Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 16, 1990 TAG: 9006180329
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Roanoke City police report that racial hostility is part of the motivation for bottle-throwing by black youths at cars traveling at night on a short stretch of 11th Street Northwest.
Other people cite other factors - drugs, for one, both legal (alcohol) and illegal - but again a racial factor pops up: The whiteness of the city police force, it is said, leads to an us-vs.-them mentality among some black youths.
Reporters for this newspaper then ask City Hall the obvious question: How white is the force? The answer - eight of 244 sworn officers are black, and three of 142 uniformed officers, in a city that is 20 to 25 percent black - is relayed to readers.
Ergo, says Councilman David Bowers, this newspaper has "helped to inflame" tensions by publishing the numbers. "The timing," he says, "was very inconsiderate and fueled the flames."
Inflammatory?
After the bottle-throwing had become too frequent and too serious to ignore? After two pedestrians were assaulted and injured by a crowd? After police this past weekend had to move in to break up the crowd?
The facts do not inflame. But left hanging is what they mean. For starters, a few points of context:
Blame for bottle-throwing and assaults falls squarely on those who throw bottles and commit assaults, and on those who condone such acts. Nobody has accused the police of unprofessional behavior that might incite misbehavior among private citizens.
Support for the police, not simply in restoring order on 11th Street but also in the wider task of fighting illegal drugs, runs deep among both white and black Roanokers. Black parents no more than white want their children sucked into a no-future lifestyle.
When a situation reaches the point that order must be restored by a show of force, the color of a police officer's skin matters little if at all. By that point, the only color that matters is the blue of the uniform.
On balance, the city of Roanoke has a good minority- hiring and promoting record. The disproportionately small percentage of blacks in the police department is more the exception than the rule.
Given all that, why worry about the number of black police officers?
Partly because the city needs officers, period. The police have a high turnover rate compared with other city departments; getting up to full strength is a chronic problem. By engaging in a more intense effort to attract qualified black recruits, the department also would be widening the pool of prospective officers to refill depleted ranks.
And more to the immediate point, partly because black officers could help the police establish stronger ties to the city's predominantly black neighborhoods - particularly, to black youth. It's naive to expect too much. Mostly white police forces can't put an end to troublemaking by whites; more black officers won't put an end to troublemaking by blacks.
But strong community ties help, as many police departments - including Roanoke's, with its crime-prevention and youth-services bureaus - recognize. Strong ties help in small ways that add up. They encourage the public to report crimes or suspicious activity. They foster respect for the law among the children who soon will be teen-agers and young adults. They give police a better sense of how to exercise their discretionary powers; a better feel for the right answer on such questions so deceivingly minor as when to break up a loud party and when simply to ask that the volume be lowered.
In a perfect world, forging such ties between police and community would not depend on whether the racial composition of a police force approximates the racial composition of the general population. In the real world, it sometimes does.
That's why the numbers are important - and it's important that Roanokers be told them.
by CNB