In the Blue Bloods episode, Blowback, the PC makes this comment at the weekly Sunday dinner table, "Somewhere along the line, the trust between cops and the public broke down. But until both sides take steps to restore that trust, neither side is going to be safe."
The whole episode saddened me because of the truth behind not only his words, but also the use of force used by police and the reactions of the public toward them. Even though I didn't grow up in a violent neighborhood, I still feel the anger when a cop shoots what seems to be an unarmed perpetrator. Many times we never know the truth because the truth died with the person who fell onto the pavement. Sometimes we see what we want to see, instead of the whole picture.
In the incident with Perez, while he did have his hands up, a knife was still in his hand after being told to put it down several times. Not only that, but he walked towards the officer who had the gun out. While I think that killing the guy might have been excessive, in the moment there's no telling whether or not if I were in the officer's position that I would have had time to lower my gun in order to hit the perpetrator in the knee or somewhere else non-fatal. There's also no telling that the guy with the knife wouldn't have suddenly lunged at me. So, shooting the guy just might have been the best answer before finding out what could have happened if waited.
There's always more than one side to a story. I don't like the fact that we are distancing ourselves from cops. The way I was raised was to respect the office, the badge and the authority that these cops have. So when I hear the news about a cop shooting, I don't automatically get mad at either side. I research to see if I can find the whole story. Unfortunately, every news source has an agenda and it isn't always fair. We all know we can't trust the media on anything, so why base an opinion on them?
Side note: When you run from a cop, what do you expect to happen? If you're innocent, stay where you are. If you're not, then yeah I wouldn't stick around. Nothing good ever comes from running from cops. Ever! So why do it?
In conclusion, I wish I had a solution for this broken trust. It used to be that parents told their kids if you're ever in trouble, look for a cop. Now it's stay away from them. I do see that there are some cops that are corrupt and have their own agendas. Some of them see all blacks as a person of interest and treat them as such even before asking them, "Where were you between 10pm and 1am?" However, I don't believe we should mistrust all of them based on those idiots. Same as not seeing all people with dark skin as people to look out for. It's not fair either way. The hashtags #blacklivesmatter and #backtheblue don't help matters. We should just all stand behind #alllivesmatter and not be one or the other.
The trust indeed is broken and it's up to all of us cops and public alike to mend it. If we don't, like Frank Reagan the PC said, "...neither side is safe."
