If not "COPS", then how?

As voters, taxpayers, and community members we have a manifest interest in how police officers perform on our behalf.

Our leash on our police is tenuous.  Once every few years we get to vote for a mayor who appoints a police chief who determines how police officers will behave.

To say that community members have any real say in how the police department and police officers perform, is a stretch at best.

If we had any control over the police department and police officers, that control would begin with, and rest upon our knowledge of pertinent information.

How can  the people exercise control over politicians and public servants if they don't know what's the pols and public servants are doing?

How many community members have any idea at all what it's like to be a police officer?

Not that COPS is a great resource for unbiased representation of the street life of the police, but it is better than no resource at all.

Protecting Albuquerque's image at the expense of recording the truth is at least as dishonest as the editing that COPS producers do to sell a little soap.

I would encourage any politician or public servant who takes a stand against COPS ride-alongs, to offer a better alternative for giving community members a look at what happens when local police officers and bad boys get together.

It makes sense to replace a bad plan with a better one.
Not so much, replacing a "not the best plan" with no plan at all.

The fundamental issue is transparency.

Any transparency is better than none.

Allowing politicians and public servants to decide which truth about their own public service, will or will not be shared with the people is a manifest conflict of interests.

If the Albuquerque Police Department had a sterling reputation, would we even be having this argument?




photo Mark Bralley