This image is a screengrab from RCMP dashcam video showing the arrest of Allan Adam.
What if police acted more like caring parents?
This is not meant to be facetious. George Floyd, a black man, who as we all know died when a police officer in Minneapolis kneeled on his neck for several minutes, called out for his mother as he was dying.
That’s no coincidence. Most mothers (and fathers) are people who love us, who keep us safe and who act with our best interests at heart – even placing our interests above their own.
Isn’t that the way police should act? As though they love us, want to keep us safe and act with our best interests at heart? It's how the best police officers among us already act.
More than a decade ago, RCMP Sgt. Ron Paysen told me mental health was in some way involved in almost every file the RCMP investigates. The comment was made in the context of a local force adding a dedicated mental health constable, but it has stuck with me over time.
Recent weeks have exposed racism within police forces, both in Canada and in the United States, where anti-racism demonstrations have been a flashpoint for the past several weeks, with calls to defund the police now becoming mainstream.
In Canada, Allan Adam, Chief of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation since October of 2007, was violently arrested after he got upset at the police blocking his way out of a casino in Alberta in March. Dashcam video from the police car video is extremely disturbing and shows an officer running up to Adam, plowing him over and punching him, without so much as a word when the officer arrives on the scene.
This comes just after Chantel Moore, 26, an Indigenous mother, was shot and killed by police during a wellness check, and just before Rodney Levi, an Indigenous man, was shot and killed by police in the same province. South of the border, the deaths of young Black folks at the hands of police are infamous and continue to pile up. The most recent, Rayshard Brooks, appears to have been shot while he was trying to run away after the police were called because he was asleep in his car outside a Wendy’s restaurant. He may have taken a police taser. What’s more important, a man’s life or a police taser? I know how a caring parent would respond.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said data suggests that Indigenous people are at greater risk of mistreatment or excessive force by police.
“That’s just a clear and vivid illustration of system racism and systemic discrimination that exists within our country and across a range of institutions,” Trudeau said in his daily briefing on June 18. “We need to work hard to address this (and) to change the protocols. … This is something we do need to address and soon, rapidly.”
What if the police had approached Adam as a caring parent would? A caring parent is always thinking about first, keeping their kids safe, and second, making sure they learn to become independent in the future. Adam’s licence plates were expired. It’s not clear when he was informed of that, or even if he knew before being plowed over.
The way I see a caring parent approaching the situation would be to calmly, but immediately, approach the driver of the car, who was a woman and who appears quite calm throughout the altercation, and explain that the licence plates are expired, making it illegal to continue to drive the car. That results in a fine and fair enough.
That's how some Canadians have described their experience when driving with expired plates.
If an insurance office was not conveniently open across the street, a caring parent would probably make sure the people in the car have a safe way to get home, maybe even offering a ride. That’s it, case closed.
As it is, Adam finds himself charged with assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. From what I can tell in the video, he wasn’t even under arrest when the police officer plowed him over and started punching him. Anyone would resist that. And yet, he is heard yelling: “What’s wrong with you?” and “I’m not resisting” and “I’m a chief.” But the beating continues.
In the case of Moore, if a wellness check was scheduled, it’s likely her family was worried about her. Wellness checks are usually done if relatives are concerned when they cannot reach the person in question. According to police, when they arrived, Moore had a knife. I’m not saying for sure that a caring parent could have diffused that situation because I don’t know the details, but I do know for sure that any decent parent would try to do everything they possibly could to keep their child safe and alive.
Parents understand us, at least in part because, most of the time, they share our history and values. Minorities and women would benefit if more police officers shared their life experiences. In Canada, an investigation by the Globe and Mail found that police dismiss one in five sexual assault claims as “unfounded.” I don’t believe that would be the case if more of the investigating officers were women. By the same token, I would love to know how many of the police involved in checking on Moore were women or Indigenous? Same for Adam and Levi. And in the United States, we know the officer charged in Floyd’s murder was not Black. How many Black officers have been involved in the deaths of young Black men killed by police in the United States? How many were women? I’m willing to bet it’s not many.
Diversifying police forces can only make things better. Getting them to think and act like a caring parent as their first priority would go a long way too.
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