When it comes to budgets and public funding, everyone wants a piece of the pie. Legislators and politicians make a habit of declaring large sums of the “people’s money” should go to certain areas that tend to catch the public’s eye. They get elected on this concept. Now, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with it. It’s just a reality.
This past year, COVID-19 took the front stage. We had tax dollars going to healthcare supplies, schools, rescuing small businesses and helping our fellow Americans who were suffering because they could not work.
Okay. Good. I agree those areas needed extra attention. People needed help as we faced one of the greatest challenges our society has seen in generations.
I feel like there has been an area overlooked this past year (and previous years, if we’re honest here): law enforcement.
Let’s face it, 2020 was a harsh year for our boys and girls in blue. Across the country we saw a tide of public opinion shift to the idea of defunding the police. Certain areas of the country called for drastic cuts while promoting an alternative civilian-ran committee with mental health services being at the forefront of the agenda.
Here’s the deal: While some of our more optimistic countrymen and women might have high hopes for a utopian society where the worst we have to deal with is someone having a mental break and causing a little bit of chaos, that’s far from reality.
I applaud those brilliant people involved in the mental health field. There is a stigma in this country concerning mental health. It does, absolutely, need to be addressed, but mental health has very little to do with what our officers in law enforcement encounter every shift.
Drug use, sex crimes against children, driving while under the influence, cyber crimes, theft, home invasions, illegal dog fighting and murder all might come up as an issue for our officers to face on a daily (or nightly) basis. They face the underbelly of human existence and never really know for certain how their shift will end. But, yeah, let’s throw some mental health workers who lack the necessary training at those issues. That should work.
Last week, I was able to get an inside look at the training that our local canine units go through in order to be certified. To say the training is thorough would be an understatement. Remarkably, this training was available to our local guys at no cost to them. The training is there for a balance. To teach our officers and canine units the best possible way to handle situations. Now do accidents happen? Of course. Dogs are animals. Anyone who has ever worked with animals knows this is common sense. But does a few accidents, most of which are non-lethal justify doing away with canine units altogether?
I wager citizens who those canine units have helped would beg to differ. The good they do in keeping drugs out of reach of our young people, catching fleeing suspects, finding escaped convicts, locating missing bodies and keeping others safe far surpasses the accidents that common sense dictates to expect. Is it a picture perfect little painting of a rainbow world filled with unicorns? No. But neither is the world we live in.
Now let’s talk about the elephant in the room. The call for defunding the police gained most of its momentum with the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. No matter how you slice it, the incident was tragic. No one should die in such a manner. Whether or not Chauvin is found guilty of manslaughter is now in the hands of the American legal system. We have to sit back and have a little faith in the system, which has been in place since the founding of our country.
I know there are people who don’t like it. We saw the riots last year. We know there is anger and pent-up rage. But, does it justify the idea of defunding the police for a few bad apples?
Look, there are crooks in every profession. Corrupt politicians? Sure, doesn’t mean all of them are taking bribes and are self-serving. Crooked Doctors? Absolutely, but there are still doctors out there committed to saving lives. Biased self-serving journalists? Yup, there sure are, but I’ll be the first in line to condemn their behavior as wrong. There are still media professionals who believe in simply laying out the facts and letting the people decide for themselves.
This goes back to the common-sense idea. We do not live in a black- and-white world. Sure, we have these extreme cases on the fringes, but most of our world falls in the middle as various shades of gray. We have to be sensible and remind ourselves to seek wisdom before making drastic measures.
Bottom line, the police department does more in our community than most citizens realize. Simply put, they are unaware of it because our police officers are doing their jobs. I’ve not heard of any rumors circulating in Senatobia about a call to defund the police.
In fact, just the opposite. There is a huge amount of support from our populace to stand behind our men and women in uniform. So, let’s stand together and set the example to the rest of the country.
Our police department has made every stride to reach out to the general public. Through community outreach programs like the Citizens Academy and transparency through social media and speaking engagements, our department has tried to reassure the good people of Senatobia that they can sleep soundly. On the other side, through local efforts at fundraising, our citizens have answered the call to support our local PD.
As with most things in life, common sense can go a long way. Common sense and a good dose of reality can go a lot further.
