Monday 25 August 2014

Going Native…

Norm Stamper weighs in on the Ferguson riots:
It’s difficult to view citizens as partners when you’re looking at them through a Kevlar helmet and a riot shield …
It’s pretty difficult when they are coming at you with knives of throwing bricks & bottles too. Or is there no corresponding responsibility expected from the public?
It’s no wonder so many cops – like some of those in Ferguson, Missouri – view their own community as the enemy when they spend their time geared for combat. It’s no wonder why they, in return, are viewed as an occupying force.
When they are viewed as such, you have a population that's not going to listen to anything.
I was the city police chief during 1999’s so-called “Battle in Seattle,” the clash between anti-globalization protesters and my police officers. I realize now that the way we looked – and the way we behaved – provoked and exacerbated the violence.
Riiight. If you'd showed up in normal uniform, they'd have behaved themselves. Of course.
It may be too late to have prevented violence in Ferguson, but the community and others like it must come together now and make immediate changes to establish a baseline of behavior for law enforcement – to abide by today and to build upon for the future. The situation in Ferguson is no longer just about Michael Brown’s death: it’s about systemic racism and patterns of neglect, about leadership and the ability to influence angry, sometimes criminally motivated, individuals.
What the police should do with 'criminally motivated individuals' is monitor them and arrest them when they finally step over the line. Not pander to them, or excise them on the grounds of 'society done 'em wrong'.
First, leaders in Ferguson need to put together a large, representative, credible crisis team to work with the police, communicate systematically with the community and, most importantly, elicit grassroots suggestions for resolution of the conflict.
I suspect you won't like those suggestions. Or...maybe you will?
Thereafter, the city or state government should convene a group of citizens, officers, politicians and civic leaders to craft and quickly implement a statement of non-negotiable standards for the performance and conduct of each and every police officer: for example, any officer should be fired if found to be using racial or ethnic slurs or excessive force. Those local officials should create a citizens’ review board (and a process for filling it) and give it investigative authority and subpoena powers, rather than rely on the local prosecutor and police to investigate their friends and colleagues – rather than just waiting around for the US Department of Justice and FBI to complete their own independent investigations.
Yup, I think you will. Because it's clear to see now why you are the ex-city police chief.

5 comments:

Ted Treen said...

Ye Gods. Even the Home of the Brave has their Ian Blairs too.

Thank God he's ex-plod.

Anonymous said...

Excise, or excuse, Julia?

Excise is best, you're right.

As soon as I hear the word 'community', I immediately picture bearded savages or rampaging blacks.

Perhaps they'd be happier away from whitey altogether, have their very own piece of land?

Africa, say?

Anonymous said...

no mention of melanin

Squires said...

"...resolution of the conflict."

The last thing Messy Jackson, Al Charlatan, Barry O'Bama, that pointy-faced ferret heading the DOJ, or their fellow travelers/race hustlers wanted.

Michael Brown was, like Treyvon before him, a thug who was shot in act of assaulting someone. A product of the very mentality the aforementioned snake-oil salesmen encourage and give license to.

This crap is their job security, their excuse for power and influence, and their source of importance.

Back in the day the Democrat party controlled black Americans through Jim Crow and the KKK - then in the mid-1900s they came up with a more effective plan: smile in their faces, pretend to be their friends, and destroy them with welfare. Not everyone was on board in the early years, but over the decades it's worked wonders, for the party. Not so much for black communities, most of which are now dysfunctional political plantations of fatherless children - shades of Gramsci, there.

Now the party of the Confederacy never shuts up about the "legacy of slavery" while pointing towards problems that they created long after the civil war, and simultaneously crying racist every time they point a finger at the party which was founded on an abolitionist platform. Divide, conquer, and re-write history as suits the occasion.

These people read 1984 not as a warning, but as an instruction manual. And you'd be hard-pressed to find a college student who knows any of that history... because guess which party's membership has a lock on power and teaching positions in almost every school and university?

When I meet someone who doesn't want to believe any of it, I give them one word to look up: Klanbake.

JuliaM said...

"Ye Gods. Even the Home of the Brave has their Ian Blairs too."

In Democrat-controlled states, natch...

"Excise, or excuse, Julia?"

*blushes* Mea culpa!

"Michael Brown was, like Treyvon before him, a thug who was shot in act of assaulting someone. A product of the very mentality the aforementioned snake-oil salesmen encourage and give license to."

Spot on!