An Event of Fun for Police and Community

An event that was meant to bring the officers and the community together took place on August 2, in the parking lot of the 10th District, Chicago Police Department. It was a community event held to bring the police and the residents together. The North Lawndale community came in droves to eat food, listen to music, and access the many resources offered at the neighborhood gathering.

Many non-for-profits were there supporting the affair. Many organizations, like One summer Chicago, support the city’s teens by helping them find and sharpen their passions. However, this is a police event, meaning there were many cops present.

Many believe that a positive relationship between officers and the communities they “serve” can be possible. Of course, this line of thinking ignores many of the oppressive aspects of policing. Because of those same aspects, people have been considering different options, like defunding officers. A more recent trend in the discussion of policing that has some merit is community policing, or even abolishing the police department. The event itself was more like a block party than open dialogue.

The event could have been anywhere. It was more about the organizations that showed up than the fact that it is being hosted in the Police’s backyard. The event could have been hosted by someone else and not much would change. Other than the overwhelming presence of officers.

All of this is fine, however, there does need to be an event that takes into account the transgressions between officers and the community. Otherwise, events like the one on August 2 will stop being impactful in boosting public opinion of the police. Topics like accountability, responsibility, and reduction need to be discussed openly when it comes to the police.

The reason why this is simple, the police simply have too much power for them to not be held accountable by an organization capable of doing so. They have legal protections, have weapons training, and many of them have military-grade weapons.

There should be more accountability taken by the police before the community they patrol is asked to trust them. Events like the one on August 2 objectively harm no one, but if the goal was to build a connection between a community and the authorities within the area, some things should come first.

First, a denouncement of all who engaged in the January 6 insurrection. There is good reasoning for this. The North Lawndale neighborhood is home to a diverse community of multiple different backgrounds and identities. It only makes logical sense to publicly disavow not only those who chose to try to take over America for white supremacist reasons but the cops who went there to support them.

Second, the Chicago police force needs to refuse some of the funding they receive. The officer’s budget is completely disproportionate to the rest of public safety. In the 2022 Chicago budget, the police department received $1,899,239,226 from the city budget despite the full budget for public safety only being $2,988,831,491. That is over 60% of the public safety budget.

That is an extremely disproportionate amount of funding even with the crime rates in Chicago. Some of that needs to be relinquished and placed into preventative measures and services.

Third, officers need to actively and publicly recognize the wrongdoings of other officers. What this means in practice is that when an officer kills someone when there was absolutely an opportunity not to do so they should be publicly criticized, fired, and banned from ever joining the force again. No paid to leave this time, no more ” one bad apple” narratives, and no more blue lines. There should be complete transparency and complete accountability. No more cover-ups from one of the most powerful institutions in this country.

Last, there is still the problem of white supremacy, bias, and bigotry within the force. This must be addressed by all means. To continue not to do so would be catastrophic for the communities that they engage with. According to an academic study called: “KKK IN THE PD: WHITE SUPREMACIST POLICE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT”: “There is an epidemic of white supremacists in police departments. Officers have been identified as members of white supremacist groups in Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana.

There have been scandals in over 100 different police departments, in over forty states, in which individual police officers have sent overtly racist emails, texts, or made racist comments via social media. This is a nationwide problem.” There have been countless academic studies on the severity of these issues. This drawback within the field of policing can not be denied any longer. The event on August 2 was a wholesome affair, yet it seems as though the giant elephant in the room hasn’t yet been addressed.

Opinion News by Kenneth Mazerat
Edited by Sheena Robertson

Sources:

City of Chicago: 2022 budget overview

ACLU: Defunding the Police Will Actually Make Us Safer by: Paige Fernandez

Johnson, Vida .b, et al. “KKK IN THE PD: WHITE SUPREMACIST POLICE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT” Lewis and Clark Law Review,  2019, 70

Inset Image Courtesy of Victoria Pickering Flickr Page – Creative Commons License

Top and Featured Image Courtesy of Chad Davis’ Flickr Page – Creative Commons License