by Abigail Ramirez

Reading this article was upsetting but surely something I already knew about. It is absurd to believe that police don’t lie. As mentioned in the article everyone lies and it makes sense for police to lie if that means an incentive is included. Officers have quotas they must meet every month. I know this to be true because my father was a police officer and he told me. My father told me this is why you may see many people being pulled over at the end of the month. This happens so that officers can catch up and issue the number of tickets to “meet the month”. So yes, arrests are also made to meet a quota.

Something that made me most upset was, “In 2010, a New York City police officer named Adil Polanco told a local ABC News reporter that “our primary job is not to help anybody, our primary job is not to assist anybody, our primary job is to get those numbers and come back with them.” This is a major issue and I only hope that more people come to understand why this is so infuriating.

They are supposed to serve and protect, and I feel like the title Police Officer may give too much authority or maybe gives a feeling of more power. Seeing that an officer openly talked about their primary job being meeting their numbers is heartbreaking. Also, the code of silence was mentioned in the article and this needs to be broken. This all needs to be dismantled.  What do you believe would change if the title changed from police officer to public servant? Do you believe that this may change the demeanor of officers that hide behind their title and badge? There are so many questions that I have, but I do feel that changing their title from police officer to something a lot less powerful would definitely impact their ego and the way that they treat people. At the least I hope that is the change that we would be able to see.