Police Racism

The article that was chosen for this week was about accusations about racism in the Minneapolis Police Department. Recently their have been several transfers of black officers implemented by police administration. Community leaders such as Ron Edwards gave examples of demotions of three black police officers, and another community leader, Jerry McAfee said, “All these moves smell like racism to the highest degree.” With all these accusations one should keep in mind that these are just accusations there is still room for doubt. The new police chief, Tim Dolan has only had the position for only a year so it is hard to see if his position on diversifying the Minneapolis Police Department is from a racist perspective. Taking a look at all the angles I would have to say that it is too early to cry racism for the new police chief’s transfers. I would also conclude that the transfers do look very suspicious but I would not have gone public as Ron Edwards, and Jerry McAfee did. The best thing that these two community leaders could have done was to get more evidence. A recent transfer of a detective Charlie Adams is now under reconsideration perhaps because of the racial cries. I would have urged Edwards and McAfee to have kept quiet until they had irrefutable evidence, but since they cried racism the police administration perhaps had time to correct their mistakes, if they are guilty. For now it is best to keep a watchful eye out to see if there really is any racism.