More trust, understanding, justice

“Enough is enough,” said one sign at Thursday’s Old Town protest against recent police shootings of African-American men in Minnesota and Louisiana. But the remedy is not more violence, such as the horror that ended a like-minded march in Dallas later that night, but more trust, more understanding, more justice.

To be sure, the videos of the deaths of Philando Castile in a St. Paul suburb and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge stir anger and impatience, as have fatal shootings of residents by police in Wichita in recent years.

People want answers and accountability, and an end to the racial profiling and excessive force that often define these encounters.

After the Ferguson, Mo., violence a few years ago, Wichita stakeholders improved communication and transparency, with the Police Department, to its credit, taking the big and costly step of implementing body cameras across the force.

It was evident from the frustrations expressed at the Old Town rally that work remains for Police Chief Gordon Ramsay, who noticed “a serious distrust issue” between minority communities and law enforcement even before he took the job late last year.

In any event, as Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter said Friday, “the answer is not to kill cops.”

The sniper attack on a peaceful demonstration in Dallas was a gross injustice, killing at least five law enforcement officers and wounding seven others and two civilians. Such an assassination of police in one city targets law and order everywhere.

Though a suspect told a hostage negotiator he wanted to avenge the deaths of black men at the hands of police, the ambush was an act of terror that proved and accomplished nothing, other than to lengthen the list of officers killed in the line of duty this year to 56.

The worst loss of life of law enforcement in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, the Dallas deaths exemplified again how police officers’ duty takes them into harm’s way as civilians seek safety.

The ambush has added fuel to the great national arguments over guns and race.

But it would be best followed not only by prayer for the victims and their loved ones, but by efforts to support and encourage officers of the law – and to work through the issues and incidents that divide communities, build distrust and threaten public safety.

This story was originally published July 10, 2016 at 12:07 AM with the headline "More trust, understanding, justice."