Trust Issues
The Police Don’t Deserve Your Trust
Law enforcement keeps placing the blame for their violence on the communities they’re supposed to be serving
In a democracy, we expect that our public institutions will be accountable to us. Rarely are the implications of that trust as profound — or the results of its violation as devastating — as they are when it comes to the police.
As an institution, police are entrusted with the power to take away life and liberty in order to “protect and serve.” This system places an extraordinary level of trust in the people policing our communities. For many of us, however, that trust has been violated repeatedly with impunity.
Take the case of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Police were called to a Triple S store following a report that a man had “brandished a gun.” On arriving at the scene, they saw Sterling standing in front of the store and immediately put a gun to his head. When he asked why, the police threatened to shoot his “f*cking ass.” They threw him to the ground and shot him dead 90 seconds later. Then they went out of their way to hide what had happened. Police confiscated surveillance video from the scene without a warrant and claimed they didn’t have it. They obtained body camera footage but told…
