Let Them Help

Police departments may be stripped from communities.
Those are the headlines materializing across my eyes over the past weeks. Several stories I’ve read, such as one from The New York Times, say city councils, like in Minneapolis, Minn., where George Floyd died, suggest funding more social services to handle crimes in their communities, leaving police departments possibly scuffling for resources.
If this idea percolates across America, would more communities possibly become policeless? How would our communities appear without men and women in uniform, boots, and protective gear giving customers at Wawa a smile and a gentle “hello” in the coffee line?
I’ve never experienced what some of my black friends have when it comes to racial profiling, but I’ve been startled by the police since I was a child.
An 8-year-old me strayed from my front porch on Delaware Avenue, in Absecon, one late afternoon mid-summer. Standing in front of the mailbox, one of the town’s finest drove by, as the police department was, and still is, less than a block from my house. I was timid when his unit stopped at my house and his passenger-side window was lowered.
“Hey, be careful out here,” the officer began, “there’s a lot of cars that come past here. Don’t go playing in the street, OK?”
I believe I responded with a “yes, sir” or “OK.” He drove away toward the station at the top of the street, leaving me behind with rattling fingers and an uptick in my heartbeat.
He cared, even though at that moment, as a child, I felt startled. I’ve learned that it’s normal to feel uneased during a traffic stop or when you’re questioned by officers, even if you haven’t done anything wrong, but what must be avoided is distrusting them to the point where we reject them from our communes, leaving residents vulnerable to harmful occurrences.
Defunding police departments equals a statement of doubt in whether these men and women, who are forced into an austere training program, are sophisticated for their professions. It’s a declaration that officers don’t care if someone lives or dies, let alone hold the desire to help America fix its systemic racism problem. More importantly, in the age of the coronavirus, it closes job opportunities when they may be scarce and employment is imperative.
There are plenty of, what everyone knows as, “good cops” in our neighborhoods with a desire to help and dismiss poor police work from their departments. My uncle, a former Park Ridge police officer, says, “No one hates a bad cop more than a good one.”
Keep police in America, and let them resolve the problem, ultimately making a fairer, equal community. Don’t suggest that the officers who patrol with open ears and hearts are scarce in a group of coworkers that illustrate poor policing as an American standard. Also, don’t permit someone’s suffering, black or white, Christian, Jewish or Muslim, because a police officer wasn’t standing by.
Allow children to encounter their protectors in front of their mailboxes, showing them that behind a gun, mace can, baton, and handcuffs is a heart thirsting to care.
ED. NOTE: The author is the editorial assistant at the Cape May County Herald. To contact Conklin, email econklin@cmcherald.com.