I have several friends and clients who have served with the Asheville Police Department over the years and am so dismayed at the way our government and some people are treating these men and women who face potential danger every day, whether they are on shift or not.
The police already know how to do their jobs. They do not need any critical race theory or race training. That is a complete crock. I am disgusted by what our once-fine city is doing to the morale of our police by caving to the few most vocal complainers among us.
What needs to happen is education of the citizenry, especially our young people. They are obviously not learning what they need to know about interacting with the police at home, so we need bring it into our schools. Kids need to learn that the police are not their enemy unless they are doing something illegal. They need to learn at a young age that when a police officer tells them to do something or to stop doing something, they need to listen and not attempt anything other than to follow the order or request.
Fighting or running from the police never ends well. People forget the danger that our officers face, and they do not think about how scary it can be to walk up to a car during a traffic stop these days. We need to recognize that they are just people, too, and that they do not want a fight. They want to work their shift and go home to their families, too.
— Laura McCue
Asheville business owner
Arden
“ Youths need education on interacting with police” is an over simplification. What about unwarranted search and seizures? What about mass police brutality? Who determines “illegal” hence, WHAT ABOUT INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY? Never talk to the police; EVER! Any attorney will tell anyone that!
Easy-peasy.
Lesson 1: Don’t Be Black.
Isn’t it a shame that government schools don’t encourage and incorporate benevolent Police education FOR the children’s education, but it’s obvious that so many of the ‘educators’ are anti Police themselves which is NOT healthy FOR the children. They won’t teach students about NOT littering either… Get YOUR child OUT of government screwls as FAST as you CAN !!! They will THANK you forevah!
“The police already know how to do their jobs.”
Do they, though? Let’s be honest here: most police training in most of the US is “how to shoot people” or “how to taser people” or “how to physically take down someone.” If you think that the job of the police is mostly about using the state’s monopoly on violence then I guess you’ll think that the police know how to do their jobs. In the real world, there are too far many police departments which leads to an insufficient command structure and training process. Buncombe County has a multitude of law enforcement agencies: Asheville, Woodfin, Weaverville, Black Mountain, Biltmore Forest, Montreat; the Buncombe Sheriff’s department; the State Troopers; UNCA, AB Tech; the VA, the Park Rangers; the officers affiliated with the Federal Building. This is stupid. If you’re the kind of person who thinks that the school systems should be consolidate then you ought to be arguing that the county’s policing should also be consolidated.
“Kids need to learn that the police are not their enemy unless they are doing something illegal.”
Is that true, though?
I mean, Tamir Rice was carrying a toy gun and was killed within seconds of the police showing up, and the officers who killed him faced no charges. John Crawford was holding a toy gun in a Walmart and was killed within seconds of the police showing up, and the officers who killed him faced no charges. Philando Castile was killed while complying with an officer’s instructions and the officer shot him dead and was acquitted. The basic issue here is that people do not know what individual officers consider compliant or non-threatening behavior, and it’s fair to say that individual officers don’t know until they show up and act on a mixture of training and sheer instinct.
Plenty of Black people have talked about The Talk they received as children and The Talk they give as parents, and even The Talk doesn’t guarantee that an individual officer won’t decide in the moment that that is not enough.
“People forget the danger that our officers face”
It’s far more dangerous to work on a construction site.
And once again: the police are not superheroes who get to decide how to use their super powers. They are members of the public granted special powers with the ongoing consent of the public. Policing is a municipal function, no more or no less than garbage collection. The public collectively gets to decide how we should be policed. The police don’t get to decide how they police us.
YES. All of this. Thank you. They work for us, including those they brutalize routinely just for being black, or brown, or anything but pasty white.
‘far more dangerous to work on a construction site’ … do you have that data , Mr. Luther ?