A former law enforcement officer’s perspective on policing is always a window

Carol, I appreciate your writing this, because it's everything I've always thought! I’m also guilty of asking, “Why not shoot them in the leg if they feel they HAVE to shoot someone to keep them from getting away?" Well, you've unequivocally answered that one for me -- they're trained to kill or be killed IF, and only if, they PULL their weapon. Am I understanding that correctly? If I am, I think you hit the nail squarely on the head when you say it's fear, MORE than anything else, that's really pulling those weapons before anything else is tried. And once pulled, there's no re-holstering once that proverbial "cat is out of the bag." To that, I’m SMDH

I'm no sociologist, but I AM a Black woman of a certain age, born and raised during Jim Crow in South Carolina and later educated in Alabama not far from Birmingham. Believe me, I've seen more than my share of systemic brutality against Black bodies, borne of a combination of white supremacy and yes, fear. And not much has changed.

Why? IMHO, it's mainly because, from its founding (you know, that whole 3/5 of a man thing?), this country (as well as the European countries from whence they came) has ALWAYS ingrained in the minds of white folk that we are not humans. To white supremacy, we are nothing but savages to be tamed and owned as property -- by any means necessary. If you have a few minutes, check out this brilliant piece of writing by Maria Theresa Stadtmueller that lays it all out quite explicitly:

https://medium.com/illumination/how-an-old-christian-doctrine-youve-never-heard-of-kick-started-american-racism-8a182973e64

So, while I absolutely agree with you about the cowardly fear exhibited by these murderers whose "few weeks" of go-to "training" (as it applies to Black folk anyway) SEEMS to simply be "shoot to kill," I think there's a lot of deeper, home-training they, and those who raised them, need to undo. Now that's something a sociologist should dive into!!

Regarding that "code/fraternity" thing you mentioned? Sounds just as lawless as the "snitches get stitches" line police always accuse Black folk of using when they can't get information they need. Just sayin'.

Yes, the cowards should be weeded out and taken off the street; yes, police need more than a few weeks of training, both on the use of lethal force and other methods, as well as deescalation techniques (in which they also seem to be sorely lacking) if they're ever to live up to that "Protect & Serve" slogan; yes, that whole "Fraternal" Order of Police thing needs to be investigated and broken up because, not only does it block the transparency needed to weed out those “bad apples,” that laissez-faire attitude absolutely encourages more brutality. But most of all, white supremacists on the police force and beyond, need to look in the mirror and see the savages they are and always have been, not only because OUR lives depend on it, believe it or not — theirs does too.