Our Police Forces: the Want of Both Respect AND Accountability

It’s not this or that, one or the other, for or against, support or not support.  It is both/and.

We both respect our police forces and hold them accountable.

We respect our law enforcement officers and demand that they live up to high standards of performance.  The one goes with the other.

Finger-pointing and harsh accusatory pronouncements, as to having blood on one’s hands, are not helpful.  Supporting our police officers does not mean that we must not critique them or hold them accountable for their actions.  Respecting our police officers does not mean that we must excuse any lack of professionalism within their ranks. 

Police officers daily hold citizens accountable for their actions, respecting their driving behavior, parking behavior, market behavior, even domestic behavior.  Likewise the community at large is to hold the police force accountable.

Obviously something is awry when communities across the nation see public demonstrations of private citizens bearing witness against their local police force.  Likewise, something is amiss when police officers must protect themselves with bulletproof vests before going out to patrol the streets in the community they were hired to serve and protect.

Whose to blame, all of us, none of us, a few select individuals?  Are we not all responsible for our community and what happens within it?  Do we not all contribute to the prevailing attitudes—good, bad or indifferent—that are expressed?  If we collectively seek higher ground, a better way, and demand a higher standard, shall we not have it?  If we collectively choose the lower level along with the baser elements, will we not have that too?

Let us call for high standards all around.  We all want respect for life.  We all deserve honor and dignity of person, whether official or non-official, in uniform or out of uniform.  Let us call for mutual honor and respect, mutual support and appreciation, mutual service and protection, mutual accountability.

There should be no scapegoating, no name calling, no blanket condemnation of a whole set of people, private or professional.  We are in this together.  We are mutual citizens of the same township, borough, city, county, and state.  We are one.  If we are divided it is because we choose division rather than unity.

Yes, we have a choice: this/that or both/and.  I say we choose both/and, respect AND accountability, support AND critique, diversity among us AND unity.