When discussing the recent death of black Baltimore man Freddie Gray in police custody, MSNBC host Alex Wagner took the debate beyond parody levels and questioned if society really needs policing at all. (VIDEO: MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Attacks Her Own Network)
“There’s certainly reforms that need to be undertaken in policing,” the host of “Now w/ Alex Wagner” said. “And there are broader questions that we’ll get to later about whether or not policing is even appropriate.”
True to her word, Wagner returned to the topic minutes later, quoting The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates: “We ask ourselves: were the police justified in shooting? But in this time of heightened concern around policing, a more essential question might be were we justified in sending them?”
“I mean that’s the big question, right?” she said. “Should we even have police get involved in child support payments, which is why [murdered North Charleston man] Walter Scott was running? Should a policeman with a gun be the person that mediates for someone who hasn’t taken their medication? But do you think we can even ask those questions?”
“I think we are heading in that direction,” said Columbia professor Dorian Warren. “If we think back to a year ago, or even just Ferguson, that discussion was about well, the city politicians aren’t representing the residents. This is a case of a black police chief and a black mayor. So that sobers us up a little bit to ask the deeper, more radical question: what is the role of policing in the first place?” (RELATED: Ferguson Protesters Demand Police Be ‘Tolerant’ Of ‘Minor Lawbreaking’)
“There’s some that would argue we wouldn’t even need police if we didn’t have poverty and other social ills,” he continued. “That in a sort of an anarchist society, that we wouldn’t even need police forces in the first place if there was justice. That’s one pole of the argument.”