Police union creates false narrative in trial board delay
The Anne Arundel County NAACP strongly supports good cops doing their jobs well every day. We don’t support, however, public servants who handle arrests in a dehumanizing way before our eyes.
The front page on the decision to postpone a police trial board hearing was more about publicly shaming Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman, and denouncing a Facebook post that referenced the ongoing criminal trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin (The Capital, April 15).
The Anne Arundel County NAACP does not see this as a due process issue because due process is about notice and an opportunity to be heard. It appears Detective Daniel Reynolds is being afforded both. And nothing Pittman said in his Facebook changes that reality.
Calling the July 2020 arrest of Daniel Jarrells during a traffic stop disturbing makes sense to us. It was indeed a George Floyd-style arrest.
The words of the county executive were not condemning anyone. According to The Capital, Pittman wrote: “You may not agree with the people who will demand that this officer be fired, but at least listen to them. They are justified in not wanting themselves or their own family member to end up in the same position after a traffic stop.”
While we are not endorsing an elected official, we are supporting commonsense policies rooted in justice.
We the community can always “voice” matters of police brutality better than those outside of our community. We are indeed justified in not wanting our family members ending up in a position where officers’ knees are on our bodies in a deplorable dehumanizing manner, and we are saying, “I can’t breathe.”
The Fraternal Order of Police is creating a false narrative and adding insult to injury by suggesting placing a citizen in this dehumanizing position after being handcuffed is appropriate. The police union simply does not “get it” despite the tragic killings of unarmed black people in America for years.
It is precisely this focus on everything and everyone except the victim of police misconduct that represents the desperate need to change policing fundamentally in America. These problems are deeply rooted in biased policing and a biased chronic intent to control black citizens’ bodies because you want to and can with no consequences.
Otherwise, we should be able to imagine these same kneel on a suspect’s back until the suspect can’t breathe tactics being used and justified on prominent white male officials involved in a simple traffic stop just as they were used on Jarrells.
Certainly, if cops were not engaging in excessive force and biased policing, there would be no need to repeal the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights or pursue other police reform laws. Quite frankly, the recent passage of legislation during this General Assembly involving police reform is more about bringing access and fairness to marginalized people, and getting police to treat us like normal human beings and not less than human.