There’s a lesson to be learned from yesterday. When the Mayor of Brooklyn Center, MN. announced that the police chief and officer Kim Porter were no longer with the department there was a lesson to be learned. When the day before the Chief stood in front of the media and called the shooting an unfortunate accident there was a lesson to be learned. Brooklyn Center with one of the largest black populations in the state does not have a single officer that resides within the city limits of Brooklyn Center, there’s a lesson to be learned from that.
Let’s unpack some of those lessons. First the Chief of Police in preemptively labeling the shooting as an accident placed his heavy hand on the scale of justice. He literally tainted the process by making himself the judge, jury, and trier of fact.
I want to stick with the Chief for a moment because we always say that the buck stops at the top. The truth however is that real leadership sets the tone. I don’t know about anyone else but the tone that this man set with his behavior was that he was going to circle the wagons and screw the public if they don’t like it.
The lesson is that you can not expect meaningful police reform to ever be initiated from inside the police department. I’m not saying that every police Chief is as bad as Brooklyn Centers, I’m saying that expecting the man or women who sits at the top of the heap to take the initiative in cleaning his own house is a fools errand. Police reform must be initiated and managed from the outside.
The lesson to be learned from Kim Porters resignation is a simple one. Bad or incompetent cops can not be allowed to game the system by retiring before a comprehensive review process. By allowing the perpetrator to retire they get to protect their pension and benefits. Furthermore because it is a resignation rather than a termination the perpetrator is allowed to seek employment with another police department without the stigma of termination for cause. In effect it allows them to hit the lottery for behavior that should have closed the door on employment as a law enforcement officer.
The fact that not one member of the Brooklyn Center police department resides with the community is one giant blinking red light. When a police department is composed of individuals with no connection to the community its very much like a city under siege. All to often it becomes untenable for the citizens and creates a cauldron of mistrust.
A twenty year old young man lays dead and the question of what police reform should look like remains a national issue. The question to be asked is will we learn anything from these lessons or will it be just more of the same.
THINK!!
EYES WIDE 👀 OPEN!!!
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