Who's Policing the Police?

In light of recent events in Ferguson and New York, it is impossible to go on without addressing the current state that America is in, and more specifically the state of our police. Last month, in a small town named Ferguson in the state of Missouri, we, as the American people, witnessed one of our own towns turn into a police state and put under martial law.

Understand the gravity of this: we are in 2014, the average teenager carries a device more powerful than things that the US has sent into space, we are observing possibilities of human life on other planets; and innocent citizens are being tear-gassed by the police that are paid to protect them. Do not be confused, this is not an essay on what happened in Ferguson, it is much bigger than that. It is an essay on trying to prevent what happened in Ferguson from ever happening again.

Eric Garner, a 43 year old father living in New York, was murdered by the police on July 17, 2014; exactly 2 months before this essay was written. I am not using the word murder lightly, there is no bias here, the death of Eric Garner was ruled a homicide by the city medical examiner. On this fateful summer day, Eric Garner was put into a chokehold by the NYPD, which would eventually render him unable to breathe and therefore causing his death. Not to mention the use of the chokehold by NYPD officers has been banned for over twenty years, yet no criminal charges have been brought against the officer involved. As a part of the general American public, I can say with almost complete certainty that we would have not known about this happening had it not been for those in the crowd who quickly thought to reach for their camera phones.

Ferguson, the hashtag literally heard around the world, is the town where 18 year old Michael Brown was killed this summer. From the start, the details surrounding the killing of Michael Brown are hazy. The story told by the police officer who shot Brown, Darren Wilson, has almost no congruences to the story told by the only eyewitness, who was a friend of Michael and was involved in the altercation. The results determined by medical examiners went completely against what the officer reported as of happening, but in court I guess it’s only the cop’s word against a pile of evidence, an eyewitness account, and the laws of physics. The murder of this innocent teen lead to protests in Ferguson the very next day, and soon after cops absolutely filled the streets for the following days. During one of the protests  a small percentage of people saw this as an opportunity for personal gain. There were short bursts of looting that were in contrast to the large number of peaceful protests that had been held before and were still being held at the time. Also, a local gas station named the Quik-Trip was burned down. This is the gas station that Brown had been accused of robbing by the resident Chief of Police days after Michael Brown’s death. A claim that was incredibly soon after disproved by the limitations of the human body and the speeds it is capable of reaching.  Then the SWAT team was sent in and an American town was officially occupied. Citizens were tear-gassed and shot with projectiles non-lethal projectiles ranging from large wooden bullets to bean bags, people were unjustly arrested, and amendments were stripped away without any sanction to do so (a sanction that does not exist seeing as these are amendments).  Yet even still, Darren Wilson walks as a free man. Our country cannot continue going on with a police force that is policing itself, and doling out the most tender of wrist slaps to their own bad behavior.

The solution is simple and became painfully apparent after the events in Ferguson a few weeks ago: film the police. Get police to wear body cameras, but not just regular police, but SWAT, state troopers, and any other enforcer of the law with the power to carry a weapon. If the government won’t step in and better watch over our nation’s police force, then someone has to. Police being forced to wear body cameras eliminates so much of the ambiguity in such instances and provides hard evidence of what actually occurred in any case. There is nothing we can do to undo the murders of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, John Crawford III, Sean Bell, Ezell Ford, and too many others, but what we can do is try to prevent it from happening again.  Know your rights and work for change.