State of Union and Police Reform

By STEVE SPANOPOULOS

President Obama, fueled by incidents in Ferguson and New York, expressed his understanding for parents who fear for their children safety in terms of being harassed by law enforcement.    Many citizens across the country have the same fears for their children.

Although Obama pointed out the fact that the crime and incarceration rate has come down, it is still only a starting point for both law enforcement and the leaders of the communities to help rectify this situation.  Many citizens still feel that there are problems with the way our law enforcement officers are trained.

“People don’t know the cops anymore and the police don’t know the people they are protecting”, said Fedey, 52.  The police patrolling communities have gotten away from fundamentals. Police brutality has communities talking about reform. Joan Fedey, a Dumont resident of eight years believes that now is a time for reform within police.

To mend the relationship between communities and police both parties need change in order to get better. According to dumontpd.org there are 35 police officers on their payroll.  The relationship between community and police could be a focus moving forward in mending this tattered relationship.  In an effort to better serve their community the Dumont Police Department has created their own facebook page where residents can follow local updates and information.

Ferguson and New York have been impactful stories in fueling the talk of reform.  Ferguson saw riots and protests due to the lack of an indictment on a police officer that shot an unarmed teenager.  With no real evidence to tell the story, citizens are left to speculate exactly what happened.  In New York, more riots, yet peaceful, ensued because of a similar incident.  A police officer had placed a man in an illegal chokehold in order to make him surrender. These two incidents are just two of many that are happening throughout the country.

Daniel Driver 32, of West Milford believes the police slogan is to “serve and protect” and “he himself does not trust the police”.  With this disconnect that others like Driver feel police officers will not be indicted or answer for their actions.

Not everyone thinks police brutality is on the rise or that reform is needed.  Some experts think the proliferation of cell phones is the problem; with that ability isolated incidents are being shoved into the spotlight.  According to an article on BreitBart News Network, BreitBart_News, Maria Haberfelda, professor at John Jay College has said “There is no escalation in the use of deadly force.”  She continued, “we have over a half a million armed police officers in this country” so with that many cops in the streets there would be more incidents then there are now.

Based on both Obama’s statements as well as those of local citizens reform is on the horizon.  Obama sympathizes where his citizens are coming from and believes that a change is necessary in order for law enforcement to better serve the communities.