At some point in time, there has to be a reckoning and a cost-benefit analysis done to determine whether the collateral damage done by law enforcement is worth the life, trauma, money, and other costs associated with our quest for the supposed security they offer?
As far as policing is concerned, there are the ever-present peripheral issues attached to this particular subject, which in reality has precious little to do with the seminal issue of police violence.
Black leaders in their zeal to attract light to the heat of police violence do themselves and the Black community a disservice by insisting that those side issues are central to fixing police violence.
By attaching Housing discrimination, mental health issues, poverty, lack of good-paying jobs, or other such issues to this debate, it actually takes away from the central issue of police violence because even among the Black community’s most ardent supporters there are divergent points of view on each of the subjects named.
And so rather than galvanize support around the all-important issue of police violence, people tend to lose interest as they feel the totality of what they are being asked to support is too great.
Every social ill that plagues the Black community is separate and must be addressed separately.
Police have never cared about how they treat Black people rich or poor, they know that they are protected statutorily.
Neither have they ever cared how they treat Black people living in big mansions. The point is that it does not matter how much money Black people have, American cops, have never been mindful of how they treat Blacks, they know the protections they enjoy in law and policy and those are the reasons they act with impunity, disrespect, and disregard.
Of the more than 18,000 police departments most cops have never been forced to pull their service weapons, for many of those departments, policing duties are confined to extracting taxes from errant motorists, some lawful, others manufactured.
The website(vera.org) argues succinctly,[Police spend an inordinate amount of time responding to 911 calls for service, even though most of these calls are unrelated to crimes in progress. Many are for quality-of-life issues like noise, blocked driveways, or public intoxication. Others are for problems like drug abuse, homelessness, or mental health crises that would be better resolved with community-based treatment or other resources — not a criminal justice response. But even when the underlying problem is minor or not criminal in nature, police often respond to service requests with the tool that is most familiar and expedient for them to deploy: enforcement. All of this exhausts police resources and exposes countless people to avoidable criminal justice system contacts. And managing this large call volume also poses operational challenges for police agencies.]
(Justice.gov) stipulates, Police are entrusted with an enormous amount of authority, including the authority to use force, and it is important that the police undertake these tasks in a manner that is legal, and also is respectful to community members, and is in keeping with local priorities. (For example, different communities may vary in their approach to certain issues, such as the enforcement of federal immigration laws or drug decriminalization or legalization.) Police agencies must also promote transparency and accountability to demonstrate to the community that officers act fairly and impartially and that there are systems in place to detect mistakes or abuses of police authority. Public trust and coöperation are key elements of effective policing and are lost when police engage in unconstitutional or unprofessional conduct.
On these fundamental issues no person, no matter how pro-police, can make the case that police agencies are acting constitutionally.
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A former Los Angeles police officer has been charged in connection with a 2019 shooting inside a Costco in the city of Corona, California, where a mentally ill man was killed, and his parents were critically wounded, CBS Los Angeles reports.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Monday that Salvador Sanchez, a seven-year veteran of the LAPD, has been charged with one count of voluntary manslaughter and two counts of assault with a semiautomatic handgun. He was taken into custody Monday morning in Riverside County.
On the night of June 14, 2019, Kenneth French, 32, of Riverside, and his parents, Russell and Paola, were shot by off-duty LAPD Officer Salvador Sanchez while in line at a sample station at the CostcoKenneth, who has been described by his family’s attorney as schizophrenic and nonverbal, was killed. His parents were critically wounded but survived. Both were shot in the back.
In September of 2019, a Riverside County grand jury declined to bring criminal charges; in the case, a decision that sparked major protests at the time, per CBS LA. Grainy surveillance video appeared to show a physical altercation between French and Sanchez prior to the shooting. Sanchez, who had been holding his 18-month-old son, fired 10 rounds from a handgun. In March 2021, Corona police released bodycam footage of their officers responding to the scene. In the footage, Sanchez tells officers that he opened fire after believing that he himself had been shot.
The shooting created chaos in the store, sending shoppers scurrying for the exits. Corona police officers had initially responded to reports of an active shooter. The Los Angeles Police Commission later determined that Sanchez acted outside department policy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.