It’s a new world for our nation’s paramilitary police force.
Cops are suddenly under extreme scrutiny, being held accountable for their actions and facing reforms and prosecution in jurisdictions across the country. And these police officers do not like it.
In Atlanta, where a cop has been fired and charged with murder after he needlessly shot and killed Rayshard Brooks in the back, officers are calling in sick and not responding to calls as a means to protest. Their colleagues did a poor job. Caught on video. With fatal consequences. Enraging the entire city.
So, naturally, the response has been to not do the job at all.
This is the same city where six cops were charged with assaulting two college students who were trying to drive home during the George Floyd demonstrations. Police were caught on video in that incident ripping the men from the car for no reason.
The chief of police has stepped down.
In Buffalo, 57 police officers quit a special unit designed to maintain order in the city streets during protests after two cops were disciplined for seriously injuring a 75-year-old man by pushing him to the ground and cracking his head open. That man suffered a fractured skull and can’t walk more than a week later.
In New York City, where the state will institute sweeping police reform, NYPD officers are being encouraged to fall ill with the “blue flu,” on July 4 as a means to protest. These are the same NYPD officers who cried at being, “treated like animals,” after multiple videos emerged of their heavy handling of demonstrations across the city.
This is a department whose officers were recorded assaulting people indiscriminately and driving vehicles into large groups of demonstrators.
After years of being permitted to assault and kill civilians with impunity, some jurisdictions have finally got the message and are cracking down on rogue cops. It is a stark departure from a past in which they could repeatedly get away with murder.
It took weeks of demonstrations, and the burning down of a police station in Minneapolis, to get government’s attention. But we have their attention now. The people are fed up, and they have learned to record cops’ actions.
The cops, of course, don’t like any of this and are fighting reform every step of the way. We are being told that morale among them is at an all-time low, and can you blame them? Nobody would like suddenly having consequences for their actions after living so long in a world in which there were none. Simply put, police want to continue to be above the law.
There is one thing we have learned from the backlash. The so-called “bad apples,” are a lot more prevalent than the police would have us believe, and they have been protected at an institutional level. It is truly mind-boggling how, when faced with nationwide protests demanding an end to police brutality, the cops have responded by committing more acts of violence against unarmed civilians. They continue to prove the protesters’ point.
Police reform is proceeding full-steam ahead at the city, county and federal levels nationwide, and cops are finally being held accountable. They can fight it all they want, but it’s a losing battle. America has awoken to the situation on its streets.
As we head in to what could be a contentious weekend, starting with Juneteenth on Friday and leading into Donald Trump’s carnival of pestilence Saturday in Tulsa, momentum continues to be with the demonstrators.
Now is the time to keep the pressure on.