated.
Soft skills must move to the top of the tool set cops are sent to the community with, the gun must move to the bottom of the toolbox.
Cops need a multidisciplinary set of skills that includes training in mediation, social work/psychology, racial sensitivity, extensive knowledge of social services programs and EMT skills. This is NOT a brief summary program of courses… it needs to be an intensive 2-4 year program that has a healthy attrition rate, maybe 40%, that way the bad apples fall by the wayside before they are allowed to use their ”hammer” in violent abuse of the communities they would serve.
If a police person could graduate from an intensive training and education with a genuine heart to serve, ‘to do no harm’ and not think they have to always ‘win’ an encounter by any means, then maybe the future of policing will change in America.
The ray of hope, and there really is one, in today’s crisis is that it’s not just the policies communities that are profoundly unhappy with the current approach, the police themselves think the system they operate under is flawed and broken. That’s good news.
But there are still bad cops out there who are eager to ‘win’ their encounters with anyone who is ‘out-of-line’ with how they interpret the administration of law and order. Those individuals need to re-enlist in the military and use their aggressive mindset in conflicts with the Taliban in Afghanistan or another place where the “enemy" shoot back!
It will take several things for change to really take root: a new attitude from the policy makers, a new-type of person who wants a policing career, skills and tools that work to solve problems, and a drastic revision in how we distinguish serious crime from social problems, and the revelry of kids and teens.
After the cruel death of George Floyd and the beginning of the riots and protests across America, my 11 year grandson sat on the sofa in our family room watching the somber news on TV. Then came an announcement a couple of days later, that a ‘protest’ would happen in our small community [suburb of great Philadelphia] and he was worried. He was concerned about things he had seen happening to his family… the destruction of property and the like. I assured him he had nothing to worry about, everything would be okay, we were safe.
But, I wondered in the privacy of my own mind if we really could be safe? I do worry that America must change, a new order must emerge, one that honors and respects the sacredness of human life and cherishes the diversity of this country. All races, tribes, colors. Diversity founded this nation and made it great. All tribes and peoples of the American landscape must once again come together and make it great again. For only ‘we the people’ — ALL the people, can make it happen.
With justice laced with grace, compassion, decency and a color-blind equality for all… we will find peace and safety for ALL Americans.
May the God of peace and compassion console the pain and anguish of the families of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks and the countless men and women of all colors, who have been victims of police brutality.
Hate cannot drive out hate… only LOVE can do that.” -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Steven K. Haught, is the founder and managing director at ENCORE! 2.5™ Strategic Solutions LLC, a strategy consulting practice headquartered in S.E. Pennsylvania. Internationally recognized author, writer, speaker and publisher; currently publishes—Global Insights & Trends and Renovations4Living; formerly a newspaper executive/publisher/editor; directed an international sales team for an top-tier software company; founder/director of two non-profits including a humanitarian/educational services organization based in S.E. Asia; He holds an MBA in strategic management and a doctorate in theological studies.
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