What Police Accountability Is and Is Not

+WonderfulWorld

There are many harsh critics of Mayor deBlasio of New York City. You can see them on TV, hear them on talk radio, read them on social media. The unfortunate truth is that deBlasio never stated any hatred of police. What deBlasio said to his son is what all people have to teach their sons and daughters, especially black sons, that when dealing with police you have to be careful.

You have to be careful when dealing with police . . . that's just simple logic . . . the police can kill you and can get away with it by saying their life was threatened in some way or by creating a situation where they say you were resisting arrest. The police have all the authority and the power to do anything. And, even though we all have civil rights, that doesn’t really matter if you get riddled with bullets. That doesn’t really matter if it’s your word against their words.
 

There is not one statement I have ever read by deBlasio that said that you should distrust police or that police are all corrupt or bad people. It's people like Giuliani and Ray Kelly who are wanting to use this Eric Garner tragedy for some political advantage to avoid any police accountability moving forward when police have to be held accountable for their actions.

Currently, the poor, minorities and those with mental illness are the people that are mostly held accountable for their actions . . . sometimes with their lives at the hands of police and fearful citizens. The rich, mostly white privileged people, and cops, can get away with many crimes without any accountability or responsibility for their actions.

Just look for those responsible for the economic collapse in prison. Just look for the rich drunk drivers in jail or with a record. Just look for the cops pulling random people over in rich neighborhoods.

Those are of course general statements that are indicative of the overall systemic problems within the American judicial and criminal justice system. The majority of police are good Americans doing a great public service and duty to citizens and communities across the country.

By the police and the staunch defenders of the police resorting to lies, taking statements out of context by officials, by behaving like fools making childish, public tantrums at funerals for assassinated cops; they belittle themselves as a whole.

Stop defending bad cops. Just because the American people want cops to be accountable for their actions does not mean that Americans think cops are all bad. It means we should all be held to the same standards.

Cops should not be a protected class of people simply because they wear a uniform. They should be held to the highest of standards. If they cannot, they should not wear the uniform.

Maybe, we, as an American people, should pay more in taxes to pay them more for them to have a better salary, to have more training and to have more experience and education to before becoming police officers.