This is incredible! This is sweet music to my ears! As I have written in other blog post like, Police Abuse of Power and Policing the Police – A Powerful Step in a Monumental Direction, it has been made very clear to me and to others that there is a defiant problem. And the only thing I could think of doing was to keep the discussion going to somehow, someway bring a solution to the table. But here we have it folks, thanks to Michael A. Woods Jr. for stepping up and being the voice of reason, a Peace Officer from Baltimore being very vocal about the things he saw in his 11 years of policing!
In the interview (Read Full Interview Here: An interview with the Baltimore cop who’s revealing all the horrible things he saw on the job) To hear him say things like:
“The hero is the cop who hesitates to pull the trigger.”
And with his candor in knowing he was part of the problem and he takes accountability for it in statements like:
“ To an extent, I’m totally guilty. I should have done more. My excuse isn’t a good excuse, but it’s reality”
It is just so refreshing to hear! He is receiving a lot of praise and criticism, which is fine! Everyone is entitled to their opinion but you are either going to be part of the problem or part of the solution and I love seeing Michael be on the side of the solution!
So here’s the impossible question: How do we make things better?
I think it starts with empathy. We need to stop all this warrior talk, the militaristic language, and the us versus them rhetoric. We need a better metaphor. Police officers aren’t warriors. They aren’t soldiers. I don’t even like the mentality that we’re “enforcing the laws.” Maybe a term like “protectors.”
Does that mean anything will change overnight? Absolutely not! However, it is the biggest step in the right direction in a very open public discussion that I have ever seen! I really have nothing else I can say except that I will be following this guy very closely and hope to see progress soon! We are definably making big strides, Faith in Humanity: Restored! But we still have a long way to go!