The police “Code of Silence” about not snitching on each other when they do something wrong is the exact opposite of being a police officer. It’s criminal. You’d rather not be a snitch than have your fellow officer not be a criminal. Which means, you’d rather be an accomplice. So yeah, even though most cops are reasonable people, the ones I’ve known have ALWAYS upheld this code of silence. and it’s WRONG.
I’m really enjoying this exchange of letters between you and Jessica, thank you both so much for writing them. I live in Oakland, and I have a question for you! What would be the most effective way to campaign the city of Oakland, to fund more empathy and communication training for cops?
The basic fundamental police response to situations needs to change. Unfortunately, they’ve been trained for generations to dominate in their basic actions. Just today, reports of a student in Merced shot dead. Yes, he stabbed people. Obviously he was dangerous and upset. But, did he need to be shot dead? I seriously doubt it.
I have been in the acquaintance, keeping that anonymous, of many young adults who have said to me, in essence, “it doesn’t matter what your rights are, if you don’t want to go to jail, do exactly what the cop says, that’s how I landed in jail, over nothin’ at all and you do NOT want to go to jail” I knew them, their situations and their other stories…
Carl says, “As police brutality increases, so too does violence against the police.”
I don’t believe this is backed up by facts. Violence against police and deaths of police at the hands of criminals is down. Deaths of citizens at the hands of police is up.
That’s a non-answer. Overkill is, for some reason, acceptable. It shouldn’t ever be. The young man clearly had no reason to “point” his weapon. He likely was telling them it wasn’t a gun. A real tragedy, and one that happens over and over. I was raised to have respect for the police, and always did for most of life. Over the last few years, though…
I don’t think it’s a matter of the public being divided, or rights, or control. It’s a matter of all those things coming together in what has become a painful and untenable system. What I’m saying is that, logically, if:
1- So many people carry guns, and
2- officers consider a person (suspect?) carrying a gun to be a threat to their lives and
3- they…
Hi Gino,
I really appreciate your thoughts and your well reasoned argument regarding police behavior.
My dad had a friend who was a sergeant in the SFPD. He used to come by our house on his police Harley Davidson and as an impressionable young eight-year-old I just thought that he was the coolest guy…
The abridged version in Matter’s newsletter of this piece read like an antagonistic response by Carl to Jessica. A move by Matter driven for clickbait I guess, but not very fair to him.
Thank you Carl for starting a real dialogue on this topic.