Corruption: A Burden on Good Cops and Good citizens

For the past few days America has been collectively reeling from one shock after another as tragedy threatens to tear this country apart at the seams. The air feels heavy with what can only be described as impending doom. In case you’ve been in a cabin in the woods with no television, internet or radio let me catch you up to speed. It all began with the graphic footage of Alton Sterling’s shooting by police in Baton Rouge LA earlier this week. Sterling lay pinned on his back with one officer’s gun to his head while a second officer held his arms down when he was shot point black in the chest. I watched with baited breath as, for the first time,I witnessed life’s blood begin to gush out of a human body.

  I thought it was a movie at first. We’ve all been horribly desensitized by gratuitous violence in film, television, and games by now. Finally it dawned on me that it was a real, once alive human being bleeding out before my very eyes. Later I watched a press conference featuring the oldest of Sterling five children break down into tears as he came to grips with never seeing his father again and I almost cried my damn self. With Sterling’s death fresh on my mind I began scrolling through Facebook, trying to take my mind off of what I'd just witnessed, only to come across the live stream of Philando Castile’s final moments as he lay still strapped in his seat belt and slowly dying. He was shot in front of his girlfriend with a toddler in the backseat. As I watched the life leave another man’s body in vivid HD this time I just knew it couldn’t be real.

  But it was. I watched his girlfriend’s frantic despair as she begged not to be told he was dead. I too prayed he’d live. Only it wasn’t so, he was gone.  At this point we all began to wonder what this world was coming to when we were bombarded with the news of another fatal shooting. This time in retaliation. At a black lives matter protest in Dallas TX. 11 offices were shot by a sniper, five have been confirmed dead. It saddened me to the depths of my soul but I wish I could say I was shocked. I wouldn’t wish death on any innocent person but I knew there would be retaliation

  You see I come from a place where police brutality and retaliation are a vicious cycle. In this very country there are cities filled with civil unrest and a bunch of ready to die, live like there’s no tomorrow youngsters who feel slighted by a system that targets them and holds them accountable for the ills of a world they have no power in. I’m talking about the black and brown communities and if you don’t believe we’re targeted by authority you’re in denial. Even John Erhlichman, who was President Nixon’s chief domestic advisor, admitted that their administration crafted the war on drugs to be a Trojan horse for the war on blacks.

   Only black people didn’t have to be told this because we already noticed our people being arrested in droves for mere possession of things like weed. Meanwhile no police were raiding any rich white kid’s yacht club to arrest trust fund heirs for having cocaine, weed, and oxytocin in their possession. Plenty cops have admitted that there’s a racial double standard in the nation’s drug policy. Black and brown communities aren’t protected by the system, they have to survive it. Police are given free rein to kick in doors on modest homes making black children casualties in the war on drugs.

 Everyone knows there’s just as many drugs being done in neighborhoods with mansions as there are in hoods with abandoned buildings and crack houses but you can rest assured swat teams will not be storming any homes in Beverly hills, shooting first and asking questions later. There’d be hell to pay if a seven year old white child was first burned with a flash bomb then shot while she slept because police raided the wrong house with careless disregard to any innocent bystanders they might hurt. If that happened to a white child the officers involved would be charged with manslaughter or at the very least fired.

   There was no such justice when Officer Joseph Weekley and a swat team stormed the wrong house, throwing a flash bomb through a window onto the coach where it burned a sleeping seven year old Aiyana Jones. The team then stormed the house trigger happy and apparently afraid of their own shadow because Weekly then shot the child they’d just burned. Weekley, the sniveling coward then proceeded to arrest the victim’s hysterical grandmother and accuse her of taking his gun and shooting her own grandchild. Weekly proved his callous disregard for the life of the child he murdered and to this day has never shown an ounce of remorse.  He was not only cleared of all charges but is back on the police force.

  If you’ve grown up witnessing these injustices and being bullied by those in powers it’s only natural to feel a certain distain for authority. Consequently anyone who feels continually threatened by said authority will not think twice about defending themselves against it. I by no means condone violence against the police or anyone else. My point is that the crooked cops who harass, bully, and murder citizens make it hard for the decent people who became officers to make a positive change in their communities. That being said there is still no war on cops orchestrated by Black Lives Matter. 71 % of the police murdered this year were murdered by white men. If anything it’s the NRA and conservatives who have promoted a war on police. Neither group can go ten seconds without expressing their rights to stock pile weapons in case they need to overthrow a tyrannical government.

Police have one hell of a job on their hands and the good cops don’t get the appreciation that they deserve. They are overshadowed by the egregious misdeeds of the bad cops not to mention the burden of enforcing unjust laws for a corrupt system.

Fact: To be an officer of the law is to be powerful, including the power over life and death.

Fact: Bad men, and women for that matter, are drawn to power and blind faith.

Fact: Bad men are good at obtaining unchecked power and covertly abusing it. We’ve seen this with churches were the congregation is blind to a philandering or even pedophilic leader. Or with politicians who blackmail, bully, and manipulate to explain away their misconduct. We also see it at the lowest level of power on the food chain, the police force.

It’s no secret that America’s police are underpaid and over worked, coupled with power this is a recipe for disaster. The police, like preachers, priest, and politicians are human just like the rest of us and humans by nature are capable of both good and evil. It takes strong moral fiber and a sense of character not to be lured into abusing your power. Some of those who abuse power have perhaps convinced themselves they do so for the greater good. Others are unapologetic sociopaths and if you’ve ever had the displeasure of dealing with a zealot or a narcissistic asshole imagine putting your life in their hands. It wouldn’t be pretty.

  That is the reality black, brown, and even white Americans with no power live in with this current system. It’s also the reality good cops have to contend with if they dare to try and stand against the disparities the system wants them to enforce. 11 minority officers are suing the NYC police department over the retaliation they suffered for refusing to meet arrest quotas that disproportionately impacted their communities. They broke the blue wall of silence and exposed the instruction they were given to troll the troubled areas not to simply catch criminals and help citizens but to ticket and arrest as many people as possible for minor infractions just to meet their numbers.

  I’ve worked in sales for most of my career so I know what it’s like to work under a quota and I can say from experience that they have no place in the police department. Some people become desperate when under a quota. Others become competitive. These are not good qualities for those conducting law and order to strive for. These officers need to listen to Spider Man’s Uncle Ben and realize that, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Those with power at the very least must be held accountable just like the rest of us.