Written by Tom Hull
Every one of us in Covington, KY has seen it. We saw it in video of an officer punching a man over an over in the head on a bridge during a protest that, while not legal, was peaceful and did not warrant such a violent response. In video of that queer person of color, when they were being pulled from their car in utter confusion. When that officer was sued again, for breaking a woman’s arm during an arrest. Seeing 8 squad cars respond to an intoxicated homeless man on Main Street in the afternoon. When there were no officers on patrol at night to prevent a 5-minute-long brawl that ended with a young man in the street giving a fascist salute and shouting “Heil Hitler” at passing cars on Main Street. Hearing from a friend that they were detained overnight for filming an arrest. No matter how you first saw it, we all saw the same thing. Officers who don’t even know the community they serve, sitting in cars instead of engaging with us, and more concerned with responding after the fact than being active members of the community who are focused on preventing crime in the first place.
If we accept that the police are a necessary part of functional society, then we must also demand that they be a part of the public. As Robert Peel said, they are us in the sense that they are just members of the public who are paid to devote full time attention to the same dedication to community safety we should all have. Any policy that separates or isolates the police from the public or limits their accountability to the public is flawed by nature; The Police are the Public and the Public are the Police. To be effective, they must have our trust and vice versa. Greater Trust, greater safety for the public and police. Use of force must be the last possible option if our officers are to be trusted members of the public; it is impossible to trust someone if you are worried about them harming you from the start.
How do we get to this point of trust? The state knew it was through peace; Kentucky legislation refers to Peace Officers, not Enforcement Officers. Those older than me remember a time when officers walked their neighborhoods and knew their neighbors. I remember growing up with my local officers being active members of the community in and out of uniform. Now, we see squad cars parked, like hunting animals, concerned only with issuing their next ticket. We see an obsession with acquiring military grade equipment that will inevitably be used on us, the public. We see departments made of officers who are not even close to being members of the community. Officers who commute to our town in cars we pay for, with a mindset of “cleaning up the streets.” Officers who joke about how many policies they violate on a regular basis.
The police have to be part of the public, of the community they serve. Less officers sitting in squad cars; more officers walking a beat. More officers talking to local businesses and residents on a regular basis. More officers who understand what is needed to prevent crime in their area. We need officers who live here. Officers who know the safety of the city is tied to the safety and prosperity of its residents. We need a department that allocates its budget toward social welfare, not military weapons to use against us. We need a department that responds to calls in a way that emphasizes the safety of all involved and that has the long-term best interests of the targets of those calls at heart. We need, in short, a force of Peace Officers who as much a part of us as we are of them.
Covington has all the tools it needs to do this. We can become a beacon of what law enforcement and their community relations can be. We can show Kentucky, and America, a path to safety, unity, and prosperity for everyone in any city. The first step is ignoring the aging voices who would tell you to ignore the news, ignore social media “Monday morning quarterbacking”, and trust and believe that the police are committing acts of violence against you for your own good. That violence like we saw on the Roebling Bridge on July 17th is necessary and justified. Stand up and demand better from them. We deserve better. Covington deserves to be a shining example of American community, and we can make that happen together.