John examines race, police troubles

I’ve been accused of writing in a “schmaltzy” manner, too nostalgic or reliant on analogy to make a point. To that end I wanted to issue a “schmaltz alert” to my critics so they can turn the page now and spare themselves the Advil. Now that we’ve cleared the room, let’s talk about race relations and the tensions between the black community and police and begin with one of my annoying analogies.

Years ago I had a drip underneath the kitchen sink and could see the connection between two pipes was the culprit. So I went to the hardware store to buy a piece of plumbing. When I ducked under the sink and started moving the pipes around I noticed water was now leaking from an entirely different spot. “Crap,” I shouted.

I went back to the store to buy more supplies and attempted to fix both leaks now. When I started taking them apart an old pipe that had been minding its own business until I showed up literally crumbled in my hand. I won’t tell you what word I said next but it rhymes with “sit.” I called a plumber and my simple repair ended up costing me over a hundred bucks.

I thought of that lesson when I wrote a harmless letter on Facebook the other day. Just a few hours after the police officers had been shot in Louisiana I wanted to say “thank you” to our police. That’s it. If they wore a uniform I wanted to thank them for their service.

Most people liked my letter but a number sent me snotty messages. One woman said her ex-husband was a cop who beat her. Another said I was praising police but had no sympathy for people of color who are being killed by police. Apparently my thank you note required an addendum listing every bad cop in the country and chastising them publicly. Good grief.

Just like my leaky sink I realized this was more complicated than it seemed and I was naïve to say anything about police at such a volatile time. People are ginned up and looking for any reason to get upset. I understand why. Black America has a right to be upset over the deaths of young black man at the hands of police and the police certainly have a right to be upset that they are being targeted and blamed for the actions of a few. And let’s start there and be honest about this. It is just a few. One death is one too many but this is not an epidemic as some say. The vast majority of police officers, whatever their gender or skin color are not out to kill the people they have sworn to protect. When you carry a gun and have to confront people bad things can happen. Sometimes it’s the cop’s fault; sometimes it is caused by the person who is shot. Sometimes both people use poor judgement in that moment bringing about a terrible result.

I refuse to believe this nation is as hateful and divided as the media would have you think. I know it makes for good TV ratings to show protests and jump on every single mistake our police make but it gives a false impression that every traffic stop is an assassination waiting to happen. It is not.

If we want to solve this problem both sides have to start being honest and owning their end of it. When a cop does wrong he or she must be punished. Police need to weed out the bad apples and punish the officer who wrongly takes a life. Period. Conversely, people marching in the street need to stop calling for the death of police. Period. Not every protester does that, but enough do to stir up the crackpots.

People who blindly defend the police all the time are part of the problem just as the Al Sharpton’s of the world who stampede toward every tragedy looking for publicity are part of the problem. Add in the 24-hour news cycle of our media and you have the match that lights the fuse. Trust me, the media is a co-conspirator in this mess. I don’t know what it’s like to be a black man in America but I know when you are stopped by police if you keep your hands on the steering wheel and are respectful your chances of surviving the encounter go up one thousand percent. I don’t know what it’s like to be a police officer but I know when you treat people with respect and avoid stopping them because you don’t like the way they look, you improve police/community relations by one thousand percent. And can we all agree we need body cameras on every cop for the protection of the police and civilians? Most people support their police. Most police do a great job. We can’t let a handful of horrible encounters, whoever was at fault, tear us apart this way.

One last thing, be careful listening to or believing anyone who benefits from this turmoil. In other words, if you’re not here to fix the leaking sink stay out of the kitchen.

See, schmaltzy. John Gray is a news anchor on WXXA-Fox TV 23 and ABC’S WTEN News Channel 10. His column is published every Wednesday. Email johngray@fox23news.com.