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             Police Tactics Stir Controversy, Sometimes Rage in US

   by Adam Phillips

   Police tactics and practices are the focus of intense controversy and
   community rage in the wake of the recent deaths of unarmed civilians at
   the hands of police officers in New York and Ferguson, Missouri, where
   protesters have been arrested by police using military style tactics
   and equipment, including rubber bullets and tear gas.

   American news and social media have been focused all week on angry
   demonstrations that erupted in Ferguson after an unarmed
   African-American teenager was shot and killed by a police officer.

   His death comes weeks after an unarmed African-American man died while
   being arrested for selling untaxed cigarettes in New York.

   But according to community activist and Imam al-Hajj Talib
   Abdur-Rashid, president of the Islamic Leadership Council of
   Metropolitan New York, the crisis of trust between law enforcement and
   citizens is nothing new.

   "Anyone who studies American history [will find] that there has always
   been a national problem between law enforcement and its abusive tactics
   against people of color generally and poor people in particular," at
   least since the immediate post-Civil War period. "And law enforcement
   still hasn't gotten it right," he said.

   'Broken Windows' theory

   In recent decades, the so-called "Broken Windows" theory of community
   policing has been a highly celebrated attempt to "get it right." The
   theory says law enforcement must show zero tolerance for smaller
   crimes, because they will lead to larger crimes if left unchecked.

   However, critics of "Broken Windows" policing say it has led to
   overzealousness by the police officers, who arrest rather than warn
   civilians for minor infractions such as littering, playing music too
   loudly or drinking beer in public.

   Robert Ganji, director of the Police Reform Organizing Project, says
   New York City police officers have a quota for arrests.

   "And what cops do under the quota system is arrest people because they
   don't get credit for issuing a warning and having that take care of the
   problem," he says . "They don't get credit if they break up a fight
   between two boys and send them home. They only get credit if they
   arrest two boys for assault."

   Ganji adds that job pressure and fear can lead some police to regard
   people in higher crime and minority neighborhoods as potential
   troublemakers and criminals, not as citizens they are duty bound to
   serve. That attitude makes for deep resentment within the community,
   bad morale for the police and lately, criticism by the general public.

   "And [some police officers I've spoken with] will say things like `I
   really don't like this. I took this job because I want to help people.
   But if I focus on helping people, they'll hang me,'" he said.

   Ambivalence

   Maki Haberfeld, a former police officer who chairs the department of
   Law and Police Science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in
   New York says it is hypocritical for people to complain when the police
   use force, while appreciating the benefits a police force has brought
   them.

   Haberfeld stresses that she does not think officers should play the
   part of judge or jury. "They're not there to punish people who violate
   the law. But we do need to take it within the context that police
   officers interact with people who are violent, [and] have violent
   pasts," she said.

   Haberfeld concedes that police make errors of judgment, sometimes fatal
   ones.  She says the blame lies with the lack of mandatory national
   training standards for police on when and how to use force
   appropriately. She says that's a systemic failure, not a failure by
   individual police officers or police departments. "They don't receive
   the right tools to police the way they are supposed to police."

   Experts cite other factors that may contribute to the anger many
   minority communities are now focusing on the police - including poverty
   and a lack of education and economic opportunity. But whatever the root
   cause of the current crisis in police-community relations, the depth
   and danger of the problem are becoming vividly clear. ''
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/police-tactics-stir-controversy-somet
   imes-rage/2415690.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/police-tactics-stir-controversy-sometimes-rage/2415690.html