No, I am not anti-police!!!
I was a police officer for a decade; I know, it’s hard to imagine that someone who does so much to highlight police misconduct could have ever been associated with law enforcement.
That’s exactly the point. So Mike, ‘what is behind this change that appears to be a contradiction of sorts?
It really is no great mystery. I served a decade as a law enforcement officer in my native Jamaica, so I immediately supported the police when I arrived in the United States in 91. As I alluded to in a previous article linked below, the media brainwashing did a number on me. The avalanche of cop shows on television took its toll on me as it may have impacted millions of others; I was sucked in. https://mikebeckles.com/different-approaches-same-results-using-police/
Mainstream media glorification of police on the one hand and selective reporting on police misconduct has solidified the idea into the population’s psyche that the police are heroes who must be believed.
I also realized that prosecutors and the judiciary had no problem with cops lying to legitimize arrests and even falsifying arrest reports, planting drugs and weapons on African-American men to get them sent to prison.
I realized just how police officers summarily lied to create legitimacy for unconstitutional and illegal actions they engage in, particularly against Black Americans.
I was shocked that the Supreme Court opened the door even further for police to lie against the very citizens they are sworn to protect. I have no respect for the police today because what passes for policing is not what I signed up for decades ago.
If you were to ask me what exactly separates me from the American prototype cop? I would quickly answer that American police officers kill when they do not need to.
American police have become robots who summarily kill because they are legally justified, even though they know their actions are morally wrong.
That may explain the wide chasm between former officers like myself, say from Jamaica, and American police officers. I will be the first to admit that there have been loose cannons in the agency I was a part of; nevertheless, the Police killings in the United States far exceed human decency and morality, yet they are considered justifiable in law.
When a nation allows its agents that much latitude in summarily ending the lives of its citizens, that nation has lost its soul.
HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT
In addition to that, a large chunk of the population does not care that police murder other Americans who do not look like them. Simply put, a large percentage of white Americans are either outright brazen bigots or closet racists.
What does that have to do with policing, you ask?
There are over 324,882 Police Officers currently employed in the United States. The most common ethnicity of Police Officers is White (62.4%).
For the bigots closeted or open, police are a defense line against them and ‘those people. The’ those people’ characterization is a step forward these days, I guess- previously, Blacks were not seen as people.
To these people, it is unimportant whether African-Americans live or die; in fact, they would sooner have an America in which there are no people of color.
The 62.4 Percent of white men who work in the nearly 18,000 police departments across the nation come from the same people who have no care in the world for their fellow Americans.
Before you tell me how much you disagree, please explain why racism is not dying out in America? In fact, Racism seemed to have taken on new life after Donald Trump was installed into the presidency and allowed to stir up the rancid morass of racism that laid simmering, deceiving some into speaking of a post-racial America.
Are all police officers violent racists?
Oh, Hell no!
I have met some wonderful human beings who just happened to be police officers. I have also seen some that I really don’t care for. But I also understand that police officers are people too, and like every profession, there are bad police officers.
The difference with police officers is that we expect the police to be a cut above the rest; we expect that they will do the right thing, and so when they betray their oaths, it literally creates a shock. Officers have the power of life and death over us, yet unlike other professions-police officers are the least educated.
Why would the least educated professionals have such a serious job is beyond me?
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.