The Issues with the Police System

It was interesting to hear Michael Wood Jr. talk about the police force and the problems he sees with it. There were so many thoughts he shared that had never even crossed my mind before, despite the fact that some of them may sound simple. I never even once considered that police officers may have an “Us. Vs. Them” mentality, especially if that mentality also lead to them possibly antagonizing specific groups or types of people. I suppose this thought hits closest to home considering my cousin just became a police officer very recently in Virginia, and it’s hard for me to imagine him falling into this established issue. Michael mentioned that he believes the community should police the police, which to my understanding meant that the community should essentially be the ones who control the police to some extent. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this idea. Aren’t police officers already part of the community? They just also happen to be law enforcers; isn’t it best to let them do their job? Perhaps I misunderstood what Michael meant, but I don’t think I fully agree with him on that thought. I was also very surprised to hear so much about the systematic racism that plagues our police force. He mentioned that when the police officers who arrested Freddie Gray saw Freddie they were probably thinking “Stats, stats, stats.” It was hard to hear that, it almost felt to me that he was trying to say that because of the way the system operates police officers are encouraged not to see people, but rather just statistics.

This class has made me curious, I would like to know:

1.     What is different about Freddie Gray’s death compared to everyone else who has died in police custody, in terms of the impact or change that death has brought about? I know that it blew up on the media, but just because people heard about it doesn’t necessarily mean much has changed.

2.      What kind of policy or law changes can be brought about on the political battlefront to truly and successfully combat this issue of systematic racism in the police force?

For next class, a few questions I would have are:

1.      What can the average Baltimore citizen do to aid the people in the streets find a home?

2.      Why has public housing in Baltimore been declining, and why is there an increase in non-affordable housing? Besides the simple answer of money, is it because of a set of policies that have been set in place?

3.      What is being done to change the issues with non-affordable housing right now?