CITIZEN REVIEW WILL HELP BUILD TRUST IN LAW ENFORCEMENT

A recent incident in north St. Louis contributed still more to
police-community conflict and distrust. Three black teen-agers died after a
stolen vehicle they were in crashed while being pursued by police. The
vehicle had been used in a robbery. Witnesses and police officers offered
different descriptions of the crash. When evidence doesn't support accounts
of witnesses, those accounts should be dismissed. But citizen review should
be part of how evidence is examined in such cases; there will be no trust
in any determination made without it.

In St. Louis, as well as nationally, issues of police-community tension
generally boil down to black and white. Many think an inner-city black
community is synonymous with black criminals and/or black criminal
sympathizers. Hence, an incident like the one with the teens always becomes
police versus black criminals. For that to change, both the police and the
community must first demand that their own act within the law. Then, both
must be empowered to ensure fairness when critical incidents with
conflicting explanations are investigated.

It will be tough for many in the black community to accept some
responsibility for failing relations with police. And many whites will have
difficulty coming to grips with the fact that the distrust black
communities have for law enforcement and the criminal justice system is
born more of the damaging abuses we have experienced in our contact with
them than a desire to aid crime.

I'll do my part. I'll explain to my teen-aged relations that the police
can't chase you if you don't run. I'll also explain to my children that
they will be held accountable for their wrongful actions, as should anyone
in our community who victimizes us. Anyone.

But when it comes to our criminal justice system, concerned black citizens
will have to explain further to their teen-aged relations that race and
class will continue to play a pivotal role. My 15-year-old knows that --
although white kids both buy and sell drugs twice as much as black kids do
- -- the response to white crime is different and less harsh. For example, in
Baltimore, Md., in 1990, black kids were arrested at 100 times the rate of
their white peers on drug-related offenses.

He knows that black teens are formally processed into the criminal justice
system at seven times the rate of his white counterparts when committing
identical first offenses, and currently represent about half of the entire
prison population. We get help for young white problems, and lock up young
black ones.

As a former police officer, I have made him aware that a significant number
of officers will ignore the letter or spirit of the law, sometimes both, to
act on their own prejudices, politics and power in black communities they
see as powerless -- a dangerous circumstance.

I'm not preparing him to be a victim, but a citizen who will demand
recognition of his rights under the law and oppose any who would deny them,
in the best American tradition. For those who have rightly identified
patterns of abuse that stem directly from our laws, and law enforcement,
challenging them is no un-American enterprise. It's a responsibility. Those
who take up that challenge aren't looking for sympathy; they're looking for
justice. There is no need for people who have suffered deadly excesses of
law enforcement, or systemic degradations through our criminal justice
process, to now relent in fighting injustice. In fact, working hard to
eliminate all remaining institutional racism will do much to further
strengthen our growing national unity.