I went to a “unification rally” this week in Princeton, Texas, the city where my wife and I reside.
It’s a small town, but is growing rapidly. I believe the population here is about 15,000 residents. The unification rally was called in the wake of the George Floyd tragedy, where an African-American man died at the hands of cops who treated him with extreme malice and brutality. It proceeded with calm and good manners.
The response to the Floyd tragedy is far different just down the road from Princeton. Dallas is caught up in turmoil and tempest. The police there fired rubber bullets on protesters marching across a bridge that connects downtown Dallas with the western reaches of the city.
Some folks want Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall to resign. If she won’t quit, they want her fired. Hall is standing her ground. I don’t know who’s right in this matter; I wasn’t there. I was busy soaking up the unity being expressed in my Collin County community.
My point, though, is that while there appear to be calls for unification coming from rural communities just like the one where we live, there also appears to be plenty of strife developing in larger cities. Austin had a similar beef that has erupted in Dallas. Other major cities across the nation are enduring emotional conflict and tension as people march for justice and seek reform in the way police departments do their job.
The tension causes me plenty of concern about where we are headed. I do not subscribe to the “defund the police” argument that is getting a voice in some communities. That view suggests rampant corruption and cruelty in all big-city PDs; I do not believe that is the case. Policing is a tough job under the best of circumstances. It becomes exponentially more dangerous when police do not have the support of the community they swear to “protect and serve.”
The nation’s law enforcement community is facing a serious crisis as it seeks to answer the questions that critics are raising about it in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.
The law enforcement crisis isn’t presenting itself in places like Princeton, Texas. It is, though, showing itself in Dallas … and other big cities across the land.