This morning, I had breakfast with nearly all of the sheriffs in Arkansas at their meeting in Little Rock. I am proud to have worked alongside them as a prosecutor. I know them to be hard-working, diligent, honest and ethical public servants. I've seen them, their deputies, and law enforcement throughout our state put their lives on the line to protect us and our families. I have tremendous respect and appreciation for these sheriffs and law enforcement in general.
This is one of several reasons why the video in Baton Rouge is so disturbing. The vast majority of law enforcement officers are courageous, committed public servants who risk their lives to protect all of us.
As a former federal prosecutor, I know that when an officer commits wrongdoing, we must make it clear that the officer is not above the law. Unfortunately, I have had to deal with officers that violated their oaths and committed crimes. We handled those situations by prosecuting them in federal court. One of these circumstances involved human trafficking. Where officers breach the public trust, they should be held accountable.
We must also resist the temptation to paint with a broad brush, regardless of what perspective we may have. In this situation, that requires us to recognize that profiling is still, at times, a problem. I cannot understand the experience that my African-American or Latino friends have had in this way because I have not walked in their shoes, but many of these friends have shared their stories with me. Those stories are very real and must be recognized. I remember a judge in Arkansas telling me of being pulled over as a student, harassed, and having his car searched for no reason other than the color of his skin.
Such conduct should never occur, and we must seek to end any and all harassment, mistreatment or profiling based on race or other factors. This has no place in law enforcement. At the same time, surely we can all agree that we should thank the vast majority of law enforcement officers for keeping us safe.
My approach to these issues is the same as all other issues: we must recognize the problem and speak up about it. We must not remain silent. We should then engage to determine common-sense solutions that solve that problem. I hope and pray that we can work to eliminate incidents like Baton Rouge, we can hold bad actors accountable, and we can lift up law enforcement as they work to keep us safe.
- Conner