A conversation between Mayor Kasim Reed and members of the Commerce Club took a sober turn when the mayor was asked for his views on police conduct in minority communities.
“My thoughts are that more hard work is needed and that I believe that the fact that these incidents are becoming known is healthy for the United States of America, because I don’t believe these incidents are new,” Reed said on Tuesday. “I believe they’ve been happening for quite some time because I’m a black man and I’ve been pulled over more than my fair share and had interactions with law enforcement.”
Despite a series of high-profile incidents involving the deaths of several African-Americans, men in particular, in altercations with police, Reed cautioned against painting law enforcement with a broad brush.
The mayor advocated for the use of an independent citizen review board to examine complaints against officers, the widespread use of police body cameras and also said cities should have a force that reflects the population they’re policing.
“The other thing we’ve got to do is talk to our young brothers,” Reed said, then sharing directions his father taught him at age 14 for handling a police encounter.
“I know it to this day and I know that the black men in this room know it too,” Reed said. “…Both hands on the steering wheel. Both feet on the floor. Take your wallet out and put it on the seat next to you. Turn off the radio. Keep your face square. Look forward. Say sir and thank you to the police officers.”
Reed told the audience he worries many issues between police and young African-American men “are erupting because of this cultural exchange that occurs at the car,” he said, adding that officers – just like those being pulled over – are at times fearful of the outcome.
“So what you typically see is somewhere where something goes wrong in these interactions. So I think some of us have a responsibility, without being too preachy because the white hat gets dirty the fastest, to have a conversation with our brothers. Not from any standpoint of making them weak or tolerate inappropriate behavior, but telling them, ‘Me and your mama are more concerned about you getting home.’”
Reed said he recently spoke with Usher, the recording artist, about starting a national conversation around police interactions.
“We really need to take people with big platforms and start having this conversation you all. You don’t want your boy killed because he didn’t know to turn down the dag-gone radio,” he said. “So what I see happening really is you have a lot of folks coming out of single parent households that don’t have the blessings of all of these lessons that we impart to our kids in rooms like this. [We] take for granted that other people impart the same basic lessons.”
Reed said he isn’t excusing poor police conduct, noting “when an officer engages in inappropriate behavior, the response needs to be severe,” he said. But “we do not need to act like all police are bad, because they’re not.”
What’s clear, he said, are these deadly encounters aren’t new. “What’s new are video cameras everywhere.”
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