As I was walking down my street recently, a new sign placed in someone’s yard caught my attention: “It’s a Human Right.” On the reverse side was printed, “Black Lives Matter.” As I continued my evening walk, my thoughts went back to an earlier time in my life.
In the 1970’s and early 1980’s, I was a police officer for the City of Flint, Michigan, working patrol on second shift in the north end of the city, which was largely African American neighborhoods. The police department was experiencing significant tension over racial discrimination within its ranks and between officers and citizens. One evening in 1980 officers responding to a home burglary shot and killed a 15-year-old black adolescent running out of the house. It was later justified as shooting a fleeing felon, which was legal for police in Michigan at the time. Most of the officers I knew would never shoot a person fleeing a property crime, let alone a juvenile. I was not at the scene, but the shooting occurred in the area that I patrolled and the boy lived in my patrol district. I remember being sickened by what happened to him. Later I left the Flint Police, moved to northcentral Illinois and have since retired from police work.
Recently the news seems to be flooded with numerous incidents of police shootings and or brutal behavior directed towards African Americans. Forty years have passed since that night in Flint and we seem to have made little, if any, progress in addressing police violence and discrimination directed towards people of color in our communities. The roots appear to run deep in our culture and institutions and we seem to be plagued with collective self-denial and pretentiousness. They also run deep in our personal lives and we are very good at self-deception.
I spent my entire career as a police officer and never shot anyone. That is true for most police officers regardless of where they serve. The vast majority of officers want to serve their communities, keep their neighbors safe, and go home to their families at the end of their shifts. They are good people doing an often thankless task. They need our support. But that does not mean that officers who break the law and violate their community’s trust should be protected and excused for their behavior. They must be held accountable.
Three days ago I began to put my thoughts on the issue into writing. As I was thinking about the shooting of that young man in Flint forty years ago, I received a text message from a friend who knows about my past with the Flint Police Department. Attached was a podcast (“Who Replaces Me”) about a current African American Flint Police Officer, Scott Watson. The friend asked if I knew Watson; I did not. But as I was listening to the podcast about Watson growing up in Flint, his struggles and ultimately becoming a police officer in Flint, I was struck by his account of a close boyhood friend who, with others, had broken into a home and was shot by police as he came out of the house. It was the same incident that I was writing about at that moment. Watson’s openness and honesty about the effects of his friend’s death gave me a different perspective on my own experiences from that time.
“The vast majority of officers want to serve their communities, keep their neighbors safe, and go home to their families at the end of their shifts. They are good people doing an often thankless task. They need our support. But that does not mean that officers who break the law and violate their community’s trust should be protected and excused for their behavior. They must be held accountable. ”
Two seemingly opposing positions have raised their voices in our country lately. Each promises to create a wonderful society, and solve our racial issues, with a sweep of their hand. One promises to end all our problems with quickly enacted laws, social and educational programs. Not all problems are solved by education. The other promises to return us to the golden years of safety and prosperity by diminishing a few of our personal liberties and expanding funding for new policing programs. Some of those steps are necessary, but somehow each approach sounds hollow and empty – an attempt to lull us into a quick fix, when what is needed is a deep committed effort, to acknowledge the past, to understand each other, and work together to address the roots of the problem rather than the presenting symptoms. How can we magically make great again, what was never great for so many people in our country?
Yesterday I wrote a letter to Scott Watson and sent it to him care of the Flint Police Department. I introduced myself and thanked him for his commitment to work within his community to try to reach young lives in a challenging situation. I told him what I knew about and experienced in the shooting of his young friend forty years ago. It was a small step for me to take to encourage and perhaps help him.
I wonder if we will accept the rhetoric of quick fixes that satisfy our self-denial about the extent and depth of the problem we are facing in our country and within each of us. Or, will we listen to the voices of our children who are marching in the streets, “Black and Brown lives, yes, all lives matter. It is a human right.”
– Bruce R. McVety, September 2020