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During the most recent Los Angeles mayoral debate, protesters from the Black Lives Matter broke out with their protests in rejection of the positions in favor of financing the police and against police brutality.
At least the main candidates, Karen Bass, Kevin de León, Rick Caruso, Mel Wilson, Joe Buscaino and Mike Feuer want to hire more police officers to face the wave of violence that the covid pandemic brought-19 to the city of Los Angeles. Although they vary in number.
Real America News consulted with some community leaders and experts on the subject about how they would like the candidates’ approach to the police issue to be.
“All the hassle of Black Lives Matter comes from the fact that the police arrive with an aggressive mentality as if they were going to war, to confront the problems of African Americans and Latinos”, said Óscar Ulloa from the group Alerta Los Ángeles.
“What is needed is for the police to have more contact with the community and hire support staff as mental health professionals and experts in de-escalating conflicts instead of wasting resources like when they arrive with up to 8 patrols to a call as if they were going to deal with guerrillas”.
Patty S. Chavez, a community activist, said she is against increasing the budget for the police.
“ A better option would be to invest that amount in educational and crime prevention programs such as mental health clinics, rehabilitation centers for people addicted to illicit substances, employment training programs for youth and low-income people”.
He cited as an example, the homeless who live on Skid Row. “It is evident that we have a serious problem and there are not enough available resources or interest to help this type of people.”
He considered that increasing the budget of the Police Department would not end crime but quite the opposite.
“A concern for our community and for us activists who fight against police brutality, is the increase in cases of abuse against Latinos and Afro-Americans”.
And he mentioned as a clear example the murder of the young man from 14 years, Andres Guardado, who died in the hands of an officer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, while working in an establishment in the city of Gardena, California last 13 June 2020.
Therefore, he emphasized that we must invest more in crime prevention and build more schools than prisons.
Dr. Alfredo Cuellar, retired professor from numerous universities and the first Mexican to teach at Harvard, said that voters are exposed to a new fashion called polarization. “They don’t argue as much anymore, they don’t listen to each other. You can’t talk about the good and the bad”.
Among the issues that trigger passions is the police.
“The police seen as an institution has very good things, but it has areas of opportunity to improve. But people don’t listen to that, love or hate the police, and there’s almost nothing in between.”
He indicated that this has arisen from Trumpism, from the Republicans, the Democrats, from those who do not support Andrés Manuel López Obrador and from those who support.
“The pandemic offered us the right breeding ground to reflect within our homes, during quarantine, and in the long sleepless nights, and there were some triggers such as the death in Minnesota of George Floyd, which He exposed through undeniable videos something that is a truth.”
Dr. Cuellar said that the police act on the premise of how powerful they are, they have unions that protect them, candidates that support them , almost everything is in their favor, and they use tricks to not act professionally.
“But when the robbery and crime rates rise, the need for the police becomes evident. Although it protects us from evil, on many occasions that evil also comes from the police, because they do not have many controls. For the most part, there are no evaluators or commissioners who evaluate police practices.”
Professor Cuellar ended by saying that we have to learn that the police are a necessary evil, and no candidate is going to say that he is against them because they want to ensure votes.
However, he insisted that the police have very large areas of opportunity in which they should involve community leaders more so that your work can be done better.