TeacherScribe: Police for America

This is amazing. This man appears to be a wonderful leader and a true hero. But for every great man like this, there are also others like the police officer profiled below.

Given the tragedies that have occurred for both innocent victims (such as the Minnesota man who was shot) and for the innocent police officers who were killed in Dallas, this post seems just as relevant today as it was when I initially wrote it last summer.

There is Teach for America to make up for some of the folks who should never have gone into teaching (either they don't have the skills, work ethic, the personality or the empathy). In Teach for America, the best and brightest from our best universities can apply to the program. If accepted, they undergo training (not nearly enough training, but still some training) and then they are sent into inner city schools to teach for two years. The payoff? Their students loans are forgiven and they are paid according to the teacher pay scale.

This has a few benefits - first, it exposes students to some of the best and brightest minds our country has to offer (as opposed to suffering "the dance of the lemons," where often cases the worst, most ineffective teachers are simply reassigned to the worst schools). Second, it shows many young professionals, the majority of whom will go into the private sector as lawyers, investment bankers, and so on, how challenging teaching (especially in urban areas) can be.

As I see more and more stories like the ones below, I'm starting to think maybe we should have a Police for America.

I mean out of all the great police officers I know, I have never heard one threaten to "put a hole" in anyone's head. I've been treated kindly and respectfully and am alive today thanks to the highway patrol and EMTs that took care of me after a particularly nasty car accident.

However, is there any excuse to treat someone like this?

I get this off duty detective's anger. Yes, the kid was going down a one way the wrong way, but is that an excuse to treat a citizen (who the officer has sworn to protect and serve, by the way) this way?

Imagine if this was your son or daughter?

Or being harassed like this? I get that this man dislikes the tone the young man is taking with him, but while he isn't being blindly obedient, the man is not being disrespectful, nor in my estimation deserving the treatment he is being given.

If the officer dislikes having every thing he is doing being criticized and scrutinized, he should spend a week teaching high school kids! (And no, I honestly don't wish I could do this to any of my students).

Since I wrote this post, I did a little research and found that the officer in the video did resign. It's amazing how a temper can bring an end to a 30 year career just like that.

I still have to think that the stories, again, like this one, that are emerging illustrate the few (okay, maybe more than a few) bad apples who should never be graced with a badge or any sort of power. But that can be said for any profession (teachers, doctors, and so on).

I believe there are far more officers like the ones below than the two goons above.

Such as this officer. How would the detective who threatened to "put a hole in the head" of the young man in the first video have reacted in this officer's shoes?

Talk about WWJD! This African American police officer is helping a white supremacist inside as he is suffering from heat stroke!