Now that the spotlight has switched from the pandemic to protesters and police actions (too often over-reactions), I must raise an issue which I have promoted for at least 40 years; how cops visualize themselves and how the public visualizes them.
When they want to sound like the good guys, police claim they are “peace officers” who “protect and serve.” Unfortunately, they often claim and demonstrate that they are the “law enforcers” with emphasis on force. They will always act as they do until their education, training, and advertised role is as “civil rights protectors,” which is what they were always meant to be.
Protesting peacefully at all times of the day and night on all public property, is still a legal and Constitutional right in these United States of America. Protecting all people and all property should be the highest priority of our boys and girls in blue. Using clubs and chemicals and dogs and vehicles to harm peaceful protesters should be beyond consideration and should be recognized and dealt with as the criminal acts they are, especially when performed by police.
Those individuals who are actually committing illegal acts are usually a separate issue and may well be an entirely separate constituency and should be dealt with separately but still without war tactics.
I want public officials and the American public to reconsider the true and peace-promoting role that all our rights protectors in blue should be demonstrating. Even simply replacing the term “enforcers” with “protectors” in news articles may nudge us all toward a wider acceptance of such a needed change in perception, especially within the ranks of the police.
Donald L. Walker Jr.
Conway