TWO CAN PLAY THAT GAME
Our reply included that “a lot of people may say that you can’t put yourself in a black man’s shoes unless you’re black” and “I say that you can’t put yourself in a cop’s shoes unless you were or are one.”
We continued with the suggestion that we should take that as a start of our dialogue and that we were trying to put ourselves in the others’ position. “The BPD investigation was thorough and like the Walter Scott (South Carolina) case, I will be a man and admit that there was serious wrongdoing by the police. But in the same light, there is also wrongdoing by many citizens that escalate the situation.”
Next, Foster changed the focus of the discussion to one that spoke of the low standards in place today for people applying to become police officers and that their training is also an issue, with the police having it and citizens not. “The system is at fault for putting all parties involved at risk, part of why he (Kaepernick) knelt.”
Not surprisingly (since we were trying to be objective throughout this discussion), we agreed with Foster that there are many cops out there who are “clueless about many things,” which he came back with, “Then we agree – addressing the distrust in lower income neighborhoods is a must.”
The conversation then delved into Foster pointing out that many unlawful police encounters occur and many of them go undocumented. We once again agreed, but with a caveat that the term ‘unlawful’ is one that needs to be defined in order to be labeled.
In many instances, the police are responding to an anonymous 911 call about a someone armed with a gun with a very brief description. If someone meets whatever description the police have available to them, they can not only stop, but also frisk that individual due to the nature of the crime being investigated and the person stopped has no idea why he is being thrown up against a wall. But it is not only legal to do so for the police, but necessary for the safety of themselves and the public if the subject is in fact armed with a firearm.
Foster continued to go back to the undocumented unwarranted stops even after we agreed with him that they do occur and the officers found guilty of that should be punished and frequently are.
Foster: “And frequently not. Here’s our crossroads.”
