Following the death of Mike Brown and the acquittal of Officer David Wilson, racial tension has been very high in Ferguson, Mo., as well as the rest of the United States. Trying to address the problem, a group of 16 that consisted of officials, law enforcement agents and leaders in the community, met and spoke about underlying reasons for these feelings of inequality.
The panel spoke about the need for police to become more involved in the culture and mentality of the neighborhoods they are policing. "The panel recommended updating training and policies to rein in the use of force by officers, as well as training police to recognize the impact of historical trauma, social interaction training and implicit bias and cultural responsiveness training," according to RT News. The idea is that implementing these ideas throughout urban communities will lead to police having a better understanding of the people they are policing. This, in turn, will lead to a better relationship between the community and the police.
These commissions hope to be successful by not making the same mistakes as others before them. Some members of the panel believe that the riot commissions of the past did not properly address the racial and economic plight faced by African Americans in the United States. "Many of these commissions failed, Lupo argued, because they failed to tackle latent racial tensions and systemic discrimination," according to NPR News.
The commission brought many people together from different tiers of society to discuss ways to better these communities and speak truth about the issues within them. They spoke about differences between living in these urban communities and suburban towns. "In mostly white, suburban Wildwood, the life expectancy is 91.4 years. In the mostly black, inner-ring suburb of Kinloch, Mo., life expectancy is just 55.9 years," according to USA Today.
