On the first of the year, a policeman in Oakland, California shot a killed a 22-year-old man named Oscar Grant on at a BART (Oakland's public transit authority) station. He was unarmed and lying on the floor, and by the looks of the videos that have surfaced online he was not in a position to fight back, though witnesses and videos have shown that he may have been resisting the officers.
These images are appalling, but not altogether unfamiliar. If you remember, last April the New York Supreme Court acquitted the three police officers who shot Sean Bell over 50 times, killing him outside of a club in Jamaica, Queens back in in 2006.
I won't use this as a platform to drone on about the use of excessive force or to talk about how dirty cops should be locked up under the jail. Let's be honest. It's a dead horse, and people have already beaten the hell out of it. Besides there's a bigger question to be answered: What is the role of the people in these situations?
After the Sean Bell verdict came down, people protested and marched with Al Sharpton and whatever other stock figures appear in these scenarios. In Oakland some have responded with rioting. But if we're honest, I think we have to admit these are quaint relics of the 60s and 70s, and in the end I doubt that anyone in either situation will walk away with any true sense of safety and justice when it comes to dealing with the police. There will still be the sense, whether real or imagined, that the police can act to take lives with relative impunity, and that people are not safe in their own communities.
And that—I believe—is what people really want: To view the police as a source of safety and security rather than a potential threat to it.
It's something that all people deserve.
Mind you, I'm not trying to widely generalize on police and law enforcement nationwide. But it's worth recognizing that when crimes/tragedies/whatever "guilty-until-proven-innocent" label you choose to give them—occur, a trust is broken with the community and it's not one that's easily mended. And it's worth noting that the people have the right to petition for a redress of their grievances in these matters (though that should never mean an unfair trial for the police involved). Note: For the sake of frankness, I think it's worth noting that these are largely poor black and/or Latino communities.
So my question is this: How can the people obtain a substantive redress of their grievances to rebuild the broken trust? Or should we just say Eff the Police?
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