Articles

Police Brutality in America Can Be Solved

By Mark Antony Rossi

Police brutality in America has never entirely been built on bigotry. While I won’t make light of some of the obvious examples it should be noted in the full picture all too often police violations have more to do with abuse of power than abuse of marginalized groups.

Three decades of Sensitivity classes have failed to stem the tide of police violence mainly because these remedies are political window dressing and do not address the true factors responsible for rogue cops.

It is the numerous reports of poor conduct by aggrieved members of the public that are the foundation of police brutality. The illegal traffic stops, verbal harassment, threats of violence, physical encounters and shady arrests that largely contribute to creating cops that are molded for future deadly altercations.

The blame must fall on the police departments who actively compile these derogatory dossiers only to ignore, hand-slap or deny their impact on a police officer’s general trustworthiness. It is not an accident that nearly every police officer guilty of gross misconduct had a long history of violations, addictions or other personal shortcomings that were willfully overlooked by police brass.

It is my long hard-held belief that proper follow-up of police bad conduct can tremendously reduce incidents of serious harm or death of civilians. To foolishly ignore such occurrences until they build into a career history of cops out of step is a failure of police discipline and political will.

Instead America has at least four decades of excuse making for bad cops and opportunistic protestors who seem to think looting and burning are elements of social justice. Choking a suspect already handcuffed is not honorable public service. Stealing televisions from a department store is not peaceful solidarity. We need a deeper appreciation of accountability especially for members of our citizenry legalized to carry firearms and use deadly force.

And we need to appreciate as a society that moral laziness and plain stupidity accounts for most of these outrages and stop chasing ghosts of bigotry past. The monsters are not wearing pillow cases, they are politically corrupt individuals unwilling to demand a finer caliber of cop and instead unleash emotionally stunted man-children on poorer communities already facing their own private hells.

About the Author: Mark Antony Rossi is a poet, playwright and author of the bioethics volume “Dark Tech” now available from Amazon. His most recent plays have been produced in Liverpool and New York. He also hosts a podcast called Strength to be Human. 

http://arielchart.blogspot.com

https://strengthtobehuman.podbean.com

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