Local law enforcement reacts to Baltimore riots

“I was so afraid of police officers, I would hide in the graveyard,” said Robert Burks, who recalls growing up in Huntsville, Alabama.

Burks said he ran every time he saw a police officer.

“I saw how they handled African American people when they came into contact with them, they mistreated them,” he said.

Burks decided the only way to get over his fear was to face it, and join their ranks. Now retired, he served for the California Highway Patrol for more than 28 years.

“I have no problem with the police using the amount of force necessary to get things under control, but they have a responsibility long before that and that is not doing inappropriate things,” Burks said.

Seeing Baltimore erupt into chaos leaves him on edge.

“Rioting, looting are not going to solve the problem,” Burks said. “In fact they’re just going to make things worse.”

He believes the public has a responsibility to obey the law, and law enforcement has a responsibility to follow policy.

He says from his own experience, he doesn’t believe the latter isn’t happening.

“They’re doing things they shouldn’t be, because guess what? They know they’ll be protected, because if they go down, the city goes down,” Burks said. “They have to find a way to separate civil liability from the individual responsibility of the police officers.”

“In theory it sounds nice that we get away with more but in reality we don’t,” said Sgt. William Hutchinson of Palm Springs Police. Hutchinson is also the president of the Palm Springs Police Association.

Hutchinson says police misconduct is rare and cases like Baltimore cause people, even here locally, to distrust police officers.

“When one police officer does something wrong it taints the profession and we have to deal with it. But 99 percent of officers are doing a great job,” Hutchinson said.

Both Burks and Hutchinson agree that one way to maintain police transparency and trust is with video technology, both with body and dash cameras and videos recorded on mobile devices by the public.

“Video record any police activity you see, it can both convict and exonerate the officer,” Burks said.

“We absolutely don’t mind when someone is recording, it only helps us prove or disprove a case,” Hutchinson said.

Burks says hope in the future of law enforcement lies in recruiting those called to do good in their communities.

“if you want to protect the city, train your officers well and make sure they do the job,” he said.