Our View: Finding our way amid the despair

It seemed like the world was on fire last week, literally and figuratively. Three months of pandemic abnormalities were eclipsed by the reaction to the death of a man at the hands of Minneapolis police officers on Memorial Day night.

People marched around Lake Street in Minneapolis. They marched in cities across the state and then the country and world. And with that came violence in fires and destruction, and police forces aimed at stopping it.

And here we are in Carlton County, certainly aware and certainly viscerally affected by what we have witnessed in the past two weeks — right here in our Minnesota Nice state. Residents here went to Duluth and other places to express their solidarity in making systemic change that will keep black and brown people safe in interactions with police.

The loud message in Minneapolis is in changing the culture of the police department there.

While not facing any immediate harm here in the wake of George Floyd’s death, we know about issues surrounding police culture. The topic came up in interviews for the Cloquet Police Department chief position this week. The force had past convulsions that rocked the public’s confidence. No place is immune to turmoil and public scrutiny.

So it was refreshing to see that the man ultimately picked to lead the department, interim chief Derek Randall, show some depth in understanding just what the country is going through right now.

He made a point to get information out on the department’s social media outlets, posting department policy to back up his words.

“I believe it is my duty and the responsibility of our officers to ensure we are all professionally trained in the use of force, including identifying the signs and symptoms of positional asphyxia and excited delirium,” Randall wrote.

Part of the discussion in Minneapolis is about police officers living in the communities they patrol and better understanding the people who live there.

Randall grew up with a mother and grandmother who were enrolled tribal members. He heard native language as a child. He’s currently studying Ojibwe language in a region noticeably marked by its native population.

Does any of this help in better understanding the people he is sworn to protect? It surely does. It means he’s invested. And that investment grows into understanding root causes of crime, how to be more preventive than reactive. How to know what situations police might come across.

It’s a situational awareness we could all do better to improve on.

The Pine Knot News has its own task at hand. We are going to make an effort to better know your area officers — tribal, conservation, deputies and police. We are going to encourage chiefs and the sheriff as well as rank and file officers to engage with us more, to hear their voices outside of when a crisis hits.

Like any taxpayer, we’d like to better understand the bang we’re getting for our buck. What are departments spending the most on when it comes to policing? What programs are being deployed to make officers not only better officers but better citizens, engaged citizens?

It’s a pledge we make and it’s a pledge we’d like readers to make as well.

Our country is at a crossroads. We are the change we make to bring equality and enterprise to all.