To Protect and To Serve

(The Murder of George Floyd and Uniform Justice)

The Imperative

Law enforcement is an imperative of civilized living.  There must be imposed boundaries that govern citizenry relationships. These boundaries are the codes of safety and social living that become the glue of community.

The Public Code

In 1957 the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics was adopted for national usage in America.  It is a strong personal pledge by policing persons to uniformly apply the law to all citizens. In 1963 the Los Angeles Police Department adopted a motto that has been used by law enforcement across the country: To Protect and To Serve. This motto is often inscribed on the side of police cars.  It is intended to indicate the role of law enforcement in respect to this national code.  Law enforcement people apply this code and fulfill this motto on a daily basis – often at the expense of their own well-being and life.  We are grateful to them for this.  They are indispensable to the welfare of our national life. 

The Private Code

Unfortunately, law enforcement people sometimes protect and serve their own profession with the same zealous commitment.  I am told they often have a code of mutual protection to which new officers must adhere if they want respect, advancement, and life security.  Basic to this code is that they do not “rat out” their fellows when they violate the law.  This is one reason it is difficult to have police officers charged with crimes and actually convicted. Although the conviction rate seems to be growing, most continue to receive minimal punishment and are simply demoted or exonerated.

In 1992, Rodney King, a black citizen, was brutally beaten by four police officers and it was video recorded.  Despite this evidence, they were acquitted.  The infamous LA riots ensued.  Obviously, juries must be as concerned about the uniform application of the law as law enforcement people. Since that date there have been constant reminders of black citizens being violated or killed by police officers with minimal evidential justification and minimal legal consequence. With both police officers and juries ignoring uniform citizenry justice, protests seem to be the only recourse by concerned citizens.

One problem with such protests is that they are usually rage-full responses to injustice that begin peacefully but are often invaded and exploited by anarchist, criminals, and groups with private agendas of violence.  Theft, arson, and other destructions are regularly the result.  It is the protesters who are blamed and the power of the original reason for the protest is dissipated or lost.  Moreover, addressing this exploitation easily becomes the major concern of civil authority rather than the reasons for the protest.

This is to focus on the symptoms rather than the causes.  The injustice of our justice system will continue as long as this is the case because the total of this system reflects America’s commitment to democracy. This means that even a proper verdict toward the police officers responsible for the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota will not bring consequential justice change.

There is little doubt that the white ancestors of Europe still control the American justice system. Nothing in this system will change until all of us citizens, whatever our ancestry, vote into office politicians and public servants who believe in real democracy.  By real democracy I mean a devotion to the:

• The citizenry’s equality of worth.
• The citizenry’s common good.
• The citizenry’s rule by vote.

We cannot have uniform justice in America until we have uniform democracy.

So, if we wish the Rodney King and George Floyd symptom events to stop, we will have to address their cause.  Bad law enforcement and bad jury decisions will only stop when the entire justice system is conducted by one code of democratic application.  And that will only happen when the three intents of democracy become the devotion of the citizenry and their government and justice is equal for all the people irrespective of their skin color.

Robert

Robert T. Latham

mythinglink.com

Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says: “Dam!”