White people are scared of black people. So when you say something like “Black Lives Matter” then people get all antsy and say “well ALL lives matter”. Or “well WHITE lives matter too”. Or maybe they even point to things like-“It’s not just black people getting killed by po-lice, it’s white people too. Look at Tony Timpa.” Or look at Daniel Shaver.
Their stories aren’t that much different than George Floyds. Police held Timpa down for a half an hour making fun of him and he ended up dying in custody. Police gave confusing commands until they could basically shoot Shaver. They’re both white. It’s an outrageous injustice and just goes to show that anybody screaming about racism is still wrong about this issue. Black people are getting murdered at a HIGHER rate than white people, but ALL races are getting murdered by cops at rates that SHOULDN’T happen.
Which is the absolute reason that we NEED to address the issue of police brutality. When there’s no checks and balances, there will be corruption. We are human, and humans pretty much always create the problems within the system. If you allow the loopholes for issues like keeping money that you seize, you create the issue that they will keep that money and then either spend it on themselves or on fancy toys like military issued weapons.
If you allow the cops to have qualified immunity, then you create a problem of allowing cops to get away with murder. Which is pretty much proven that they have and the WILL unless it’s addressed. Shavers’ murderer walked away a free man.
I don’t think you even need to defund them-which is what some call for (I mean you don’t have to cut their budgets. Keep the budgets the same as justified, but don’t allow extras like civil forfeiture. Or freaking tanks). I honestly believe that police serve a useful function in society and they’re needed for situations that can get out of hand. But I definitely think that police don’t need military weapons, no knock warrants, and plenty of other things that escalate the situations. I think police need body cameras because it’s been proven that they cannot be trusted to do the right thing. When you put those checks and balances into place, you create a system that keeps it from overrunning with corruption, and therefore, less chance of things being done the wrong way.
Because we’re human, there’s always a potential for abuse. It’s practically in our nature. But cutting down on the avenues that allow that abuse to happen and channel those into areas which will do good will help.
And yea, black lives matter. It’s an important movement that’s allowing everyone to address this issue. EVERYONE should be participating in this issue. Maybe we should call it: POLICE BRUTALITY SUCKS AND NEEDS TO BE FIXED. Then we won’t have racists decrying the issue entirely.
When you protest against police brutality and the solution for the cops is to respond by beating protestors, then I think police have the problem.
To build trust, you need to give value for free. I’m not sure what value the police have provided that they haven’t yet been paid for.