From looking at the shirt I'm wearing in the photo above, you can see the image of Tupac Shakur, who was a famous American rapper in the 1990s, throwing his two middle fingers in front of his face while a police officer is standing behind him. Above his head reads the words, "Trust Nobody." This shirt perfectly expresses how I feel about the police departments and the criminal justice system we have placed in the United States. There have been so many incidents taking place where officers and the criminal justice system has failed "A lot" of its residents, and it seems as though the numbers are rising since before and during Trump's election years. I speak of cases such as the case with Trayvon Martin and the case with Robert White. In both examples, the victims were black males who were both unarmed, but the officers of the cases thought otherwise, and it lead to both victims getting killed. When it came to the Criminal Justice system of both cases, the victims were seen as the problem and that their deaths were acceptable consequences while the people who caused their deaths were treated in a way that let them get away with their wrongdoings. If it were the other way around, the victims would have been automatically given a bigger sentence or even given the death penalty. If you clicked on both of the victims' names, you would have learned that both cases took place within seven years apart. When it comes to the case of Robert White, it took place this year which means that things have not changed when it comes to our officers and the criminal justice system that we the American people are paying taxes for. In both cases, you also learn that both victims were innocent black males. Many of these cases the victims were usually of color, and in most of those cases, they were the one that was found guilty even though they were not alive to be able to speak on their own behalves. Instead, it has lead to many protests that usually don't last long (e.g. The two Football Season Protests) and justice is still not properly served. Tupac felt the same way during his time on Earth, and many people like me are still feeling the same way in 2018. So as a person of color, I have a question. Who am I supposed to trust when I need police intervention? Yes, I know not all cops are not like that, but how can you really tell the difference between a "good" cop and a "bad" cop until you're face-to-face with one of them? At that moment it might be too late to find out if they turn out to be one of the "bad" cops.
Now I would like to bring up a current event that took place last month that personally affects me as a current college student, a student attending the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and someone who has experienced sexual harassment and rape. On September 20th, the school hosted a listening session about the mishandling of Title IX cases that were given to the campus police department last year and a couple years ago. Both Title IX cases involved sexual harassment and rape among college students. In one of the cases, in particular, it was learned that one of the campus police officers were involved and misused his title and authority. They too were one of the people who raped one of the college students. So I restate my question. "Who can we really trust these days?"
When you are experiencing sexual assault, harassment, or rape, the final thing you are told to do is to report it to the police. Then hope they'll take the case seriously and not try to place the blame on you. But in this case, it was the police officer who was the one to violate the law, so who is next in line to reporting the incident? You would think, you could report the case to the head of the department, and they would handle the situation and fire the officer in the process. But apparently, that wasn't the case for the UMBC police department. The station tried to hide the case for about two years until it suddenly got released a week before the listening session event. In this case, even though one police officer violated their authority, the whole police department is still at fault because they tried to hide the cases and it seems as though, they never decided to fire the officer nor let the UMBC community know about these events taking place. I call these type of cops, "Want to seem good but are still bad" cops. And that is why I question the people who call themselves police officers these days. A lot of people already had fear and didn't trust cops to respect and protect "all" the residents in their counties especially when it comes to people of color, but now new fear arises for the population of women who could become a cop's next sexual victim. This also places more questions for the police located in Baltimore, Maryland. We still haven't resolved the distrust many people had developed in 2014-2015, and now we have to add more to this distrust with them now that this Title IX cases have come out at UMBC. Also, even after the listening session took place, there still hasn't been any word of whether or not they fired that police officer nor the officers who knew about the incident.
Now, I have a question for you. Who do you place your trust in when it comes to protection and respect?
