MY SOLUTION TO THE VIOLENT COP PROBLEM

Police killings of unarmed black men have become so frequent that our reactions are always the same and the result (no justice) is as well.  Once again, we all bemoan racism.  That's half the problem but we can't wait for it to end.  Racism is an attitude.  It is pervasive in society.  It will take many years, if ever, to eradicate.  We need a solution now.  I have one.

The police must obey and enforce the rule of law.  It's that simple.

For most of our history, we have turned a blind eye, or laughed at, police corruption.  The take. The pad.  The list.  We know all these from history, from novels and from movies.  It doesn't have to be that way.  We expect honor and discipline from our military.  Why do we expect less from the police?  They are the direct, most visible link between the people and the state, between the governed and governors.

The police, across the country, expect civilians, be we victim, neighbor, witness or suspect, to provide them with honest information.  The whole truth.  Yet they refer to their own anti-corruption units as the Rat Squad.  When a fellow cop is under suspicion, rather than acting as open, honest, civic, patriotic witnesses, they form the Thin Blue Line.  It's their version of omerta.  And that makes them just another gang.

The amended Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights Through Action to Combat Impunity, submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on 8 February 2005, defines impunity as:
the impossibility, de jure or de facto, of bringing the perpetrators of violations to account – whether in criminal, civil, administrative or disciplinary proceedings – since they are not subject to any inquiry that might lead to their being accused, arrested, tried and, if found guilty, sentenced to appropriate penalties, and to making reparations to their victims.[2

The police in this country are allowed to act with impunity against unarmed black men.  The solution to that is to oust elected officials such as district attorneys, mayors and attorneys general who put the protection of the police above the safety of the community.  That's not as long a term of a solution as ending racism, but it's also not fast enough, nor sure enough.  There is a more direct answer to the problem.

Make the police be police.  They need training and they must lose their jobs and be criminally prosecuted it they fail to follow the rules of their job.  They are the armed presence of the state; they must be held to account.  For years, we have heard, ad nauseum, about police training.  Enough with talk of choke holds!  That just gives lawyers a foothold at trial.  Every police officer must have it ingrained in them that they are criminally responsible if they fail to prevent a fellow officer from committing a violent crime.

In cases like that of George Floyd, the other officers have one job!  Stop the rogue officer from battering or killing an unarmed civilian.  We all know what would transpire if officers happened upon George Floyd, or anyone else, kneeling on the neck of someone yelling for eight minutes that they couldn't breathe.  They would immediately intervene and arrest the attacker.  And if the attacker failed to cease the assault, and if that attacker was armed, we know what they would do.  They would shoot him.

During the Viet Nam war, the most famous atrocity was the My Lai massacre.  American soldiers, led by officers, including Lt. William Calley, murdered hundreds of defenseless women, children and old people.  Most Americans know how the scandal ended, but most don't know what stopped the massacre itself.  It halted because decent American soldiers forced their fellow American soldiers to stop.  Helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and his crew landed their helicopter between the marauding soldiers and their next victims and explained to them that if they didn't cease firing on the civilians, that they would commence firing...  on them.

That's what will stop this.  That's the training that police need.  Every potential killer cop must have that doubt sown in their head.  That if they threaten the lives of those they are sworn to protect, their fellow officers will shoot them!