Trying to Keep Hope Alive After the Derek Chauvin Verdict
“I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police,” he explained in a later tweet. “I took the tweet down because it’s being used to create more hate - This isn’t about one officer. it’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY”
He was right about the need for accountability but, unfortunately, he also was right about how some people would turn his words about the need for police accountability into what HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher calls “panic porn” for right-wing media.
More important, as another Twitter user replied to LeBron, “You do realize that officer saved a Black girl from getting stabbed, right?”
Right. The question of whether officer Reardon needed to use deadly force can’t ignore an obvious reality on the video: He was trying to stop a young woman who clearly appears to be preparing to stab an unidentified young woman after having knocked another young woman to the ground.
Talk show speculation about “shooting to wound” or using a Taser must take into account how the whole episode occurs in fractions of a second. If that were my daughter about to be stabbed, I wouldn’t want the officer to hesitate either.
And therein lies the dilemma of Black attitudes toward police. We want effective police protection when we need it, but trust in the police is so low in some communities that many are reluctant to call even when they need it.
When fear and resentment of police undermines cooperation by crime victims and witnesses, the only winners are the criminals who go free. No wonder so many law-abiding citizens have lost hope.
So we need some victories. We need faith in the criminal justice system to be restored. Community-oriented policing that focuses on developing working relationships between police and residents has had a lot of success in some communities.
That’s only a start for a restoration of trust, but little signs of hope can lead to bigger ones, if we don’t keep our expectations too low.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
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