Our city Police Chief and our County Sheriff are working together with our area ministerial alliance to prepare our community for possible unrest relating to officer involved shootings.
As I mentioned elsewhere, my son-in-law is a shift commander on the same police department for which I serve as Chaplain. When a local jailer was tried for beating up a black inmate, Quanell X (sp?) and the New Black Panther Party were in town with the implication that riots would break out if the jury didn't convict.
Our Sheriff's Department, along with NUMEROUS DPS and Texas Rangers kinda "surrounded" the agitators, but not in a provocative manner at all. It appeared that they had instructions to be relaxed, because they (the contingent of law enforcement) were friendly, even jovial, and "projected calm". X and the NBPP folks looked a bit out of sorts - I think they're used to less friendly treatment.
Anyway, we have had a series of incidents at night where officers stop a car for speeding, and it's a young black male (not the same one each time) who taunts the officer, apparently trying to get him mad. One of them (thank God for Body Cams) was screaming at my son-in-law "Aren't you going to SHOOT ME"?
One of the things we're doing is building up a video library of these incidents, and sharing them with church congregations, civic groups, clubs... they'll probably even be shown in our schools - that's still under discussion.
The idea is to prepare the community that our guys are being VERY restrained, but IF a situation happened where there was an officer involved shooting, it needs to be seen in the overall context of this apparent "probing" action. Some of the officers who were adamantly opposed to the body cams now endorse them whole-heartedly because of some of the idiocy they were able to catch on video.
I sure hope it never comes to it, but if there's "trouble in paradise", we're hoping that overwhelming support for our officers offsets the trouble that some activists may wish to visit on us. (There had been several incidents in an adjacent county because rumors were that a young black woman had been killed by cops, then kept in the county jail for several days, even though in-jail video showed her walking around and talking to deputies before she committed suicide in her jail cell)
It's a tough world in which to be a cop. I was one many years ago -- don't think I'd want to do that today, even if I was young again.
As I mentioned elsewhere, my son-in-law is a shift commander on the same police department for which I serve as Chaplain. When a local jailer was tried for beating up a black inmate, Quanell X (sp?) and the New Black Panther Party were in town with the implication that riots would break out if the jury didn't convict.
Our Sheriff's Department, along with NUMEROUS DPS and Texas Rangers kinda "surrounded" the agitators, but not in a provocative manner at all. It appeared that they had instructions to be relaxed, because they (the contingent of law enforcement) were friendly, even jovial, and "projected calm". X and the NBPP folks looked a bit out of sorts - I think they're used to less friendly treatment.
Anyway, we have had a series of incidents at night where officers stop a car for speeding, and it's a young black male (not the same one each time) who taunts the officer, apparently trying to get him mad. One of them (thank God for Body Cams) was screaming at my son-in-law "Aren't you going to SHOOT ME"?
One of the things we're doing is building up a video library of these incidents, and sharing them with church congregations, civic groups, clubs... they'll probably even be shown in our schools - that's still under discussion.
The idea is to prepare the community that our guys are being VERY restrained, but IF a situation happened where there was an officer involved shooting, it needs to be seen in the overall context of this apparent "probing" action. Some of the officers who were adamantly opposed to the body cams now endorse them whole-heartedly because of some of the idiocy they were able to catch on video.
I sure hope it never comes to it, but if there's "trouble in paradise", we're hoping that overwhelming support for our officers offsets the trouble that some activists may wish to visit on us. (There had been several incidents in an adjacent county because rumors were that a young black woman had been killed by cops, then kept in the county jail for several days, even though in-jail video showed her walking around and talking to deputies before she committed suicide in her jail cell)
It's a tough world in which to be a cop. I was one many years ago -- don't think I'd want to do that today, even if I was young again.
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