Opinion: Respecting cops won’t prevent every shooting, but it can only help

To the editor: Jamil Smith criticizes an African American doctor, Geoffrey Mount Varner, for suggesting that people will be less likely to be hurt or killed by police if they exercise decorum. He bases his argument on one tragic police killing of a black man in Minnesota who behaved very politely to the officer who shot and killed him. (“Respectability politics won’t save us from police violence,” Opinion, July 14)

Most police shootings involve people disobeying or otherwise posing a threat to officers. Police are not perfect, but Mount Varner is clearly correct that cooperating with police is safer than resisting.

Police-civilian relations are a two-way street. Police need better training, but civilians must do their part too.

Dwight Filley, La Jolla

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To the editor: When it comes to police stops and the all too frequent violence that results from them, we need to focus our attention and policies on the armed professionals, not civilians. The police officers are the ones with the power and responsibility for defusing tense situations and preventing them from escalating into violent confrontations.

Sadly, their training does not prepare them for it.

As of 2015, the typical police cadet in the United States received about 58 hours of training on how to use a gun and 49 hours on defensive tactics — that’s more than 100 hours on how to use force. However, cadets spent just eight hours learning de-escalation techniques.

This must change.

Hector O. Villagra, San Gabriel

The writer is executive director of the ACLU of Southern California.

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To the editor: I can’t get out of my brain an interview I heard on National Public Radio with a psychologist who described a white police officer who confessed to her that he is afraid of black men. The psychologist said that since that revelation, she’s had such discussions with numerous white police officers.

How do we make sure that police departments never hire people like that man, that is, people who are afraid of a specific race?

Susan Guilford, Orange

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