Op-Ed: Officers, Not Powers, Are The Problem

The beating of Kelly Thomas in Fullerton was disgusting, inexcusable and a betrayal of the public’s trust.

However, the actions of the six police officers are not indicative of the department as a whole and calls for a change in police procedures is unnecessary: instead, only the officers who behave this way should be removed.

The public, or at least those who demand an upheaval of a course of action whenever there is a tragedy, is irrational to make such requests.

Too often on cable news programs can a panel be seen arguing whether or not a tragedy should lead to procedural changes.

But their finger should be pointed at the perpetrators instead. Yet, it is these types of discussions that are mimicked by the public, in that any time an unfortunate event takes place there is call for reform.

What people need to realize, though, is that not all actions need changing when there is a mishap.

Everyone can agree that what happened to Thomas could have been avoided had the police acted as they should have, and that their abuse of power resulted in necessary public unrest.

But this animosity should not result in taking powers away from police and other public officials with similar responsibilities.

These individuals need certain tools to do their job effectively, and may very well rely on these tools when their own lives are in danger. They are a necessity and should not be revoked.

Of course, all sources of power need restraints, but police already have limits.
Beating a man to death is certainly beyond what is needed to subdue a man and most officers understand this as they do their job daily.

An exception to this rule should be seen for what it is: an exception and nothing else.

Imagine if new procedures were created every time a worst-case scenario occurred.
Procedures would be constantly changing and confusion could overwhelm officers as they try to keep up with ever-evolving rules for a course of action.

Even actions that are unanimously accepted would need tweaking after a tragedy.
All of this could be avoided, however, if those who are responsible for the misconduct were to be punished for their actions instead of creating new rules from scratch.

People should also realize that “bad” procedures happen sometimes, but dont survive long over time when tested.

It is asking a lot from an organization to choose what is best before a procedure has been tried.

Mistakes are made and then corrected accordingly.However, not all procedures that have consequences should be deemed “bad” because someone blows it out of proportion.
When it comes to stories of police brutality, it should be considered that what happened is a result of an officer going beyond what the necessary procedures called for.

The officer may be the problem, not the procedures he or she was supposed to abide by but chose to ignore while on the job.

These procedures that police and other public officials follow are tested daily and have proven to be a necessity, and it would be a mistake to have the actions of six officers change this.

There is no need to reform the system; we should simply expel those who abuse their power.

Op-Ed By Joseph Szilagyi
Mr. Szilagyi is the Opinion Editor for the Daily Titan