Ah to be young and naive again. You have to love the letters from McCurdy fifth-graders on page A7. They’re great.
If you didn’t catch the June 6 CBS Sunday Morning show please go to CBS.com and search for it. Every American needs to watch that episode if for no other reason than to get a good mix of opinions from people on both sides of the I Hate Cops/I Love Cops argument.
Above all we would hope our city police chief and Rio Arriba County sheriff watch it and try to instill a little of what a lot of the story topics have to offer. Correspondents spoke with law enforcement officers from many walks of life, different sizes of jurisdictions, budgets, manpower and equipment. Above all they all have different types of training.
If you suffer through 30 minutes of national television news programs you’re sure to need an insulin shot before being subjected to the last minute. It’s always a sappy story about someone making desks for students, or a child selling lemonade in Illinois to get someone in Oregon a transplant or quite often a cop or firefighter going out of his or her way to help someone. Maybe they bought a kid a bike, or gave a man a ride to work so he wouldn’t have to walk seven miles.
We don’t hear much about those cops and when we do it’s a one and done story.
Contrast that with a cop shooting someone, tasing someone, subduing someone, for whatever reason. It’s played repeatedly for days, weeks. Someone wants justice, play the footage again. Someone is going to sue, play the footage again. Someone is outraged and wants to march, play the footage again.
The CBS Sunday Morning show took a deep dive into several projects in many cities across the country where leaders are taking a harder look at their police force. We all should.
They followed officers who were appreciated by their community, lauded, hated, scorned, loved, ridiculed.
A USA Today poll shows public trust in law enforcement is up 13 percent from 56 percent to 69 percent. However, several officers spoke about how the remaining minority makes life difficult and many good cops are seriously considering quitting.
It must be difficult trying to do a job geared toward helping others, and a small percentage of the “others” want to make your life miserable. Money doesn’t make up for that feeling of oppression.
One Black cop said people have a more antagonistic tone toward him. There’s no respect. He’s insulted by the white and Black communities.
Consider the many law enforcement agencies involved shootings around our state and city. Many criminals no longer throw their hands up when a cop points a gun at them or gives them an order. They’d rather take their chance in a shootout, or a dangerous chase through traffic.
We have regular high speed chases in the city and Rio Arriba County where someone with something as small as an outstanding warrant will evade police officers and deputies driving a 20-year-old Nissan. We’ve repeatedly heard shift supervisors or commanders cancel a pursuit because it’s too dangerous.
There are many different faces in police departments nationwide. What was once a white male dominated job is now populated with women, people of color and gay and lesbian officers.
One segment of the show followed resource officers in high schools. They earn the trust of students but one incident where a cop on the other side of the country shoots someone or chokes someone sets the resource officers back to earning that trust again.
Some of the cops interviewed acknowledged there are cops who should find another job because they’re just not wired to be in law enforcement.
Interviewers also followed some of the great police chiefs of the past 40 years and talked about how they cleaned up some of the worst cities in the country. The secret sauce was always training, promoting qualified people and getting the community to buy into their plans.
One segment spoke about the ridiculous manner in which the public uses the E-911 system. That has to be changed. Getting the wrong order at Burger King is not an emergency. People call for someone walking their dog, sitting in their car, or standing in front of a building too long.
Many people have stopped seeing doctors or even going to the emergency room. They just call 911 because they’re dizzy, they have a headache, they don’t feel good.
No, cops aren’t perfect. Every department has its problems. But take a look at the CBS show. You’ll find some hope there. You might come away with a better attitude toward cops and an understanding of the job they have to do, the decisions they must make routinely, often in a split second.
Cops might try a different approach to interacting with the public, too. The tough guy approach doesn’t work anymore. We’re tired of it, surely the public is too.