Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Moving Forward After Baltimore

Now that Baltimore has calmed down and the National Guard has left, what's next for the citizens and the police department? The state attorney general announced 4 days ago that Freddie Gray's death is consider to be a homicide and the state will be charging 6 Baltimore police officers in the case. Baltimore's police commissioner did not know about the chargers being brought to his officers until 10 minutes before the national televised press conference. He seem surprised in his interview that his officers may be charged with second degree murder and manslaughter. However he seemed to be very understanding of the distrust the Baltimore community is having with his police officers. He has made it very clear he plans on gaining the trust back for the police departments. When discussing the riots during the interview he made it clear that his officers were not ready to handle the mass amount of angry protestors the hours following Gray's funeral services. The commissioner promised to reunite the community and the police, but admits it will take some time. Change will not happen over night. The commissioner, who is also African American,  stressed the point that the lack of education for African Americans is being a nation wide problem and believes it's one of the underlying causes of the lack of trust in authority many people have throughout the country.

My issue with all of this is the solution. What actually is going to be done to assure Baltimore won't happen again? Eduction reforms are a must but that isn't going to fix the brutality of police officers towards members of the community they serve. How many African American males are going to have to die before Americans as a whole are up in arms & have complete distrust with the police? This isn't a Baltimore issue, nor a Ferguson issue but instead a national issue that needs to be settled as soon as possible. Any suggestions on policy that could be passed to improve this distrust with our police?

Link to commissioner interview

1 comment:

phil w said...

i agree with your point I don't believe that education is the issue here. I think that it is police brutality. I respect the police and believe that they should protects us and we should not be afraid of them. But after all that has happened this year with police brutality I am a little hesitant when talking with a police officer. Police need to show that they are here for the community.