Sometimes the police can't win for losing

Calibre Press posted this video a few days ago.

In an accompanying article, the author pointed out:

Only one person should be talking to the witnesses and taking information—confidential information, as it is—from the victims. That person in this case, Officer Bartynski. No one else should inject themselves into the investigation.

This is too much, it seems, for Rev. David Bullock.

. . .

I’m not going to detail everything Reverend Bullock said over the course of the video. But what I will say is that this is a sad state of affairs we’re in.

Elites criticize peace officers with impunity. They talk about the “epidemic of police violence” and “systemic racism.” And this has consequences. People, like Rev. Bullock, apparently, have come to see police, laws, and, ultimately, our democracy as illegitimate.

Upon his release the pastor again disparaged the entire police profession stating that racist arrests like his are why the community doesn’t cooperate with the police.

Let’s consider this specific incident. Once Bullock clearly states he isn’t going to obey the officer, what are Bartynski’s options? Let him continue to interfere? Allow the pastor to give his uneducated opinions to the victim and her family? Wait until the pastor has confused and delayed the process for as long as he likes?

There's more at the link.

I think the author is exactly right.  This sort of racially motivated interference in routine police work is inappropriate, unacceptable and inexcusable.  If actual police misconduct is observed, then of course those comments no longer apply:  but in this case, no such misconduct is evident.  There's merely a knee-jerk reaction on the part of the pastor, who seems to anticipate that every police intervention is or will be motivated by animus rather than the requirements of the law.  (He also needs a few lessons in the use of language more appropriate to his calling.)

That sort of bias is what's destroying many communities.  Yes, some police deserve suspicion and distrust - but the majority of them don't.  Unless and until we can educate our community leaders to distinguish between those two categories, things are not going to improve.

Peter