What Is It Like Being on the Houston Police Department Right Now?
The tragic death of Houston native, George Floyd, 46, has sparked nationwide unrest against police departments everywhere.
On May 25, 2020, Floyd, an African American man, died at the hands of white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin. Floyd was under arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit bill to purchase cigarettes, and when lying face down and handcuffed, Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Floyd repeatedly pleaded for his life saying, “I can’t breathe,” “Please,” and “Mama,” but Chauvin ignored his cries and continued to kneel on Floyd’s neck.
Two other Minneapolis officers who were standing nearby further restrained Floyd, and one officer prevented bystanders from moving in to take action against Chauvin. During the final few minutes, Floyd was unresponsive while Chauvin kept his knee down and did not remove it until medics arrived and told him to. Floyd was pronounced dead at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.
Since then, and despite the COVID-19 pandemic, weeks of protests, movements, and marches have taken place in more than 2,000 U.S. cities in response to the ongoing issue of police brutality in association with “Black Lives Matter” and were accompanied by calls to reform and defund police departments throughout the nation.
Rallies and marches were held in Downtown Houston, and more significantly, the funeral and burial of the Third Ward native, Floyd, took place here as well.
Protests were initially peaceful ones until riots, looting, and vandalism of police cars took place, calling for curfews and help from the Texas Department of Public Safety. There were also reports of bricks thrown at Houston officers in Downtown on the first few nights of protests.
“We’ve been working a lot of hours — especially the first weekend of protests, where there’s a lot of violence here in Houston, and things were being thrown at officers and bottles and rocks and other projectiles, and there was some attempted looting, but we put a stop to it,” said Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo.
Acevedo revealed what it’s like being under such scrutiny in a time like this, and has gained national news coverage for his strong rapport with the Black community during a time of racial injustice from the police force.
“I wish that the protesters who all they want to do is scream, would take the time, just take a breath, and actually talk to one another. Because we’re living at a time in our nation’s history where too many of us, instead of trying to see things through the eyes and the prism of people who don’t look like us, or don’t wear the same uniform, don’t have the same profession, actually get out of our comfort zones. I just wish they would know that we really care, I really care, our cops really care; and we probably have much more in common in terms of our views on issues, in terms of our hopes, our dreams, our fears, than we have that’s not in common,” Acevedo said in a one-on-one interview.
The Houston Police Department is just one of many police departments facing pressures and hope to make every attempt possible to stand with the community to fight injustice.
“When I was downtown, and I faced some of the angry protesters, they just don’t think we care about them because you know, either a certain race, or certain gender or whatever, they think that we think negative of them,” Ron Borza, a police commander with the Houston Police Department, said.
Borza described the tragic death of Floyd as “absolutely ridiculous”, he also said a police officer’s job is to communicate.
“Every time, if you’re a good police officer, every time you show up on the scene, you should not judge a character by what they look like, you gotta get out, you gotta talk to them. I think the younger generation thinks that we’re out to get them, and we’re not at all; we enjoy what we do, our job is to communicate with the public,” he explained.
“If we take the time to learn about each other, we realize that we have so much more that unites us than divides us. If we all did that, we’d be in a much better world.” — Chief Acevedo
