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I know exactly where Frank is coming from. As a person of color, I know that police brutality, especially to disadvantaged people, has been going on for a long time. It is only now that people are getting to see it, and needless to say, it isn't pretty and lots of people are getting pissed.
That being said, retaliating by shooting cops is not the answer. That is no way to solve the problem. It is going to cause cops to circle the wagons even more and create this us-vs-them mentality, something they already do too much of.
The fact of the matter is that we have two problems. The first is that police training is abysmal at de-escalating situations without violence. This has been shown time and time again when compared to police from other countries. Moreover, police training in handling people with mental disabilities is non-existent. There have been so many cases of schizophrenics, or autistic people, who have made some gesture or move, only to have a few bullets pumped into them. This is despite others around who have warned the cops that the person is mentally impaired.
The second is the thin blue line - when the many lie and cover up the actions of the few. Look at the Laquan McDonald case in Chicago - the kid was shot without ANY justification by one guy, and 5 other cops there lied and made up a story about how McDonald raised a weapon, or made a threatening gesture. Without video, the whole thing would have been dismissed without a thought.
I fully understand where these shooters are coming from. I think they are wrong and this is not the way to solve the problem. But you can't deny the fact that the current sorry situation is decades in the making. LE made their bed, now they've got to lie in it.
The tragedy is that I am not at all confident that anyone is getting the lessons being taught here real-time. All I hear is "law and order," cracking down on this or that. Everyone should condemn anti-LE violence, no question. But LE also have got to look in the mirror and acknowledge that they are part of the problem.
That being said, retaliating by shooting cops is not the answer. That is no way to solve the problem. It is going to cause cops to circle the wagons even more and create this us-vs-them mentality, something they already do too much of.
The fact of the matter is that we have two problems. The first is that police training is abysmal at de-escalating situations without violence. This has been shown time and time again when compared to police from other countries. Moreover, police training in handling people with mental disabilities is non-existent. There have been so many cases of schizophrenics, or autistic people, who have made some gesture or move, only to have a few bullets pumped into them. This is despite others around who have warned the cops that the person is mentally impaired.
The second is the thin blue line - when the many lie and cover up the actions of the few. Look at the Laquan McDonald case in Chicago - the kid was shot without ANY justification by one guy, and 5 other cops there lied and made up a story about how McDonald raised a weapon, or made a threatening gesture. Without video, the whole thing would have been dismissed without a thought.
I fully understand where these shooters are coming from. I think they are wrong and this is not the way to solve the problem. But you can't deny the fact that the current sorry situation is decades in the making. LE made their bed, now they've got to lie in it.
The tragedy is that I am not at all confident that anyone is getting the lessons being taught here real-time. All I hear is "law and order," cracking down on this or that. Everyone should condemn anti-LE violence, no question. But LE also have got to look in the mirror and acknowledge that they are part of the problem.
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