Opinion: The police can be real public servants with reforms

Western pop culture depicts the ideal police officer as a man with a friendly face, who maybe knows your name and is a trusted member of the community. Even though he might have been an actor, fellow Tar Heel Andy Griffith helped shaped the image of this idea public servant.

While the real world is much more complicated (and diverse) than Mayberry, there are lessons to be learned from Sheriff Andy Taylor.

First, the type of policing we are imagining has never existed at an institutional level. The role of the police officer has been rooted in legacies of racism and discrimination for much of this country’s history.

While there are much larger issues surrounding policing in America, many people feel unsafe to ask the police for day-to-day help due to the militarization of their equipment and the recent news regarding brutality.

Look at the images of police officers in their dark uniforms, guns, military vehicles and other military-grade weapons. It becomes incredibly clear why citizens do not trust officers and why officers feel empowered to act in violent ways.

It doesn’t matter how we got to this point, it is clear that we need to leave it.

The police should be a trustworthy institution. It should be concerned for public safety and not just giving out citations and making arrests.

This can look like helping people whose cars have broken down on the side of the road, driving a homeless community member back to the shelter or even helping a drunk college student home so they don’t have to make the walk to their dorm alone in the dark.

And, you know, if the police stopped shooting unarmed people, that would do a lot to restore confidence.

The shift to an authoritarian position has been paramount to modern American police.

Such a shift makes some sense; though being a police officer still does not crack the top most dangerous jobs in the United States, there has been a slight increase in on the job deaths over the past fifty years. Cops might see community engagement as a potentially life-threatening prospect.

We applaud officers who make all efforts to be helpful and to become beloved members of the community. We know it cannot be easy given many of the threats that come with being an officer.

To other officers — those that are seemingly shooting first and seeking justice only for themselves — you’re ruining it for your colleagues. At best you’re missing an opportunity to do good, at worst you’re putting your fellow officers in harm’s way by creating a situation of fear.

But this goes beyond the individual. Ultimately, all officers and citizens are operating under institutions that encourage violence.

To create this we need to lobby for institutional change to, and the demilitarization of, the police force across the country.

We also need the support of officers who want to see reform. Their voices and their solidarity is invaluable in these times. Those inside the system are the best situated to change it.

While this will not magically solve everything instantly, if trust can be encouraged across communities, then maybe we can finally see an end to the tragic news of death.