Op-ed on PACH (Police Accountability Clinic and Helpline)

The organization PACH, The Police Accountability Clinic and Helpline, has made a tremendous effort in documenting incidents of police violence against everyday civilians. They are an organization based out of Sonoma County and have made a list of the police shootings from 2000-2014. I believe they had the right idea in mind when establishing this organization. They may not always be out there in the public but they do keep people up-to-date on issues between civilians and police. It’s good that there are people out there who are willing to stand up for victims of police violence/shootings. So much is swept under the rug and we hardly ever hear the truth of the story because we only hear one side of the story, the police side. The newspapers are reluctant to go against law enforcement as well, so we always see the story through the eyes of law enforcement. This makes the victim and his/her family not to want to ever trust the police again. They are supposed to be the people who protect us, not abuse us.

The way out system works in America, the people with the higher prestige, in this case, the police, have much more power over people with less prestige, all the civilians. We, the people, need to come together and implement some community based policing practices that will allow us to regulate some of these situations where officers get away with their sometimes aggressive and unnecessary behavior. We need to feel like we have some power within the community, and with all the shootings and violence the police use in their methods, there needs to be some sort of system that holds these officers accountable.