The president of the country’s biggest police organization gave an official apology Monday for police departments’ “historical mistreatment” towards minority communities.
Chief Terrence M. Cunningham, the president of International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), urged officers to work past the “historic mistrust” by building a “shared understanding,” reports the Boston Globe.
“In the past, the laws adopted by our society have required police officers to perform many unpalatable tasks, such as ensuring legalized discrimination or even denying the basic rights of citizenship to many of our fellow Americans,” Cunningham, who is also the police chief of Wellesley Police Department in Massachusetts, said.
“Mutual respect” will help everyone move past the “darker period,” Cunningham said.
“All members of our society must realize that we have a mutual obligation to work together to ensure fairness, dignity, security, and justice,” Cunningham said.
Civil rights leaders had varying responses to Cunningham’s apology. Dr. Andre Branch, president of the NAACP’s San Diego branch, was pleased that Cunningham took responsibility for the mistreatment of minorities by police.
Branch, however, took issue with some of the apology because Cunningham was not clear on what part of history he was apologizing for.
“One would want to know before we start jumping up and down and getting excited about an apology, is he referring to historical treatment of people of color as last week? Or last month? Or the last century?” Branch asked.
Rev. Shane Harris, the president of the National Action Network in San Diego, said that Cunningham’s apology represented a big change in policing.
“It’s a huge step for someone of his caliber and leadership of that organization. I hope that what he has said will spark the nerve and the guts of other chiefs and police unions to admit there is an issue in policing today,” Harris said.
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