Citizens play a pivotal role in running the affairs of the government, including helping police officers to enforce the laws. The US police officers are obligated to serve and protect people within the US. This role is executed by patrolling communities, responding to calls, implementing arrest warrants, and enforcing the laws of the land. However, the state equally requires police officers to discharge their functions, while maintaining absolute professionalism at all costs, as reflected in the Police Accountability Act (PAC) of 2020. Contrary to expectations, the working of overtime police officers and regular police officers seems to differ, as the former is more hostile to the community.
Media outlets are emerging as the mainstream source, spreading what looks like the use of lethal force against the community. Police officers are accused of going to the extent of beating and maiming people before executing arrest orders. This happened quite often during the era of the former US president, Donald Trump. For example, lethal force was applied by the police in arresting George Floyd, which culminated in his death on May 25th, 2020, and was vastly aired by various media firms (Christián et al., 2022).
In my view, the lethal force used to arrest Floyd was unnecessary and displayed the negligence of the Minneapolis, Minnesota police officers. Despite the strictness of the current government in protecting human rights, a few incidences where police officers harass people dictate their daily activities. As a result, police officers remain targeted for misrepresenting US values across all states. As a patriotic citizen of the US, I am aware that I could be at risk at any time and call for the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) to investigate the conduct of US police officers.
People need to go about their daily chores without thinking that police might come their way and threaten their peace. If found blameworthy, police officers should be guided to comply with professional ethical codes to restore the relationship between them and the community. Police officers must maintain professionalism to be trusted by the community (Braswell et al., 2017). Restoring the relationship between police officers and the community will benefit the duo. As of now, each party views the other as an enemy, leading to more probabilistic dangers that one can cause to the other. Today, police officers become targeted by the community when they wear their uniforms.
References
Braswell, M. C., McCarthy, B. R., & McCarthy, B. J. (2017). Justice, crime, and ethics. Taylor & Francis.
Christián, L., Erdős, Á., & Háló, G. (2022). The Background and repercussions of the George Floyd case. Cogent Social Sciences, 8(1), 2082094. Web.