M. Suzanne Terry

This post is going to feel like a broken record. Or maybe it’s just me – I feel like a broken record.

Part of me wants to spend my first day back from vacation doing what I do best – navel-gazing and talking about food. I don’t know that I need to say anything about that police officer’s behavior in McKinney, but if my choice of risk is between saying too much and saying too little, I do know what side I want to land on.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me sum up – the world is broken and awful. I don’t even know if there’s anything left to say about the McKinney situation that hasn’t already been said by people who understand what it’s like to watch that video and still hear people wonder what the whole story is.

When it comes to analyzing the situation as a whole – why the police were called, who did things right, who did things wrong – sure. Get the whole story. I suspect that it will still reveal that when it comes to race, community, and police relations, there is still work to be done. Saying that doesn’t mean that I hate McKinney and think everyone who lives there are unwashed racist miscreants. It just means that I have some hope that doing better is possible.

I also find hope in the courage shown by some of those kids. My ideal world is a place where everyone has friends like that.

But when you talk about the girl…don’t tell me to look at the other side of that story. Nope. Not gonna happen.

PSA to grown men everywhere – HANDS OFF THE TEENAGE GIRLS. You may think you have a good reason, but let me make it simple for you. No. You do not. Unless you are personally saving her from a burning building or pushing her out of the path of a moving vehicle, do not touch her without her permission (and if she’s below the age of consent, even with her permission most types of touches are not okay). He verbally attacked her, and when she responded in kind, he physically attacked her, flinging her to the ground and kneeling on top of her. What possible other-side scenario makes that an acceptable course of action? A grown ass man laying his hands on a girl in a violent way (or in any way, for that matter) is completely inappropriate – and in most cases, criminal – behavior. There is no other side to the story that changes that. Just….DON’T.

Good police officers everywhere – this man assaulted her, and he did it in uniform, providing the whole world with yet another place to point when they tell their kids that sometimes they can’t trust the police. When you defend him or dismiss it with an attitude of “well, yeah, that can happen sometimes,” you give them another place to point. Even if he had been a great cop in every other situation in his career, that is irrelevant in this story. In this case he was not. This time, he failed to live up to the exemplary standard that you risk your life to live up to. He dishonored you. Good cop friends, I am livid, and I don’t understand why you aren’t. My expectation is that when things get out of hand like that, my good cop friends would be the first to stand and say, “That’s not what a police officer is supposed to do, and that’s not okay.” You want me to trust you? Stop siding with the bullies instead of the bullied. I hope that you can turn this narrative around, but I can’t do it for you. It has to come from you.

I have hope, but it’s buried under a lot of frustration.

Edited to add: The police chief’s response. I have a little more hope today.