This is the one where I might piss some people off

My two cent, about police brutality, an issue which is not as clearly defined as you might think it is and each officer / citizen encounter is going to be different every single time, even when it is the same officer and the same citizen. Ferguson Missouri has this issue being bounced around and fingers are pointing from both sides. The police are wrong or this kid is no saint, the police department is corrupt, racism is rampant, rioters in the street and on and on. The mentality of one upping the opposing view with some other complaint is used too often and accomplishes nothing and devolves the discussion further and further from the issue. Our country, sadly, is a pot ready to boil over and not just in Ferguson/St. Louis. Racism is alive and well in this country. It goes all directions each race has people who dislikes, distrusts, abuses, and takes advantage of any person not of their own race. So it doesn’t matter what your skin color is there are people who are racist against every person who is not their race. We are a country of poverty as much as we are a country of prosperity. People everywhere in this country are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet and are angry all the time. It may not be fist slamming anger or cussing up a storm but there is an underlying level of I’m ready for a fight. Things are not just unfair they are unbalanced and there is a difference and citizens are tried of being on the losing end of everything. Tied to the poverty issues are unemployment, inflation and greed of shop owners, landlords and any business really. An infrastructure and government which are falling apart and division is the practice of the politics and even the media. Cities and towns all across the country are falling apart. Roads washing away. Power lines falling down in any storm. Bridges which are not safe. Buildings which are structurally unsound. Nothing works the way it should. Our leaders are more concerned about getting re elected rather than trying to do something for the communities they serve. And the media just want to sell ad space and don’t care about reporting. Is the United States still one of the better countries in the world? I think it is and I will not say it is the best because it isn’t. No country is. We are ignoring too many problems to be considered the most perfect place to live. We are still better than many and worse than others and in some areas we are a lot worse. However, changes have to be made because Ferguson isn’t the first place where there has been a shooting by officers which may or may not be a legal shooting. It won’t be the last if things don’t change. All police officers are not criminals out looking to hurt and kill people. They are hard working men and women doing a very tough job that very few people respect or would even want to do. Most of them do their jobs fairly and justly. You may not like it when you have broken the law and the officer is arresting you but they are doing their job correctly. On the other side all people in this country are not criminals even if they live in bad areas where lots of crimes occur. Citizens regardless of who they are or where they are have the right to question what a police officer says. If they do question something it does not mean they will not comply with a lawful order but it should be clear why they are being given an order. Officer: Get off the street. Citizen: Why? This is a legitimate question at this point for every citizen to ask of a police officer. Is this a situation like in Boston where the police are looking for a suspect and there is a threat to public safety or is the person being challenged braking or infringing a law. Fair or not, the burden is on the police to be CLEAR in what they are asking or telling citizens to do. Citizens once an officer has made a CLEAR statement as to why they are making the request the law is on their side and you should comply or face possible consequences. What those consequences are is where the waters muddy. What is reasonable and what is necessary. This debate has so many what ifs that it could be debated all day and still not accomplish a thing. Officers are in danger everyday they go to work. Not every second of everyday but there are times when they are in life threatening situations. However, as their job is to protect and to serve again the burden is on them by the law to make sure this is done in the best way possible. I don’t think police are overly armed, because there are criminals out there armed as well or better than the police. The police need the tools to protect themselves and to protect others. They also need to know how to operate and use the equipment. Sometimes that means officers will need armored vehicles to breach a building, to provided cover from fire bombs and gunshots. It is necessary to have to protect the communities from every possible threat and to aid neighboring jurisdictions if needed. How do you accomplish this and still be effective. Well technology has afforded our peace officers a lot of various tools to do the job. Less than lethal or non lethal methods are being employed all of the time. Tasers, pepper spray and pepper pellet guns and many other tools. Was the officer in Ferguson attacked or not. I don’t know and neither do you. Was the young man who died a good person or a criminal? I don’t know and neither do you. Was the officer a good guy or a hot head? I don’t know and neither do you. However, it is time for officers to employ less than lethal weapons/non lethal weapons as their primary sidearm. Then if they are over powered or have their side arm taken from them, or otherwise loose control of the weapons it isn’t a lethal threat. Regular ammunition can be carried in additional clips on the officer’s utility belt. It isn’t a perfect solution but nothing is and you can make the what if this or that arguments all day it does not change the fact that in most cases of officer / citizen encounters there is not a need to draw their side arms or to employ a lethal weapon at all. In a majority of the encounters where officers do need to draw a weapon a non lethal response is all that is necessary to bring the incident to a point where the treat is eliminated. The burden is on the police to do their job safely and within the scope of the law. The argument that the criminal with a gun will have the upper hand on police all of the time if the police use non lethal weapons is just not valid. Criminals have guns now and are not on equal footing with trained officers even when the criminals have higher caliber weapons or even more weapons. Officers can be just as effective using non lethal weapons and probably even more effective than with only lethal weapons. Before you start saying what do you know; I will qualify my opinion with that I’ve been in the military and served as Security Police in the US Air Force. I have two degrees in Criminal Justice and continue to teach this subject to this day. I work with officers as a part of my job regularly and have to go into the homes of citizens and confront them about why they may or may not have abused their child. No one is ever happy to see me on their doorstep. I do this without any weapons. How you deal with people 99 percent of the time will dictate how they deal with you. Yes there will be times when there is a lot of danger and I’m not saying take away the guns, and the armored vehicles and other tools. I’m saying add these non lethal tools to the arsenal and employ them are your primary tools and use the lethal weapons as the secondary weapons. On the other side of this issue are citizens attacking police, burning down buildings and cars, looting, stealing, and creating a public threat is not the way to protest police misconduct. Citizens are committing crimes and are increasing the threat to public safety which will be responded to with force enough to end the threat. One upping the violence only leads to more violence. Instead go to City Hall stand in protest, go in and form lines to file formal complaints hundreds or people deep with every worker. Call into the government offices, take up their time ask questions about how they are protecting you and your property. Do it with every government office. If you do this peacefully you will effectively force the government to take action without committing a crime. Because they will not be able to do anything else except deal with the issue, the media will be on the side of the protestors to find out why this is going on and why the government isn’t doing anything. Where as right now they are reporting the conflict between the two groups and debating about who did what and not getting answers. In a peaceful protest other government agencies not involved will begin to take up issue and ask questions of other agencies because their effectiveness in doing their jobs will be hindered by the protest. Be prepared to document abuses of authority. If officers or other officials commit crimes against truly peaceful protesting then they are the only ones who are in the wrong and it will be glaringly obvious they are in the wrong. Meeting violence with violence only creates the argument of who was less wrong and who is more right and breeds more violence. Peaceful protests can work, they have worked, and continue to work. If change does not happen something like what has happened in Ferguson may ignite riots in other cities. We are too connected as a country, not too see the issues like the ones in Ferguson are a national problem. These are issues that every community must address or they may face very similar scenes on their own streets. Fair or not it is the responsibility of those who govern to lead and make the changes first to how they best serve their citizens. It is the responsibility of those in public office to find the better way to do something. It is the responsibility of those who voluntarily take these jobs to do them legally without bending the law, breaking the law, circumventing the law and to take the higher moral ground even in the face of illegal actions, ridicule, and disrespect. No it is not fair, it won’t ever be, if you don’t like that burden find a different line of work. If you are a citizen and you don’t like being arrested don’t break the law. If you don’t agree with the law, work to change it but do it legally. You might be surprised to find there are officers who agree with you and who will be willing to help you legally protest and challenge something that is not being done right. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015