June Editorial Winner
Monday, August 17, 2020
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We need to decide what is right for America and what is not
By J. D. Meisner, Cushing Citizen
George Floyd was murdered at the hands of Derek Chauvin, who happened to be a Minneapolis police officer. Chauvin’s Day in court will come.
Tragically, Floyd’s will not.
The officers, who watched while Chauvin kept his knee and body weight on Floyd’s neck even after he was handcuffed yet said nothing to stop him, need to be held accountable for the roles they played in Floyd’s death.
The entirety of this country’s law enforcement community does not.
For the 700,000 police officers in America who, every day, put the badge on to serve and protect with duty and honor, the outrage at Floyd’s murder is real.
But far too many people in this country see the death of Floyd as a permanent scar on the reputations of every police officer they will ever face.
Stereo typing law enforcement in this way follows the same formula as racism and there is no place for it in this country.
More and more, good police officers are victims of the unjustified violence of bad cops.
The abuses of power by a select few dirtbags who somehow became police officers, receive overwhelming attention on social media, while daily, selfless, heroic actions performed by thousands of dedicated, compassionate officers goes unnoticed and unreported.
Across the country police officers, deputies, sheriffs and major city police chiefs are joining peaceful protests and are receiving little to no attention.
Mainstream media is getting high centered on the fact that police arrested a couple of CNN reporters in Minneapolis, or tear-gassed a three year old in Fort Wayne Indiana, telling one side of the story so that the police appear completely at fault.
As to the three year old, let’s ask mom the hard question as to why she was at the protest with her three year old? Should we demonize every mom in the country because this particular mom has poor judgment?
Exercising our right to free speech is one of the immeasurable things that makes America special and its people strong.
But when the right to free speech becomes a self-proclaimed privilege to commit criminal damage to property, burglary, robbery and assault and battery, the fabric of our freedoms is torn asunder.
Rioting is not free speech — rioting is criminal and the Americans responsible for trashing American cities by setting buildings on fire, destroying private property, looting stores and attacking police officers, news reporters, and innocent bystanders, need to be held accountable and be treated as the criminals they are.
It is okay to be outraged at what happened to Mr. Floyd in Minneapolis. We all should be. We should all be equally outraged at the violence, looting and immature actions of rioters.
How do we fix this?
How do we prevent bad people in authority from hurting the people they are supposed to serve and keep safe?
We can all agree that more training for police officers could make a difference. They need to be more aware of the tensions and the racial divides. They need to be and more compassionate toward their fellow man.
I agree this needs to be done, but you can’t train away bigotry and hate. There are people out there who are simply hard wired to hate others because of their differences, so if we are going to do all we can possibly do to prevent another tragedy like the death of George Floyd, we need to look deeper.
Hiring and vetting processes for police officers must be overhauled.
At law enforcement departments across the country, leaders who are tasked with selecting candidates for police officer training need to be trained themselves on how to better identify bigotry and hate in individuals, and put those applications into the “no” basket.
There should be processes in place at the training academies that are focused on identifying individual racists among the cadets and eliminating them from the program.
There are unspeakable consequences when you push people of questionable moral character through the training academy and award them with a badge of authority.
If there is any doubt, wash them out. The consequences are too great.
Chauvin apparently had 16 complaints against him in his 16 years on the force. The details of these complaints have not been released by the Minneapolis Police department, but sources have told news outlets that they range from the use of profanity, to the use of racial slurs while performing his duties.
There can be no place for this. With the level of power that a police officer wields, there should be absolutely no question of his character as it pertains to his fellow man, whether that man is a crack addict, a civic leader, white, black, or anything else.
If officials with the Minneapolis PD had knowledge of Chauvin’s racial prejudices and continued to employ him as a police officer, they too should be held accountable in the tragedy of Floyd’s death.
Departments nationwide should be looking at their ranks and purging the bigots who display the urge to hate irrationally. This nation needs to look hard at the culture of its police training academies to plug up the holes that allow bigots and haters to become law enforcement officers.
With that said, people on the streets need to stop turning peaceful protests into opportunities to burglarize Target. These degenerates are no better than the people they act against.
Take a breath America, count to ten, reset. We have to come together.
There is only one race on this crazy diverse planet — the human race — we’ve got to get along.
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