Lately, under pressure by the public, video after video that show police officers abusing their power by using excessive force or deadly force have been released by police departments. Most of the time these videos have reflected the opposite of what the police at the scene spelled out in their reports. Even after these videos have been released and police officers have been indicted and faced a jury, most of them have been freed and allowed to keep their job.  How does this make you feel?

Whether there release occurred because the laws in place dictated that they be released or whether it occurred for some other reason unknown to the public, the system has to be reevaluated and fixed. The best word for what the police officers in these videos have done is hubris.  The same word applies to all of the other cops who abuse their authority.  They do it because they can and they know that they will not be held to account.

It seems that when their actions are questioned the offending police officers’ unanimous response to this problem and citizens who disdain it is; so it’s hubris, what are you going to do about it? And that is the question before the American people: what are we going to do about it?  So far the answer is “nothing”… because we just can’t get our head around the problem.

Here is an idea for those politicians and heads of police departments around the country. Get serious about fixing the problem with policing now and stop hiding in dark corners and ignoring it or simply employing the old tired and worn out kick the can down the road approach to it.  Americans are tired of politicians and others who are in positions of authority using the timeless Potomac Two Step and Kick The Can Down The Road vaudeville-like routine to shirk their responsibility.

No one wants to step up to the problem because it is a political hot potato so they have convinced themselves that it is a massive problem that is all but impossible to solve. As a result, instead of working to solve it, they are spending a great amount of their time in the spin room trying to come up with talking points that will be acceptable to the public and the rest of their time doing actual trial runs on us until they can come up with the ones that we will find to be most palatable.

These politicians and other authorities are trying to convince the majority of Americans that they will continue to chip away at the problem in order to make things better but that this is a problem that is simply too big to solve; kind of like the banks that are “too big to fail”, that’s just the way that it is. They want to project to us an image of the old cliché of an elephant in a dark room that everyone is allowed to touch where everyone comes up with a different description of what is there because they all touched a different part of this huge animal.  Without knowing that this is an elephant there is no way that they can decide what they can do with or about this thing that is in the room.  Voila!  The situation involving policing in America will be resolved if only they can reach this point with their spin then effectively sell it to the public.

My analogy may sound harsh but I do not think that it is harsh because this avoidance by those responsible to address this problem has more to do with the impact that addressing it will have on their personal careers than it does with the supposed fact that it is impossible to solve. It is understandable that no one from the fair-minded street cop to the fair-minded top cop to the fair-minded ambitious politicians wants to attack this problem but someone has to step up to it.

Here is something that might help them to man up, woman up – or whatever it takes, to get them to step up to the problem: a template, so to speak, on how to determine that it is an elephant that is in the room so that they can determine what they should do next. First, turn on the light!  That should make things a lot easier.  If you continue to keep your heads in the sand or hide in any dark corner that you can find to avoid tackling the problem then it will never get fixed!

Now bear with me while I present the template that I have to offer. The bad cops on the street have a roof over their heads, which consists of – from the top down – ; the chief, deputy chiefs, division chiefs (senior command), commander, captains, lieutenants (command) then the sergeants, corporals, private first class cops and finally the buck private cops all of whom I will refer to as the street cops.  This roof prevents the rain (accountability, fairness and justice) from falling on them.  They know this is the case so they feel free, and perhaps even motivated, to conduct themselves in any way that they please without fear of any consequences.

If any of the cops in this chain of command are unscrupulous or dirty cops then this forms a portion of the roof over the heads of any other unscrupulous or dirty cops. If the top of the chain of command is unscrupulous or dirty then it is likely that many if not all of the others in that chain of command are that way because they were selected by the corrupt chain of command or their selection was influenced by them.  If this is the case then the roof is complete and these dirty cops are completely protected from the rain.  If there are cops in this chain of command who do not fit this unscrupulous, dirty cop mold they are usually intimidated and too afraid to challenge the status quo.

The police force senior command and command are usually heavily influenced by the Manager of Safety and the Mayor. Even if the Manager of Safety and the Mayor are individuals who are honest and above board and believe in fairness and holding members of the entire police force to account, there are political implications that, as a politician, the Mayor is extremely likely to consider that would impact on how he decides to deal with any problem with policing.  If there is a problem for the Mayor then this is likely a direct problem for the Manager of Safety and indirect problems for all other politicians that could become entangled in the effort to fix the problem.  This is why we are witnessing what we are experiencing now in America when it comes to addressing the problem of bad policing and what to do about correcting this problem.

So how can using the aforementioned template help in getting those responsible for fixing this problem to step up to it and fix it? Here’s how.  First, the Mayor must appoint a Manager of Safety and Chief of Police that is clean and did not come up through the ranks.  This is where we as voters and the public come in because we too have a responsibility to fill.  We must apply pressure to the Mayor to select such a chief and let him know in no uncertain terms that if he refuses then we will make him pay via recall, at the next election if applicable or in his efforts to further his political career if he is term-limited and cannot run again.

Once the new Manager of Safety and police chief are in place they can begin to replace those corrupt cops in the senior command and command ranks. This will remove the intimidation felt by those in the ranks of the scrupulous street cops and motivate them to begin to help clean up the problem before the ax even reaches their level because they now know that the rain can and will fall on these unscrupulous cops.

Knowing that the roof has been removed and that the rain will fall on them will be just as effective on the good cops as it will on the bad ones. Good cops will become more comfortable with challenging their fellow officers whenever they begin to abuse their power.  And if that is not enough then they will likely feel more comfortable with reporting these officers to their superiors.  However, the fact that unscrupulous and dirty cops might also begin to clean up their act before the ax reaches them must not mean that they get a get out of jail free card and should not be replaced and still held accountable for what they have done.

All police departments hierarchy are not set up the same way in every city as the one mentioned in my example; but correcting the problem should function the same way by working from the top to the bottom. This suggestion is not something that is meant to be a panacea but, instead, is meant to be at least a starting point for those who have procrastinated for so long and are continuing to resist fixing this problem.  It is not something that is expected to work overnight or without a lot of hard work and planning.  Even if people continue to gripe and complain, which we probably will, until the problem is fixed at least those responsible to fix it will have gotten off the dime and began making a reasonable effort to do so.

Eulus Dennis