Ferguson is just one city out of the country…

Since the DOJ came out with their report highlighting the fact that the Ferguson Police Department is completely corrupt, DOJ officials plan on meeting with Ferguson city officials in the next couple of weeks to discuss just what should and what can be done about the police department. Now don’t get me wrong, I think that is exactly what needs to be done. But… Ferguson is just one city. Why don’t we take this one step further and go from state to state, city to city and investigate every police department in this country? Learn from the ones that have decent policing strategies and dismantle the ones that operate under the shoot first and ask questions later mentality. Because I’m sorry, but most of them do. That’s just a fact. There are too many murdered black and brown men around this country for anyone to dispute that fact.

My issue is that once the DOJ sits down with Ferguson city officials and they come up with a plan to shape up the police dept and hand out mandates with deadlines for them to meet and stay in compliance with, then what? What happens next? What will have been accomplished really? It sounds good right? The DOJ came in, investigated, and now look, they’re coming up with a plan to fix the police dept. Well what about the rest of the country? What about right here in Oakland? New York? Seattle? LA? How many more men and women have to die before the DOJ deems it prudent to do an investigation on all the other police departments and make those reports public knowledge?

If our government was truly concerned with healing and “Fixing” the problems with policing in this country, then they would acknowledge the true history of policing and they would be serious about changing the Culture of Policing. It started with Slave Patrols– they were the first “Policemen”– and their whole reason of being was to watch out for the slaves that were trying to escape. They had the authority and autonomy to enact any and every type of punishment that they deemed necessary. This is the history of policing in this country! And this is the mentality of Police today!  Too many individuals who are supposed to be protecting and serving the needs of the people, have this same biased and sick mentality! An “Us vs Them” mindset that is sick and twisted and filled with hate, that leads to death after death of unarmed black and brown men.

The culture of policing has to be changed from the inside out. And people from the outside can talk to they’re blue in the face and can hand out mandate after mandate, but if you don’t gut a police department from the inside out, what are you changing? And as the DOJ, if you don’t feel like it makes sense to go to each and every police department to ensure that they’re all operating under the same guidelines, the same mental health screenings, the same academy trainings, etc then what you’re telling me is that you really don’t give a damn about changing anything. What you care about is PR and putting out fires one at a time because the deaths of unarmed black and brown men just don’t rate the highest priority to you.

Ferguson is just one city out of the country folks…