Obama must use presidency to bring about police reform

There are 18,000 police departments in the United States, but only 15 have signed on to the policing initiative launched last year by a special presidential task force. One of those is the Dallas [Texas] Police Department.

And yet, five Dallas officers were shot to death Thursday by a heavily armed sniper who told negotiators that he was retaliating for the killing elsewhere in the country of two black men by police. Eight other people were injured in the sniper assault.

The shooter was held at bay by law enforcement officials in a parking garage and was killed by a bomb delivered by a robot.

Two days before that grisly occurrence in downtown Dallas, Alton Sterling, a black man, was shot in the chest and back by Baton Rouge, La., police officers. The U.S. Justice Department has launched a civil-rights investigation into his death.

Last Wednesday, police shot Philando Castile, also a black man, during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minn., a suburb of St. Paul.

According to The Guardian newspaper, which tracks police killings in a database called The Counted, more than 130 people have been killed by police this year.

President Barack Obama, who has strongly condemned the murders of the Dallas police officers by the black sniper and the deaths of black Americans at the hands of mostly white police officers, has expressed frustration over the unwillingness of police departments around the country to expeditiously adopt the “Advancing 21st Century Policing Initiative.”

The initiative is the work of the White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing created in 2014 after a slew of killings of black men by police officers.

“Change has been too slow, and we have to have a greater sense of urgency about this,” the president said last week.

Whose fault is it that just a handful of police departments have adopted the recommendations of the presidential task force to build trust between communities and law enforcement?

We believe the much of the fault lies with the Obama administration. The president and the U.S. Justice Department are not without influence and power when it comes to persuading local officials to get with the program.

The report released last year called for more data on police-involved shootings, better assessments of community attitudes toward police and the removal of incentives on police practices like arrests and convictions, according to an article on Time magazine’s website.

COMMUNITY POLICING

We have long supported the concept of community policing that involves police officers walking the beat in neighborhoods in order to establish a rapport with residents and community leaders.

Police presence is an essential part of law enforcement, especially in high crime areas.

A good example of what can occur is Youngstown’s Community Initiative to Reduce Violence, which aims to lower the incidence of gun-related crimes.

In the aftermath of the killings of the Dallas police officers and the two black men, Guy Burney, coordinator of CIRV, hosted a 90-minute meeting with 21 pastors. The discussion centered on what can be done to heal the community and to make sure similar incidents don’t occur in Youngstown.

There are no guarantees, of course, but raising the level of awareness is an important part of dealing with what has become a major cause for concern for minorities who are confronted by police.

There is no doubt that police work is dangerous, and men and women in blue are in harm’s way whenever they’re on duty.

Likewise, black men in this country are in harm’s way whenever police approach them on the streets or during traffic stops. The fears voiced by blacks are real and must be addressed by police departments.

President Obama is scheduled to visit Dallas today and will undoubtedly renew his call for a national commitment to the police reforms contained in the task force’s study.

We also urge him to recommend psychological evaluations of all members of law enforcement to determine if there’s a penchant for violence and racist attitudes. Anyone found to harbor attitudes that could result in police misbehavior would be required to undergo counseling.

Costs of such evaluations and counseling would be borne by the federal government.

The need for an aggressive national response to the growing divide between the police and the minority community in this country is clear. President Obama must lead the charge.