Why We Need To Talk About The "Thin Blue Line."

Bill Maher interviewed Quentin Tarantino regarding the recent controversy regarding Police Brutality. Quentin Tarantino makes some excellent points about the need for honesty and transparency. He sums up the problem by calling out the barrier that exists known as "The Thin Blue Line." Simply put, the "Thin Blue Line" is a level of protection for unionized officers that prevents accountability for officers when they cross the line with the citizenry.

The "Thin Blue Line" is a conversation that needs to happen not only for the police, but also for our public education system. The police in our nation have the same issue that teacher's unions have, and that is the idea that 99.99% of the membership is competent enough to never need to be removed from their positions due to negligence. A statistic that is much higher than any other sector of our labor force.

Over 6 months ago, I wrote and article about New York teachers. Out of 112.000 employees, only a handful have been removed from their positions for their behavior. Each instance a teacher is removed, it is due to extreme circumstances. The same is true for law enforcement. It is very rare that a police officer is removed from duty. Reassignments and administrative leaves allow the officer to return to some form of active duty.

The problem with "The Thin Blue Line" is that it is not transparent. Many complaints by citizens are protected by as Quentin puts it....a snake with many heads. Somewhere, the institution of law enforcement became an institution that thinks of itself as not accountable to the citizenry they serve when the laws are broken by an officer.

We need to examine the systemic barriers and ask unions to consider transparency as a matter of substance and importance. Without it, more people will be innocently hurt by the system that is supposed to protect them.