Like many others, I’m tired of the suggestion that we have a national conversation about race and crime and police bias. Not that there aren’t important things to say, but that too often these conversations involve lots of talking and not much listening, followed by a return to the status quo.
How about action? A suggestion I really like in the wake of the national controversy stirred up by grand juries declining to hand up charges against two white police officers who killed two unarmed black men in separate incidents this year is the creation of an independent prosecutorial authority tasked with addressing alleged criminal conduct by members of law enforcement.
As a Tribune editorial pointed out Friday, the relationship between police and local prosecutors is traditionally and understandably cozy. They play for the same team. They rely on one another day in and day out in performing the vital job of defending public safety and order.
Whether or not the grand juries in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City erred — and we all have our opinions on that, don’t we? — giving local prosecutors oversight of those and many other, similar cases creates at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.
That appearance erodes the confidence that the justice system needs in order to make it work.
