The shooting death of Steven Salguero by Police in an apartment complex near Bassett raises serious questions regarding the manner in which police calls are handled. This represents a latent danger to all citizens.
The gravity of this event raises a red flag, particularly, because it is not the first occasion in which Police have responded to an emergency and immediately discharged an indiscriminate use of 'deadly force'.
The Hollywood cliché of a police negotiator establishing a dialogue with a man unwilling to surrender ultimately being resolved in a humanitarian manner does not come close to the reality in El Paso.
It is enough to recall the William Ecker incident. He was killed in similar circumstances in the Upper Valley and his death provoked a hail of protests and investigations that satisfied only the perpetrators of the injustice.
Salguero and Ecker are now added to the list of, at minimum, six citizens deceased in similar circumstances by the police according to information provided by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI).
Given the circumstances, everything seems to indicate local police have a 'License to Kill' anyone crossing their path because of a lapse in judgment or an emotional outburst. Don’t the police proclaim: 'To Protect and Serve'? as their slogan. Would not such a commitment, be better served by the use of reason and tactical strategies designed to negotiate and persuade rather than the language of a hail of bullets?
According to preliminary reports, the Salguero case, like Ecker’s, was a situation in which there were no hostages nor one in which anyone was a risk other than himself. The notion proffered by some that killing him to stop him from hurting himself mocks the citizenry.
A little more restraint and the application of reason perhaps might have saved a life. The police must demonstrate a much greater degree of professionalism in its intervention, especially when they encounter persons with emotional difficulties or worse when they are mentally ill or are former war combatants experiencing post traumatic stress syndrome. Police response to date has been the same: bullets and death. The justification: self-defense.
It behooves institutions charged with oversight to evaluate the obvious lapses in these situations. There is an imperative and immediate need to train police and undertake a much broader reevaluation of legal principles that animate this deadly machine.
The situation demands a multi-disciplinary approach to the phenomenon in order to find new ways of dealing with it. It is necessary also to establish a dialogue with experts in criminal justice; psychologists; human rights groups; sociologists; jurists; community and religious leaders; and the various law enforcement agencies to develop and recommend changes.
Six deadly incidents, in as many years, are too many. The message gunning down a citizen sends to the community is horribly intimidating. The violent management of the incident, and its tragic end, smacks of assassination and repression.
Both are unacceptable in a society that espouses humanitarian and democratic values and even more objectionable in a city that promotes itself as one of the safest.
We must recognize the useless and unjustified sacrifice of the lives of those that have suffered emotional crises. Because they suffer from a mental disability, they have been left alone and vulnerable to the irrational sight of a murderous police.
El Paso deserves better.