(ThyBlackMan.com) A Florida man was recently shot and killed by a police officer in a citizen academy during a role playing incident. A police officer shoots an unarmed and helpless mental health professional then states he doesn’t know why he did it. A Cincinnati campus police officer shoots and kills Samuel Dubose as it is captured live on his bodycam then lies about it. A police officer shoots a man in a car while the man’s girlfriend and young child are present inside. Officers throw a flashbang into a house and into the crib of a young child, critically injuring him. Two police officers play a game of wild west “quick draw” while on duty and one shoots the other one by mistake. And the list goes on and on and on.
The fact of the matter is that many police officers are not as competent in the law as you may think. While there are many good and dedicated officers who are well trained and law abiding, that only represents one side of the coin. Here is the other side of that coin and many police officers know these things to be true but they will never admit it. Sometimes those who carry a gu
n and badge should never have been hired. They may not have or even taken a comprehensive psychological exam. But they are hired anyway because they passed the background check, they passed the physical, they passed the academy classes and the police department needed bodies in uniform.
Some police officers on our streets have come out of the military, suffer from PTSD and/or have not been deprogrammed from being the killers they were trained to be. Then, if they are hired by police departments, they are unleashed on an unsuspecting public. This means mentally unstable officers are slipping through the cracks and into the field to patrol our cities and neighborhoods.
Sometimes citizens assume police officers are experts in the law. That is often not the case either. The average uniformed officer is a man or woman who needed a job with benefits, not a legal expert. And the training he/she receives does not make him/her an expert. That brings us to the issue of training. Some police officers are only trained for 9 or 10 weeks while other departments train their officers for 6 to 9 months and that is a huge difference. The less training an officer has, the less he/she is prepared for what officers may encounter and the more mistakes in judgment or threat assessment he/she is likely to make. But again, departments are under pressure to get people into uniform and out on the streets. And officials have not figured out how to weed out or prosecute the bad officers without de-motivating the good ones. All the more reason for you as a citizen to know your legal rights and the laws that regulate you from day to day. That is your responsibility to know, not their responsibility to teach you.
As a former detective, I can tell you of so many cases where police officers did not know the law that it would make your head spin. I can also tell you of supervisor after supervisor, command staff member after command staff member who would be outright scared to ride with some of the very officers under their command. Why? Because they know some officers have an ego that is far bigger than it should be. Well trained and balanced law enforcement supervisors know far too many other police officers are too gung ho and could easily enflame encounters instead of diffusing them. To even write an article such as this, I have to be insulated and connected with key law enforcement, judicial and political allies watching my back – and so I am.
Some police officers are simply not police material. But because the job of a police officer is fairly easy to acquire, the salary is decent for a modest lifestyle, there are other perks and many local law enforcement jobs do not require a college degree, the average Joe is likely to pursue a career in local law enforcement, even if he is neither mentally nor emotionally suited for it. There are officers who are scared as well – and a scared officer is likely to “freak out” and hurt you quicker that an angry one. But officers will never tell the community they are scared because it would cause a loss of public confidence in your local police department. So they hide their fear just as many of them hide their lack of knowledge of the law and their lack of adequate training – all issues that manifest in their mistakes, all issues that often cost lives of private citizens all over this country. So you see, racism is clearly not the only problem. This is what groups like “Black Lives Matter” fails to overstand and any group that misdiagnoses or underestimates the problem will miscalculate the solutions.
Police officers should have comprehensive psychological exams before being hired, annual psychological screen and situational psychological evaluations when they are involved in a shooting. This should be mandated by every state law enforcement regulatory agency and required by federal law. The death of so many of our citizens at the hands of police officers should surpass an epidemic and it should be matter of national internal security because American citizens are at risk and statistically we have a greater chance of being shot by a police officer than being attacked by a terrorist.
To receive a free copy of the Nationwide Strategic Plan To End Police Brutality, send your email request to atlantacrimecommission@yahoo.com
The information I am sharing with you in this article is an icebox of hard, cold facts that most officers know to be true and thus it is very unpopular. But these are also the facts most officers will never likely admit to, especially those officers who stick to the “blue code”. Many of the district attorneys, judges, paper citizen review boards, city council members, police command staff, police supervisors, county commissioners, state politicians, mayors and city attorneys all know these things to be true, but instead they cover for the officers and shift the blame onto the citizens as often as they can.
There is a climate of false assumption in this country that the police officer is innocent until proven guilty but the unarmed victim (citizen) is guilty until proven innocent.
The narrative against the citizen is commonly “he should not have …..“. This often implies that it is the fault of an unarmed citizen that he or she is dead at the hands of a police officer – and that is not always true. So we have to be honest and change the narrative to one that reflects the truth and accountability for officers just as we do with citizens instead of simply blaming the deceased victim.
We can respect the police, appreciate the good officers and hold the bad ones accountable all at the same time if the people who train, hire and regulate them will open their eyes and do their jobs. For those officials who have forgotten what that means, it means doing what is right, applying the law fairly and justly and doing what is best for the community, not for the police officer. And for those courageous officials like Marilyn Mosby (Maryland state Attorney in the Freddie Gray case) who are attacked for doing their jobs, they must be supported, encouraged and protected. We cannot allow the system to make an example out of those who do the right thing. If we allow that, others will never step up to do likewise.
Police departments and those who protect them have covert ways of going after those who file complaints, post videos and expose police corruption so be careful, be lawful yet strategic in what you do and have as many people watching as you can.
Defense attorneys are often forced to play along as well because of the oaths they take, their positions as officers of the court and their membership in the club called the BAR association. That is why you will not see many defense attorneys practicing all of your rights, providing real solutions to end police brutality, exposing the corruption or going for the judicial jugular against bad police officers. Sadly many of the people I just named are willing to allow the unofficial “sacrifice” of private citizens in order to preserve the overall image of police departments all over this country.
So now you know the rest of the story and why every month we are faced with blue codes, unarmed citizens killed by police officers, cover ups, city payouts and guilty police officers who go free. Our justice will work if those who are a part of it will simply do their jobs without favoritism towards the police. Citizens have the constitutional right to equal protection under the law just like police officers and they are not above the law. Qualified immunity which shields police officers was never intended to shield those who break the law and it is being grossly misapplied all over this country.
To see how bad it has gotten, go to www.killedbypolice.net or www.policemisconduct.net
The systematic protective mechanisms that continue to protect bad, rogue, mentally unstable, poorly trained, bully and racist officers must be dismantled lawfully and immediately while recognizing and rewarding good officers and lawful performance should be rewarded. Fair is fair but wrong is wrong and lawful accountability must be for everybody – even if you wear a uniform, a gun and a badge.
Staff Writer; Marque-Anthony
