As I watched the latest news coming out of Minneapolis and the commentary of respected black personalities about their own very difficult experiences with police, I have come to the conclusion that as a white man I will never fully understand their very rational concerns, and even the fears, that the average black person feels about dealing with police officers.  I don’t tense up when I see a police car.  I never worry that a police officer will mistreat me or one of my nephews.  I have never had a reason to view the police as a possible source of danger.

I don’t even remember being overly concerned when I was walking down a sidewalk one night with a hoodie pulled over my head to ward off a misting rain and a police officer pulled his cruiser over with its lights flashing and ordered me to stop and turn around with my hands up.  At the time I guess I figured there had been some kind of misunderstanding that could be easily be cleared up.  Turns out he thought that I might have been the suspect in a burglary who was seen wearing a hoodie. I strongly suspect that the suspect was black, because when I turned around he visibly relaxed and put away his gun.

The situation ended with the police officer giving me a ride home. Thinking back on that incident today, I can’t help wondering what would have happened if I had been black.  However, at the time, even without realizing it, I no doubt felt protected because of my whiteness. I knew instinctively that the chances that the police officer would mistreat me was extremely slim and none and that he knew there would be hell to pay if he acted out of line.

Even if I were accused of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill I wouldn’t expect to be arrested, much less find myself handcuffed and face down on the street with a cop kneeling on my neck.  After all, any police officer would have to know that I might have come by the bill quite honestly and could easily be the victim of a counterfeiter and not the perpetrator of the crime.  I certainly wouldn’t expect to be mistreated under those circumstances regardless of whether the officer believed I was guilty or not provided I didn’t resist arrest.

So try as I might, I have come to realize that I can’t possibly pretend to totally understand how a black man feels about the possibility of having to deal with the police.  I can’t totally understand how black parents fear that someday their children, especially their sons, might have to deal with police racism and brutality. I can’t truly understand how angry black people must be today when they have been dealing this situation all of their lives.  However, I totally understand injustice when I see it, and I totally understand that we have a very real problem with bad cops in this country.

Not only do we have far too many bad cops, we have stupid bad cops who apparently believe that they are above the law, that they will be protected by their badge and uniform regardless of what they do.  This kind of mentality can only occur because those bad cops believe that they will be protected by their fellow officers, by their superiors, and by the local district attorneys who should indict them and bring them to trial when they break the law while mistreating black citizens.

How stupid, racist, and empowered does a police office have to be to kneel on the neck of a black man who has already handcuffed for an extended period of time while the man calls out repeatedly that he can’t breathe with security cameras all around and while other citizens are filming the incident with their cell phones?  He had to believe that he would not be called to task for his egregious action even if he was too stupid to realize that he was killing his victim.  How stupid does a state police supervisor have to be to believe he could order his men to arrest a CNN crew for no stated reason while a black reporter was on camera in the middle that already inflamed situation? In the process he embarrassed the entire state of Minnesota.   He must have felt empowered by the attitudes and past actions his supervision to act so irresponsibly.

How stupid does the local district attorney in Minneapolis have to be to say at a press conference that there is “other evidence that does not support a criminal charge” in the death of George Floyd while the city burns around him. Even if District Attorney Mike Freeman truly believed that evidence, didn’t he understand that such a statement would further inflame an already volatile situation?  Didn’t he understand that much of the current unrest has been caused by his failure to order arrests in the case despite calls by legal analysts around the country and even the mayor of Minneapolis for the officer(s) involved to be changed with murder?

How stupid does the President of the United States have to be to tweet, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” when our laws clearly state that the protection of property was not warrant the use of deadly force.

This egregious system of injustice and national embarrassment must end, and it must end now!  Not only must we better screen potential police officers, but we must insist on the installation of police supervisors and police chiefs who are more than willing to fire bad cops and other police officers who provide cover for them.  We also need to install district attorneys who willing to indict, order the arrests, and bring to trial police officers who overstep their authority and break the law in the process.

Most importantly, you and I have to take personal responsibility for seeing that all of this is done.  We must demand change now.  We must advocate for and vote for candidates for the elected offices which supervise police departments who will carry out this mandate and for district attorneys who are will enforce the law regardless of who breaks it. We can no longer pretend that we are disgusted by this horrendous situation while sitting back and pretending that it is someone else’s problem.  If we do not take action to resolve the problem, we are part of its cause.

Rick Guilbeau (Cajun)     5/29/2020