A friend of mine and I were talking about cops and people of color when she said, “Well, cops are trained to shoot first and ask questions later.”  I wondered where she got that idea.  TV news coverage?  Somewhere in the media?  Other friends?  I’ve worked as both a prosecutor and defense lawyer in the criminal justice system for years.  Of course, there are rogue cops just as there are nuts in the lawyer business (lots of them!), dentists, brick layers, teachers, etc.  But the cops I know are not trained that way.

This argument has been going on for decades, but has taken center-stage with the shooting and death of a black man by a white cop in Ferguson, Missouri.  I’m not an expert, but here are some of my ideas after working with cops and people of color.

1.  The issue is really complex.  The media, by necessity or choice, always condenses these problems into a 60-second TV spot or even worse, a headline.  Viewers get the idea that if just one thing would change, the problem would go away.  Not true.  The problems between cops and people of color has been going on for decades and is very complex.  All of us need to think—something we hate to do—about what leads to these confrontations and devise ways to minimize them.

2.  Cops are trained to shoot first.  Not only isn’t this true, but think of how dumb it is:  let’s say the police are called to a domestic problem between a husband and wife.  Do you think the first thing the cops will do when they get to the home is start shooting??  Of course not.  The police I know are more social workers and psychologists than law enforcement.  They’re trained to de-escalate situations, calm people down, disarm people without violence, and only use violence themselves as a last course of action when they or someone else is threatened with harm.  I remember one investigator I worked with who retired as a police officer and had never drawn his weapon in the 20+ years he served as a cop.

3.  People of color have a legitimate complaint.  Every black male friend I have has a story . . . of how they were stopped for no reason by a cop.  Sometimes, they’ve been stopped many times and many of my friends tell me how scared they were because of the cop’s behavior.  The classic case was Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates, who was stopped at his front door and arrested for suspicion of burglary.  

4.  Cops and people of color have a long, brutal history.  Black friends talk about the legacy of slavery and white friends say, “but that’s been over for a hundred and fifty years.”  Ironically, both are talking about the same thing.  During slavery, owners could patrol the roads and stop slaves any time they wanted and demand the slave’s identification.  Blacks also agree that slavery was abolished 150 years ago, so why are cops still stopping people of color and demanding identification—when they don’t do the same to whites?

Tell me what you think?  I’m sure every reader has an opinion and I’d like to hear from you!