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Sound eerily familiar?
One of my tasks is to provide oversight to the
association of ways and means by which they can encourage
local law enforcement officers and administrators to be able
to successfully exclude police candidates who simply cannot
pass muster due to their racial biases overshadowing common
sense when it comes to making decisions during their police
work.
The studies by the association have shown a proclivity
for white police officers to score very low percentage
points when it comes to being able to discern and quickly
evaluate problem scenarios involving unarmed black men.
I was asked to devise and present to them a written test
by which the local police departments can add to their
repertoire of test-taking requirements so that they will be
able to pinpoint a police academy candidate who appears to
exhibit such a lack of discernment.
The problems identified that I have been asked to
address are the myriad problems of white officers knowing
what to do or not to do when they encounter black males on
the streets.
Now, you may think that such encounters should not pose
a problem to either the rookie cop or to the black male, but
therein lays the conundrum.
On one hand you have a rookie cop who may come from a
white ghetto (note: ghetto in the sense that their whole
life and surroundings and friends and associates and
contacts are for the most part overwhelmingly white) and, on
the other hand, you have black males who have been demonized
by the media as being dangerous simply due to their skin
color.
So, with those marching orders in hand, I am presenting
to my readers a small snippet of the scenarios and questions
that I have devised so that the association can pass them on
to the over 2,000 police agencies that they represent.
SCENARIO ONE: You are at a bar with your police friends and
wives and girlfriends and two black males come into the bar
with hoods on and take a seat at a far table. What do you
do?
(1) Excuse myself and go over to them and ask for their ID’s.
(2) Tell my cop buddies to be on the watch for two
suspicious black males.
(3) Tell our white women that there are black men around and
for them to quietly leave the bar and wait for us in the
parking lot because they are in immediate danger.
(4) Call for back up…just in case.
(5) None of the above.
SCENARIO TWO: You are in the park with your kids and about
six young black males come by to play basketball on the
nearby court. What do you do?
(1) Immediately leave the park.
(2) Call for back up due to a drug gang being in the
immediate vicinity.
(3) Go over to them and ask for ID after you show them your
badge and gun.
(4) Check their cars for possible traffic warrants.
(5) All of the above.
(6) None of the above.
SCENARIO THREE: You stop a car in the early afternoon at a
crowded intersection for having a loud muffler. There are
four black males in the car. What do you do?
(1) Have them pull the car over and you wait for backup with
your gun drawn.
(2) Order each of them out of the car and onto the pavement!
(3) Ask the citizens standing around to make a circle so the
car cannot leave.
(4) Have them roll down the windows and ask for ID from each
one of them with your gun drawn out.
(5) Tell them to get the muffler fixed as soon as possible.
SCENARIO FOUR: You and your partner are just coming out of
the Lickety Fingers donut store and you notice a black male
wearing a suit walking towards you and he has a bulge in his
front coat pocket. What do you do?
(1) Regrettably, you drop the bag of jelly donuts and tell
the black male to freeze and get on the ground.
(2) Call for back up saying that you are in fear of your
life as you draw your guns on the unarmed black male.
(3) Call him over to you and frisk him.
(4) Nothing. Keep on eating the jelly filled donuts and go
to your police car.
QUESTION ONE: How many times have you used the phrase, “I
was in fear for my life!” when you see a black male, either
by himself or in a group.
(1) More than three times a day.
(2) Seven to 10 times a day.
(3) Too numerous to recall.
(4) Just to see a black male makes me think that!
(5) Black males? I think the same when I see a black female!
(6) None of the above.
QUESTION TWO: When confronted with an unarmed black male in
broad daylight, which of the following weapons would you use
if the black male “dissed” you?
(1) Taser Gun. That will show him who’s the boss!
(2) Billy club. A good whack upside the head works wonders.
(3) Do a drug plant on him. That way, we have one less black
male to worry about.
(4) Gun. Want to make sure that dead men tell no tales!
(5) Ask, “what’s up with that?” and keep on keeping on.
I will know by July if the association will accept my draft
proposals. What do you think?
Contact Lafe Tolliver at Tolliver@Juno.com
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