DAMN, DAMN, DAMN
Did police across this country not learn anything from the George Floyd murder? Police in Aurora, Colorado investigating what they claim was a stolen car. In the car was an adult woman and three female children between the ages of 6 and 17. All four occupants of this suspected stolen vehicle were black.
The Woman and the 3 other female occupants of the vehicle were forced to lay face down on the ground. The woman and the two oldest children were handcuffed while laying on the blacktop in the hot sun for forty minutes. As a former police officer I understand a felony stop. I understand the threat concern. What I don’t understand is how any officer could perceive children has a threat to their safety. I don’t understand how it could have taken 45 minutes to get clearance on a LEIN check. What I really don’t understand is how anyone could think this could have happened to “Karen” the prototypical white woman and her children.
One could easily make the case that these officers are tone deaf and Don’t care about lighting the next match. Rather than things getting better it appears that some police around the nation have elected to double down.
There’s a certain amount of irony to this happening today. I was on a zoom call with a fortune 500 client and his team. We were discussing steps that they could take to build a more inclusive environment. During the discussion one of his white team members chimed in to say she really didn’t understand what the black lives movement was all about and what the root cause of our ongoing civil unrest was. For what seemed like an eternity everyone on the call remained silent. I was counting to ten trying to maintain my composure. Finally I felt calm enough to speak. My comment was that after 400 hundred years of relentless oppression people are tired. If you put a pressure cooker on the stove without a relief valve for long enough it will eventually explode.
We spent the next hour talking about perspective. What these police officers in Aurora did and this young women’s total clueless demonstrates are a callousness about what’s really happening. Somethings got to give. We still have 6 more weeks of a very hot summer.
Think!!
Eyes Wide Open!!!
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