Peter Haviland-Eduah, the policy director of the prominent, New York-based Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, told BuzzFeed News that Dallas exposed a need for more investment in communities where police presence is seen as a cure-all. Haviland-Eduah said over-policing and hyper-aggressive policing tactics as the rule of law inside communities block chances at restorative justice through education and economic opportunity.
“In the wake of these tragedies, we echo Police Chief David Brown in that police officers tasked with protection and service to our communities are overburdened with too many of the challenges faced by our society,” Haviland-Eduah said. “It is not the job of law enforcement to fill the porous gaps in our policies and practices that disproportionately impact communities of color and our country’s most marginalized populations. It is in this spirit that we renew our call to invest in our communities across the nation in order to prevent these ills from transpiring again the future.”
In a lengthy interview with BuzzFeed News, Thomas L. Glover, Sr., the president of the Black Police Association of Greater Dallas (BPAGD), said he was eager to see how the killing of officers transformed the movement and its relationship to law enforcement. Glover said he believed that white officers should “understand that [people] can dissent and disagree with enforcement without being anti-law enforcement,” Glover said. The message from activists, he said, should be: “We’re all pro-police, but against police misconduct and police brutality and that it’s okay for us to co-exist with two different opinion.”
“We should welcome any citizen group, whether they dissent with the views of a majority of police officers or they concur,” Glover said. “Our organization wants to bridge the gap between the police and the community and have been since we were founded 40 years ago.”
Glover said he believes there should be a national standard for police use of deadly force, echoing a recent push by Campaign Zero activists Samuel Sinyangwe, Johnetta Elzie, Brittany Packnett, and DeRay Mckesson. In a meeting at the White House, Mckesson asked the president if he would consider it. (Obama directed the Justice Department to look into what could be done on a national standard, and the department is pushing for national and consistent data on lethal use of force to promote transparency, but department officials did not provide an update on the status the president’s directive.)
“The people in the community with the complaints should be the ones telling us what we should do to straighten it out,” Glover said. “And if it’s within guidelines, we should do it. If it’s not within the guidelines, we should determine why it’s not. But whether it’s a policy change or a law change, let’s do it. If we can’t get it done let’s vote for people in office who can.”
Activists who promote the right leadership with credibility both inside communities and with the police are gaining traction with the Dallas Police Department after the killing of the five officers.