Issues Under Fire: Knowing When to call the Cops on a Kid

Issues Under Fire: Knowing When to call the Cops on a Kid 

With nearly every person on the planet walking around wired for sight and sound, capturing events in real time and posting them on YouTube within seconds, one would think law enforcement officers would take care to employ the cutting edge standards of policing they've been desperately advertising. Considering law enforcement has lost the confidence and respect of Black & Latino communities decades ago, video of a young Black girl being violently manhandled by a police officer for misbehaving in a classroom can only make matters worse. 

In what has become routine video of police overreacting when engaging young people of color, one would think the training, retraining and re-retraining would have kicked in already. One would think accepted policing tactics, protocols and strategies for most law enforcement encounters  would have been programmed into the minds of the men and women charged with enforcing the law. At this point, that programming should have been so thoroughly encoded into their psyche, the average cop should be able to recite them in his or her sleep. If not, at the very least, one would think law enforcement would have gotten the memo that the whole world is watching.  

While people and communities can vary greatly on many issues, most people in most communities viewing a video of a teenage girl being flung across the floor by a policemen for failing to comply with commands as excessive. Most people in most communities would have expected the classroom instructor to have handled the situation without calling law enforcement. If the girl wasn't brandishing a weapon, threatening the instructor or other students in anyway, its difficult to see why this was a situation for the police. As long as the teen was content with remaining stubbornly silent she could have been ignored.  

If the student suddenly became verbally combative and still refuse to leave, the instructor could have relocated the class to another room. Before isolating the disruptive student,, you let her know when she exits the school this day, she'll not be allowed to return without a parent of guardian. Case closed. In far too many cases, the police are called to intervene in situations that could and should be handled by professional educators and thinking adults. The police should always be the last option when dealing with young people still developing mentally and emotionally. 

On the other hand, in fairness to the classroom instructor, this girl could have been a regular pain in the ass and felt police intervention was the only recourse. Perhaps this kid had a reputation for being a troublemaker. Perhaps the kid has already been kicked out of school for misbehaving. Perhaps this kid don't have responsible parents that'll show up for a parent teacher's conference. Maybe they have and the kid still has issues. All these things could be true and still not justify the level of physical violence visited upon her by a police officer. 

Bottom line: When it comes to kids of color, they rarely get the benefit of adjectives like headstrong, rebellious or impetuous. Kids of color are rarely allowed to sow their wild oats. And when they do, kids of color rarely, if ever get second chances. Kids of color get arrested, fingerprinted, sent to jail and given a record that will follow them the rest of their natural lives. That's why its important to know when to call a cop and when to handled your kids yourself. Podcast below!