Are Americans Finally Realizing the Police Brutality is Everyone's Problem?

Watching the aftermath of two grand jury decisions that allowed two police officers to in the view of some get away with murder, there seem to be two reactions overall.  The white conservative Christofascists/Tea Party crowd - perhaps because of the multitude of white supremacists with that group - have either yawned at the issue or believed that it's not an issue because the victims were blacks (Note the view of Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) - a foul individual in my estimation - below).  Others from the sane and decent elements of society outside the black community may, however, be waking up to the reality that the problem threatens all of us.  I've recounted my own experience with gay bashing cops and sadly there are numerous stories of police shooting white youths without justification.  And it you're in a low income white neighborhood, don't count on the police acting the same as they would in a wealthy society neighborhood.  An editorial in the New York Times examines what may be the beginning of a long needed awakening.  Here are highlights:

The country has historically reacted with doubt or indifference when African-Americans speak of police officers who brutalize — or even kill — people with impunity. Affluent and middle-class white Americans who were treated with respect by the police had difficulty imagining the often life-threatening mistreatment that black Americans of all walks of life dealt with on a daily basis. Perhaps those days are passing away.

You can see that from the multiracial cast of the demonstrations that have swept the nation since Wednesday, when a grand jury decided not to indict a white New York City police officer whose chokehold killed Eric Garner, an unarmed black man.

In city after city, white and nonwhite citizens have surged through the streets chanting or bearing signs with Mr. Garner’s final words: “I can’t breathe.” Others chanted: “Hands up; don’t shoot” or “Black lives matter” — slogans from the racially troubled town of Ferguson, Mo., where another grand jury declined to indict the officer who shot to death 18-year-old Michael Brown.

The viral spread of the demonstrations — and the wide cross section of Americans who are organizing and participating in them — shows that what was once seen as a black issue is on the way to being seen as a central, American problem.

The question of the moment is whether the country’s political leadership has the will to root out abusive and discriminatory policing — corrosive, longstanding problems that bore down on minority communities, large and small, urban and suburban.

This week, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. released a particularly alarming report on the barbaric conduct of the police department in Cleveland, which has been riven with discord in recent weeks, after a white police officer shot and killed a 12-year-old black boy, Tamir Rice, who was holding a toy gun.

The Times reported on Friday that the officer had quit a suburban police force after his supervisors judged that he had a “dangerous loss of composure” during firearms training and was emotionally unprepared to deal with the stresses of the job. The Cleveland Police Department had failed to examine the officer’s work history before hiring him.

The Justice Department report describes the Cleveland Police Department as something far closer to an occupying military force than a legitimate law enforcement agency. The officers, for example, seem to take a casual view of the use of deadly force, shooting at people who pose no threat of harm to the police or others.

[A]spects of illegal police conduct can be found in cities all over the country, subjecting millions to intimidation and fear that they could be killed for innocent actions.

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, for example, asked, “Why does the federal government feel like it is its responsibility and role to be the leader in an investigation in a local instance?” That sounds like something out of the Jim Crow era, when Southern states argued that they were entitled to treat black citizens any way they wished.

That so many are in the streets protesting police abuse shows that outrage over these injustices is spreading. Now it is up to the nation’s political leaders to confront this crisis.

How one gets treated by police should not depend on the color of one's skin, their hair or dress style, the street they live on or whether they have a yacht or country club sticker on their car.  We also need to face the reality that there are many on police forces who have no business wearing a badge and carrying a gun. The Cleveland murder of a 12 year old underscores that reality.