Montgomery, Alabama has a long as challenging history with race relations. It shouldn’t–nowhere should have issues with ethnicities not getting along–but it does and that’s an inescapable fact. Now, it’s a majority-black city so one would imagine that at least some of those challenges have been overcome. That’s not to say new ones haven’t arisen, of course, but that’s not what we’re going to get into today.
See, there are some proposals in the state that impact Montgomery. One of those involves the state appointing interim police chiefs, a move that would put a lot on the state with regard to reducing crimes.
And according to one op-ed writer, it does a bit more than that.
Back in July, I wrote about a prefiled bill that would allow the governor and attorney general to appoint interim police chiefs for cities, effectively allowing the state to take over their police departments.
The bill from Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Pike Road, doesn’t name Montgomery explicitly. But lawmakers have signaled that’s who they have in mind.
At the time, I thought this meant state officials would take ownership of all the issues of crime and law enforcement staffing that many cities are struggling with, a responsibility they may not want.
I still think that. But as was pointed out to me after the column ran, a greater danger is that two white officials — one from Wilcox County (roughly 75 miles from Montgomery) and one from Marshall County (164 miles away) — could measure progress simply by ramping up the volume of arrests in a majority-Black city, without any sense of whether those arrests are actually warranted or effective.
The people of Montgomery would not only get their voices cut out of local governance. They could have a public safety policy less focused on safety in the city and more on posturing for GOP primary voters with no connections to Montgomery.
This should raise alarms among state officials, considering that young Black men are more likely to be killed by the police than any other group.
I’m not sure appointing interim police chiefs would allow the state to take over these departments. At least, not so long as the local governments still have authority over the permanent hires.
But I can sort of see how this step up in state power might well create an incentive to simply make a pile of arrests.
Arrests aren’t convictions, but a lot of people view them as a crackdown on crime when they could just be bogus arrests meant to send a signal.
The author is concerned about young black men being arrested over nothing, all to make some people look good for the folks back home. Since those folks back home aren’t in Montgomery, that could present an issue.
I get that.
But then he goes off the rails a bit. See, he thinks what we need is gun control.
It’s an imperious, arrogant attitude that refuses to allow Black communities to govern themselves as majority-white communities do. And Montgomery could see it happen again.
The Montgomery City Council approved an ordinance earlier this month allowing police officers to confiscate concealed weapons from people who lack a valid photo ID. A person who lost a firearm in this manner could retrieve their gun within 30 days by presenting proper identification, proof of ownership and paying a $150 fine.
it would be a weaker version of how law enforcement used to enforce the state’s concealed carry permit requirements. Without an ordinance in place, police could detain someone they suspected of planning harm. This proposal would allow police only to confiscate the weapon.
Now, this is a gun control law, though a minor one. It’s in a preemption state, so it won’t actually fly, but it’s also clear that the author thinks that this is a good thing and probably wishes Montgomery could do more to crack down on guns.
Yet I have to ask him just who does he think will be arrested if he gets what he wants.
Historically, the people most likely to be arrested for gun charges are young black men, the very group the author is worried will be rounded up just to make folks look good. This is especially troubling when these arrests are just for the charge of carrying a firearm and literally nothing else, and yes, that happens plenty.
Of course, the fact that there are a lot of people who agree with what Montgomery wants to do while also thinking voter ID laws are racist because black people can’t get IDs is almost hilarious.
Back to the topic at hand, though, a lot of people are upset at the idea of young black men being arrested, particularly for petty crimes, but then also want more and more gun control despite all the data showing that such laws end up in a disproportionate number of young black men being arrested.
