World News Korner

President Obama's comments on Ferguson today and his plans for helping to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Courtesy of the USA Today:

The government will try to reduce the "simmering distrust" between police and minority communities, President Obama said Monday, in part by issuing new rules for military-style equipment and seeking more cameras to be worn by law enforcement officers.

"This is not a problem simply of Ferguson, Missouri," Obama said after a day of meetings with local government and law enforcement officials from across the country. "This is a problem that is national."

The president announced a new task force to study best police practices, as well as tighter controls on federal money that local law enforcement agencies use to buy military-style equipment.

The goal, Obama said, is "to make sure that we're not building a militarized culture inside our local law enforcement." The Obama administration also unveiled a three-year, $263 million plan to assist community policing, including a $75 million plan for 50,000 new body cameras to be worn by officers.

The president said that community policing can help make officers and their communities "partners" in battling crime and promoting safety. "We can build confidence and we can build trust, but it's not going to happen overnight," Obama said.

Dealing with the militarization of the police and putting more body cameras on more police officers will surely have a dramatic effect. But of course there are still the systemic problems of underlying racism, a lack of respect for the communities that they serve, and a John Wayne mentality that needs to be addressed as well among many police officers in this country.

For most communities in this country there is simply no need to provide armored vehicles and military style body armor and weapons to our police. And once they have them, it will obviously make them feel like soldiers at war instead of peace keepers at home.

I think even with the President taking these steps and expressing his frustration at the events that took place in Ferguson, that too many people still see the color of his skin and simply categorize this as a "black" problem that the majority of Americans simply do not need to worry about, or take steps to deal with.

Ultimately this needs to stop being seen as a "black" problem, and needs to be seen as an "American" problem.

Only then will there be serious, and long term attempt to protect ALL Americans from brutality at the hands of the people we hire to keep us safe.

Source