Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 27, 1990 TAG: 9007270577
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That also applies to people in general, but it applies especially to police officers. The police represent the government. They uphold standards. It's in the nature of their work that a choice of words often can spell the difference between inflaming or defusing a tense situation.
And on one other point, Jeffrey is at least partly correct: Intervention by the U.S. Justice Department - whether an investigation, as she called for this week, or mediation, as Justice officials described it - could well prove helpful in determining whether some Roanoke officers have a tendency to use excessive force in making arrests, particularly when those arrested are black.
Chief David Hooper, to his credit, says he welcomes such third-party involvement. There remains the question, of course, of why the Justice Department should be called in before, rather than after, complaints are filed with local officials.
But however it is done, the first task is to get at the facts of the various incidents that inspired the NAACP's call to the Justice Department. Accounts conflict, including accounts of the arrest over the weekend of a counselor and coach at William Fleming High School. Only to a degree do those conflicts appear attributable to the inevitable differences in how people from differing perspectives perceive things.
It's important to keep in mind that:
A call for an investigation of alleged police misconduct does not necessarily mean there in fact has been police misconduct.
Of the instances publicly identified, the police have had reason to be there.
It is easier in retrospect to calibrate the precise amount of force that should be used in any particular arrest than it is at the time.
To continue beating detainees after they're subdued and handcuffed, as has been alleged, obviously is wrong.
To use force on someone who is not physically resisting, as has been alleged in the incident involving Fleming counselor and coach John Canty, obviously is wrong.
But at 6-2, 285 pounds, Canty is as big as you would expect a former semipro football player to be. If he (perhaps inadvertently) bumped an officer while the police were arresting two female Fleming students for trespassing after hours at a Hardee's parking lot, the use of some measure of force by the police is predictable.
There are a lot of "ifs" and "maybes" and "apparentlys" in all this. Apparently, for example, the police in the absence of other information jumped to the conclusion that Canty - because of his size (large), race (black) and age (30) - posed a threat.
But what's clear as cellophane is that the police didn't know who Canty was. Had they known, there would have been no need to sort things out by thinking in stereotypes.
Given the frequency with which brushes with the law involve young people, is it absurd to suggest that police officers and dropout-prevention counselors such as Canty ought as a matter of course to get to know each other? Not if Roanoke is serious about wanting a police force in touch with the community.
Sure, recruiting more black officers might help in establishing closer ties to one portion of the Roanoke community. But it's not the only answer.
Regardless of race, if there are some officers who need an attitude-adjustment seminar, their attitudes should be adjusted or they should be canned. Regardless of race, if it takes a formal program to introduce officers to civilians in closest touch with troubled teens, then by all means establish a formal program.
Nor is this a one-way street: There's plenty the general public can do. Parents can keep track of what their children are up to. The illegal-drug traffic and related crimes are stressing police resources - a traffic that requires not only sellers, often black and often from the `'wrong" side of town, but also buyers, often white and often from a middle class with the money to make the purchases.
And just as the police shouldn't jump to stereotyped judgments, neither should the public stereotype cops as a separate breed of humanity to be met automatically with suspicion and hostility.
The Roanoke police force has a tough job. No one should jump to the conclusion that racism runs rampant in the department simply because the NAACP has called for an investigation. Neither should the possibility be dismissed that some excessive force and racist language have been used.
Prejudging, before the facts have been sorted and sifted, is a big mistake, and nowhere more so than where race is concerned. Whether the police or the public succumbs to the error, it's still called prejudice.
by CNB