In "Beyond The Badge: Why Is The Cleveland Police Dept. Covering Their Tracks?", Vincent says, "I don't hear the Black Lives Matter movement talking about this case. We can't pick and choose which ones we're gonna protest about." I think many people, including myself, know great cops, but also see many situations where we wish the cops acted better. It is natural that this would lead to some cases being protested and others not. However, Vincent thinks only in black in white, and when it comes to police, he can only see police as innocent and unchanging, and this bias results in gaps in his logic and a dearth of productive commentary that could be used to improve police use of force.
Continuing with the above episode, Vincent first talks about the killing of Tamir Rice. He talks about how the driver of the police vehicle, Ofc Frank Garmback, made the wrong decision to drive right up to Tamir Rice. Due to this, Garmback received a 10-day suspension with the reason that he put Ofc Timothy Loehmann, who shot Tamir Rice, in danger. Vincent agrees with this, saying Garmback gave Leohmann no reaction room, no cover distance, and that if Tamir was a real threat, Leohmann could be dead. At no point does Vincent mention the threat and lethal injury to Tamir due to Garmback's mistake. Also, by agreeing only with the 10-day suspension, Vincent shows he is OK with putting a cop who has shown poor judgment to the extent of putting another cop in danger--putting this cop right back out on the street with no additional training or testing.
Vincent also mentions that the 911 call taker was suspended for about 8 days for not relaying critical information (that Tamir was probably a kid and the gun was probably fake) and that he disagrees with this suspension. He argues that this information should not matter. In other words, he's basically arguing that any time a 911 call taker receives information about if a community member is a kid and if a gun is fake, this information does not need to be relayed to the police officers. At this point, Vincent is advocating that police not be given the full information, which I find irresponsible. I find it hard to believe that the officers wouldn't have approached this situation differently with that information, even with Garmback's apparent lack of training.
One reason that so many people have trouble with the police organization, even though we know many great cops, is that commentary like Vincent provides allows no room for bad cops, poor training, or any mistake on the officers' side, and also allows no room for improvement. Regardless of the state of police, if you allow no room to admit mistakes and make improvements, you are in the wrong.
