One of the reasons I’ve treated the consent decree with a bit of skepticism has to do with the mindset of some of the individuals whose behavior the agreement is attempting to regulate. While I firmly believe that such a governing document has to be in place, I just don’t know how much it will regulate the behavior of recalcitrant cops — those that feel they can do no wrong and are assured that a jury will let them off, no matter how wrong their actions happen to be.
If anyone was buying into the idea that rank-and-file cops in Cleveland were getting on board with the consent decree they can now disabuse themselves of that notion. The boss of the police union, Steve Loomis, cajoled the membership into holding a referendum on the upcoming presidential contest, and not surprisingly, Donald Trump won by a wide margin.
Everyone knows that most cops are Republicans, and conservative ones at that, but since they belong to a quasi-military they are supposed to keep their political opinions to themselves. Loomis pressed for this vote merely to poke the citizens of Cleveland in the collective eye with a sharp stick. This was his way of saying, “Fuck you all.”
He has to know that Trump can’t win, so his actions were a deliberate provocation. Anyone who holds out hope of brokering a peace between cops and said citizenry are simply fooling themselves. The cops in Cleveland don’t want peace, they want to tear through neighborhoods with lights flashing and sirens blasting — and if they are really lucky, on any given day they get to bust a cap in someone’s ass.
All we can do is hope and pray that a new crop of cops are soon sworn in, ones that possess a greater sense of fair play and justice. But the recent spate of killings is causing angst among blacks from all strata of society.
Comedians often serve as societal bellwethers, and Cedric the Entertainer, as he led a march of hundreds of men, women and children down Sunset Boulevard on Wednesday, September 28 to protest the shooting deaths of black people by police, said, “We must get involved.” He continued by saying that said the police killing of black men has reached a boiling point. “[But] Nobody wants a Dallas situation, no one wants to encourage that.”
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com