The Use Of Guns And Not Words

Police brutality throughout the United States is a very complex, ongoing and hot issue.  In order to truly combat this issue, we must look at our Justice System.  If we adjusted the way in which we train officers, then we would be one step closer to combating this issue. The United States Constitution states that, "an officer must reasonably believe it is necessary to shoot to kill to defend him or herself or someone else from imminent death".  This clearly is a high-pressure situation, in which officers must make decisions in a split second, but "How many shots is too many?" is the question that seems to be a controversial one today.  The core root of police brutality comes from our justice system itself and in order to change a few of America's police forces, we must change the system itself.

 Let's take the city of San Diego and its police force for example.  The police officers at the academy are put into a room where a video game like computer system projects live scenarios on the screen. They are faced with suspects with guns and knifes.  They themselves have a gun in hand in order to simulate a real life situation.  Through this training they are taught to shoot, but the question becomes "Where do they ever learn to communicate with the suspect?"  The problem is, they don't.  According to Ken Kris an instructor at the police academy in San Diego, "Police are taught from day one the hands are what's going to kill you, the hands are what's going to hurt you".  They are then taught to defuse the situation as quickly as possible.

Many ask why can't officers shoot at the feet or places on the body that wouldn't cause the suspects to be killed?  The problem with this as John Firman,  director of research programs at the International Association of Chiefs of Police said is that, "shooting at a limb is impractical, aiming at an arm or leg which moves fast, could result in a misfire that fails to neutralize the treat and may even hit the wrong person, the likelihood of success is low".  So officers shot for the biggest targets such a the torso, this way they have a higher chance of extinguishing the threat.  We have to take into consideration that officers live with the guilt of killing someone for the rest of their lives and that isn't an easy thing to handle.

Our system focuses so much on physical stuff like the use of lethal force, but what about verbal interaction with suspects. Andrew Prelate, President of the National Latino Peace Officers Association said stated that, "When you're training's all about shooting, handcuffing, the psychical part and not about the verbal part, it can create an imbalance".  The conflict arises with communication.  Officers aren't really taught how to defuse the situation with words, they are just taught to shoot. That is exactly the problem with our system and just one of the many reasons why so many Americans have lost trust in America's police forces.

Many influential figures in our society such as the mayors in major cities like New York and Chicago believe that it's time for reform.  The sad part is that incidents in their cities such as Eric Gardner, the man who was put in a choke hold in New York City and ended up dying had to happen in order for the mayors to see that reforms were needed. The Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel was quoted saying, "we must also make real changes within our police departments today and it is clear changes are needed to how officers respond".  We must realize that cops are the good guys and yet there may be a few out there that are trigger happy.  There are hundreds of thousands out there protecting us. Our country and various states are making progress when it comes to police brutality.  As a matter of fact, Washington claims that its state has a new style of police training, its motto is to "produce "guardians of democracy", who serve and protect instead of "warriors" who conquer and control".  Hopefully other states will be soon to follow its lead.

After all, we are headed in the right direction.  If influential members of major cities are calling this issue into the limelight and states are reforming the way in which they train their officers, then there is hope.  Cops need to learn to communicate first and then learn how to shoot.  After we teach them how to communicate, then maybe the next step in combating this issue is asking ourselves, "Are guns really necessary for cops to carry and if so why?"




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