Lessons learned from Ferguson
As the nation has watched in horror as the death of an unarmed African-American man at the hands of a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., has gone from bad to worse, can reasonable people not agree on the following actions to help ensure that something like this does not ever happen again?
– Video and audio recordings must be made of all on-duty police activity. This is currently standard practice in some departments in which officers have been equipped with cameras. Why is this not universal? It would protect top-notch officers from unjustified accusations by those they arrest and would make it much less likely that bad law enforcement officers would engage in the commission of a crime against an innocent citizen. How many more deaths at the hands of the police must occur before there is a recognition that those in whom we place extraordinary authority and to whom we provide extensive weaponry must be kept under close scrutiny to ensure that abuses do not occur?
– If people do not vote, they are not likely to be represented in government bodies, but how on earth can there be only three African-American officers on a force of fifty-three in Ferguson when the community is 69 percent black? I have nothing but contempt and loathing for those who loot and riot, but certainly there is going to be racial animus and resentment when an incident like this occurs, given the disproportionate representation of minority whites on the police force. If police officers seeking to arrest or detain someone are the same race as the individual they are apprehending, the racial angle to alleged impropriety is eliminated or at least diminished.
We have the means to provide for better oversight of law enforcement authorities and to make police forces more representative of the communities they serve. Perhaps we will be motivated to act as we witness a heartbroken family who will never know precisely what happened to their loved one and a town that has been torn apart.
Oren M. Spiegler is from Upper Saint Clair.