september 28, 2014

How many of us have had this experience?  You're watching or reading the news and you come across a story that involved the police doing something that seems hard to comprehend. Just this summer we had more than one dramatic and high-profile example of this with the killing of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

In these cases, I often find myself struggling to understand how the police can be so tone-deaf, especially in their handling of situations after they have happened. The United States Department of Justice apparently feels the same way. They are releasing  a new plan for empathy training, which will hopefully become a reality for any and every person undergoing training to become a police officer in the United States.

Cpt. Johnson speaking with protesters and residents in Ferguson once he took over.

The program will start in a few pilot sites and will have three main goals:

1. Ensure that residents feel they're being fairly treated
2. Closely examine cops' bias, and it's effects
3. Create open and honest lines of communication between police and community leaders

After news stories of police forces applying to DOJ for military surplus that was competely unnecessary, this is much more in line with the kind of roll out I would like to see.  How about you?

Read the full story, via Vox.