[DerbyCat]

For those of you that don't know, I'm an ex-cop. Most cops aren't like this kid in Dallas but I know that there are still too many like him on the street. What didn't surprise me about this case was his approach, young cops know how to escalate a problem but they don't know how to DE-escalate, they have to show the suspect who "The Man" is - let me explain - they teach you a couple key things in the academy, 1. It's cops against everyone else ("everyone you contact on the street may kill you given the chance, don't give them that chance"), 2. Follow your S.O.P. (Standard Operating Procedure) - this is the weakness. They teach new cops how to *follow the rules* when problem solving via escalation (first use your *command presence*, if that doesn't work then try the pepper spray, after that use your baton and as a last resort, shoot them twice in their chest with your gun) but they don't teach you how to DE-escalate, how to say "I'm sorry, I made a mistake" or to let someone go, *no harm, no foul*. If you stop someone because they fit a "profile" (black man in a white neighborhood, white guy driving slowly around a Hispanic neighborhood known for drug sales), you can't let that person go with a warning, especially if you pull them out of their car and toss it, you HAVE to write a ticket to that person to *justify* what you did. This mentality is passed from senior officers to rookies and it continues throughout the years... It doesn't make it right, it just is what it is.

Until cops can see people for the fragile humans that they are, they will continue to disrespect those people that set their radar off - it's really hard to respect someone your afraid might kill you - that was the problem in Dallas.