Somerville police union demands City Hall remove Black Lives Matter banner

for answering some of my talking points, first of all. I grew up in a family with a lot of LEOs in our midst, so I am not your average Cop-hater. I do have respect for the position. That being said, the things we are witnessing now are despicable. The key word there is WITNESSING. This has been going on for a long, long time. BLM is bringing awareness so that politicians get off their ass and DO something about it *like funding through bills as you speak of). It needs to be an issue, politcally. To that end, they are succeeding, despite the crazies who commit atrocious acts in their name (Dallas, Baton Rouge), or at least as sympathizers to their cause. My father, a long time C.O. always told me when I was coming of age, that a cop has your life in his hands, the power to ruin your future, and to respect that fact. Now, being that I have less melanin in my skin than most of the people involved in the incidents we are speaking about, I have never really run into any type of escalation to the point of force with the police (there was in fact one time where I was assaulted by a State Trooper during a traffic stop). The fact is minorities encounter this aggression FAR more than some of us. NYC is a great example of a broken system, where they racially profile, thus arresting more people of their target races, then point to statistics saying "lookit how many minorities we arrest! Profiling works!" It's a snake eating it's own tail.
For ANYONE to be against BLM is something I just don't understand. It's like being against MLK and the civil rights movement. They're on the wrong side of history. That said I don't think it's earth shattering for a politician to take a stance of support for it. Cops are getting shot, right? So if they hang a "Blue lives matter" banner on city hall and people scream to take it down, and call the mayor an asshole for supporting it, how is that different? If the gangs get all riled up and angry at the mayor for supporting the police, should he just cave and take the banner down? No, I think not. The police force are their own gang, the biggest one in America. They operate above the law and beyond reproach. Ask a cop how many speeding tickets are on his record since joining the force. How many drunk and disorderly charges he has. Public urination? Smart money is on zero and these are just the minor everyday BS harrassments the rest of us have to deal with that can severely effect your life. The State Trooper who assaulted me had NO DISCIPLINE against him. I went to court and was happy just to not pay the outrageous ticket he wrote me or legal fees. It just killed a couple of days of my life is all.
To your point of training, the average training is 1.5 years. My point is it takes at least 2 to be a dental assistant, and they don't give you a gun at the end. The officer in MN who shot that guy with his lady and her kid in the car, WHY WAS HIS GUN DRAWN? The victim complied fully, and told him he had a license to carry and a gun on him. What criminal thug tells you politely he has a gun on him? Please, show me an example of that. There was a child in the car and this guy let off 4-5 shots at him? C'mon, man. Unless you are some kind of unhinged coward it is clear that standing above someone in a confined space puts you at a clear advantage. The officer could have unclipped his holster and kept his hand on his gun while asking this guy to do any number of things and at the slightest hint of trouble could have backed away from the vehicle quickly and drawn his weapon to get himself in a safe position, but the situation didn't even warrant THAT. Now there is a law abiding citizen dead (they don't just hand out license to carry permit to anyone). I have STILL not heard of charges being brought against that cop. Even filming does nothing. The police that killed Eric Gardner for selling loose cigarettes using an ILLEGAL choke hold was FILMED while doing it and got off. This is why people are angry. This is why there is nationwide calls for reform in policing and the criminal justice system. This is why cops are being shot.
I understand that crimianals will do/say anything, and there are a lot of dishonest people and scam artists out there, so a police officer cannot just trust everyone, but the odds are high that if me and my girl and a little kid were in that car instead no one would be dead. Its just a sad fact.