I'm a Black Ex-Cop and This Is the Real Truth About Race and Policing

This is yet another very well articulated and important article. Each time I post something of this nature, that is painful to see and absorb, I am acknowledging that I certainly continue to need ongoing support and inspiration to move toward the suffering in our world and in my own heart so that it might be seen and healed, to move toward what I remain ignorant about so that I may become increasingly conscious and awake, to move toward those who illuminate dark places which, to me, is what will grow the light of understanding, compassion, caring and love brighter within ourselves and this beautiful, messy, interconnected world we all share together on our Earth Mother. May we all seek to more deeply know one another, to be courageous and step outside our comfort zones of familiarity, to see with new eyes and expand our circles of caring, to embrace and heal and transform whatever obstacles we each carry within our hearts and minds and souls that stand in the way of being the more loving human beings that we are in our sacred essence. Peace & blessings ~ Molly

 

Five things I wish people understood about bias in American police departments.

 

 by Redditt Hudson 

On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.

That's a theory from my friend K.L. Williams, who has trained thousands of officers around the country in use of force. Based on what I experienced as a black man serving in the St. Louis Police Department for five years, I agree with him. I worked with men and women who became cops for all the right reasons — they really wanted to help make their communities better. And I worked with people like the president of my police academy class, who sent out an email after President Obama won the 2008 election that included the statement, "I can't believe I live in a country full of ni**er lovers!!!!!!!!" He patrolled the streets in St. Louis in a number of black communities with the authority to act under the color of law.

That remaining 70 percent of officers are highly susceptible to the culture in a given department. In the absence of any real effort to challenge department cultures, they become part of the problem. If their command ranks are racist or allow institutional racism to persist, or if a number of officers in their department are racist, they may end up doing terrible things.

It is not only white officers who abuse their authority. The effect of institutional racism is such that no matter what color the officer abusing the citizen is, in the vast majority of those cases of abuse that citizen will be black or brown. That is what is allowed.

And no matter what an officer has done to a black person, that officer can always cover himself in the running narrative of heroism, risk, and sacrifice that is available to a uniformed police officer by virtue of simply reporting for duty. Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo was acquitted of all charges against him in the shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, both black and unarmed. Thirteen Cleveland police officers fired 137 shots at them. Brelo, having reloaded at some point during the shooting, fired 49 of the 137 shots. He took his final 15 shots at them after all the other officers stopped firing (122 shots at that point) and, "fearing for his life," he jumped onto the hood of the car and shot 15 times through the windshield. 

Please continue this article here: http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/race-police-officer