On a recent night, I had reason to call the police.As little more than an observer to events, this is what I saw: Three cops who responded quickly, who were completely professional, immensely helpful and exceedingly kind to a young man in distress.I feel it necessary to get that on the record. Because, in decades of covering crime, police and policing issues, the news gist has almost always been negative and my perceptions harsh.Those were the legitimate stories: Cops lying under oath, cops planting evidence, cops exercising colossal and sometimes lethal misjudgment. If an unflattering light has been brought to bear on police in the media, the blame lies with the relatively few who have dishonoured the badge by their misconduct and their crimes. Even more unfortunate is how the thin blue line so often forms a circle around alleged and proven offenders, when they are the ones who collectively bear the consequences of escalating public distrust.More than one or two bad apples, clearly, and too often wiggling (slithering) off the hook via a combination of inadequate civilian oversight, judges and juries loathe to impose penalties that any civilian would face in similar circumstances, the skill of slick, high-priced lawyers few of us could afford and a system that legislatively has made it near impossible for a police chief to jettison miscreants.All that said, I’ve never viewed police, collectively, as the enemy.We need to be careful, I think, about castigating an entire profession — the thousands of men and women who do their job honorably — and promoting pernicious stereotypes, just as we accuse cops of stereotyping segments of the public.We need to be cautious, I think, about fostering animus by extrapolating the bitterness of a loud minority and applying it to the moderate majority.It is for these reasons that I am deeply displeased by the decision of the Toronto District School Board to terminate the School Resource Officer Program.Of course, ...
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