It happened here; and now what do police do about it?
Most of our politicians are wisely taking a sideline seat on the recent shocking incident of three area policemen arresting a South Carolina man at an area convenience store.
The citizen-shot video footage of this arrest was, and still is almost a week later, shocking to the system of law and order. And that’s putting it mildly. There are different levels of law enforcement and judicial agencies at the local, state and federal level, already investigating this incident. We await their individual reports as some type of signal in this event.
Arkansas has, for the most part, seldom escaped the same shocking news events that have rocked our nation over the last decade.
But last weekend, we as a state were thrust back into such a shocking event seen today via cell phone videos around the world.
All three local television stations, for the next four days in a row, showed at least portions of that cell phone video, each time instructing the viewers that the images were brutal and hard to view.
And there are always those events in our communities that will “go unseen and unreported” away from a citizen with a cell phone filming what they find to be unfair, violent and shocking.
I think no greater truth was spoken by the Crawford County Sheriff than when he truthfully answered the question: “If there was no video of this incident would you have even known about it?”
His answer was chilling: “I doubt it.”
Local politicians wanting to do something about such behavior or incidents need to first look at the laws regarding the rehiring of police officers from other agencies and jurisdictions.
We need to make sure that a “bad report” of such alleged abuse follows that officer and, at the same time, includes the part of any file on an officer’s behavior that allows for the “dismissal or acquittal” of any false claims against him at previous law enforcement jobs.
The solons wanting to do something about such acts need to fully fund the investigating state agencies with enough budget resources, to conduct a swift, but thorough investigation — with a time limit on when the final reports should be made available to the local prosecuting attorney, local police chief, local mayors and the subsequent county officials having jurisdiction on the officers being investigated.
And perhaps laws should be changed to call for more mental health screenings — even in a veteran officer. These mandatory screenings might alert the supervisors of problems festering under the daily grind of the job.
Police, in investigating a complaint about verbal threats, always have a hard row to hoe, so to speak.
What one party has said to another, often in the fits of anger, may not be followed through in a serious manner.
And when officers approach what seems as innocent as a man on a bicycle in the rural areas of our cities, towns and counties, still they should be wary of anyone they do not know.
The dash-cam from the Mulberry Police Unit, I hope is helpful, but what would have been more helpful would have been three officers that Sunday morning — each wearing a body camera.
Does wearing a body camera mean there would have been no scuffle and struggle? No, not at all.
But would a body camera also have meant that what looks so bad, cruel and over-the-top in this arrest, would have ever escalated to such a level?
We can only hope that each of these investigating police and judicial agencies will do their job and evaluate each of these three officers fairly, quickly and render a recommendation should criminal charges be levied by law.
And we would also like to hear from the young man’s attorneys, what he was thinking when he refused to cooperate and the event turned brutal.
It’s a dark stain on the state at the moment.
Where we go from here and into the future depends on precise forethought and action on making new rules, laws and suggestions for a better police force for us all in Arkansas.