Racially charged incidents involving the law enforcement community are currently trending. Once again, the festering wound of racial division in the United States is exposed. Can it ever heal?

I would like to suggest that it can heal. The only way to achieve that outcome is for people to abandon their emotional responses, roll up their sleeves, and decide to work together to find some real solutions. So far, that is not happening. Social media is filled with the usual suspects saying the same things that have never brought real change in the past, and are unlikely to bring real change in the future.

If sympathetic Facebook posts won’t help, what will?

If kneeling protests or burning police cars won’t help, what will?

If political hatred and division won’t help, what will?

One of the main causes of the racial divide in America is the criminal justice system. Steps taken to foster trust in our criminal justice system and to enforce the uniform application of Civil Rights during law-enforcement encounters would be a significant step towards healing the divide.

So, how do we level the playing field for Civil Rights across all jurisdictions and in all states? We do it the same way we do for everything else. We create a Federal office in the Executive Branch. Just as OSHA sets a minimum Federal standard for safety regulations in the American workplace, we can create the CPSA, or the “Constitutional Policing Standards Administration.” This office would ensure that all policing jurisdictions in the United States meet minimum standards for protecting Civil Rights during law enforcement encounters, and minimum standards for transparency and reporting of law enforcement related injuries. This has precedent in the Miranda v Arizona case, where police procedure was set at a Federal level. When arrested, you must be apprised of your “right to remain silent.” It would be nice if when arrested, you also are apprised of your “right to remain alive.” Seems logical. I think universal body cams may be a good start.

The following is a RESOLUTION, because the Congress does not have the authority to create a Federal Agency. That is a power of the Executive Branch. If the Executive Branch does not agree to create a Federal standard, a Supreme Court case could be made to sue the Department of Justice for negligence in its failure to provide equal access to Constitutional Rights across jurisdictions, a case that would be relatively easy to prove.

Resolution for the Equal Protection of Civil Liberties among American Police Jurisdictions

Whereas police involved killings, including shootings, choking and other uses of force, are the sixth-leading cause of death among men of all races ages 25-29, according to a 2019 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with minorities and the mentally ill at disproportionate risk; and,

Whereas these law-enforcement related killings contribute significantly to a painful and unnecessary climate of racial division and social unrest in our society today; and,

Whereas The United States of America is unlikely to achieve the racial reconciliation that we hope for or the universal respect for our law enforcement community that we need until this difficult problem is ameliorated; and,

Whereas existing differences in police procedures (for example body camera requirements and audio recording) and discipline (swift recognition and correction of potential civil rights violations) between different jurisdictions create uneven rates of law-enforcement related deaths, proving that there has not been equal protection of Constitutional Rights and Civil Liberties for all law-enforcement involved citizens in every state and every jurisdiction under the law; and,

Whereas existing differences in the classification and reporting of such instances prove that the Civil Rights of law-enforcement involved citizens are unevenly valued in different states and different jurisdictions; and,

Whereas the rights that are enumerated in Amendments 1 through 10 of the United States Constitution (the Bill of Rights) are to be equally applied to all citizens, no matter what the laws of the individual state may enumerate; and,

Whereas the Executive Branch has stepped in to make animal cruelty a federal offense, despite existing state criminal codes, thereby making animal cruelty a more serious offense than killing an unarmed civilian during the course of an arrest; and,

Whereas The Federal Government stepped in after the ruling of Miranda v Arizona in 1966 to mandate a new police procedure (Reading Miranda rights) while still upholding the Tenth Amendment and avoiding undue federalization of the police force; and,

Whereas the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, including the Department of Justice have the Constitutional mandate to ensure that the civil rights of all Americans in every jurisdiction are equally protected insofar as it is at all possible, and Constitutional Policing is the ideal towards which every jurisdiction must strive; now therefore, be it

Resolved by the members of the 116th Congress of the United States of America, regardless of political affiliation, race, or creed, that all Americans should have access to equal protection of their Civil Liberties through minimum Federal safety standards for police procedure. We resolve to study this issue and humbly ask the President of the United States to create of a new regulatory body in the Executive Branch under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice to review police procedures and to consider a set of minimum Federal standards by which the rights of all in every state and jurisdiction might be equally protected under the law to the best of our ability with the intent to apply our Constitutionally protected rights to all law-enforcement involved citizens of the United States of America. This is the office of the CPSA, the Constitutional Policing Standards Administration.

If you think this is a good idea, perhaps you can get your Representative to sponsor it in Congress. I think that it should have bipartisan support. After all, who could oppose Constitutional Rights?

If people of color and the poor could feel that their rights will not be violated during law enforcement encounters, that would go a long way towards beginning to heal the racial divide. What say you?