The police should be given different consideration for their actions because of the function they perform on the public’s behalf, visiting US Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield said yesterday at a roundtable discussion at the American Centre in Dhaka.
In response to this correspondent’s question on how to address the issue of police brutality, an issue currently making headlines in the US, he said: “We should have a considerable amount of sympathy and understanding in terms of the risks that they take and the sacrifices they make.”
His comments come in the midst of nationwide protests in the US following a grand jury’s decision last week not to bring criminal charges against a white police officer who contributed to the death of an unarmed African-American man in New York in July.
That decision, following a similar decision not to press charges against police in the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager in Missouri in August, has triggered widespread debates in the US over race relations and the culture of impunity in the police.
Brownfield, however, said police should be monitored for their actions and held responsible when they are in breach of law.
“For that we need mechanisms, by which we, as a profession, can investigate and if we conclude through some fair adjudicatory process, that they have violated our standards, our rules, the means by which we operate as a profession, they can be subject to expulsion and then subject to the civil or criminal judiciary system,” he said.
“We cannot hold them to the same standards as everyone else on the planet because we ourselves have asked them to perform this function,” said Brownfield, who is the Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, in response to a question regarding police violence – a problem that has escalated worldwide.
Brownfield said he discussed various avenues to enhance Bangladesh’s engagement with the United States on a number of security and rule of law interests.
At the roundtable, he said he met with the inspector general of police, the home secretary, the foreign secretary and the law and justice minister to explore ways to enhance engagement between the two countries in law enforcement and rule of law issues.
It is commendable that 12% of the Bangladeshi police force consists of female members, he said.
“This is quite a robust figure in comparison to almost any police community in the entire world,” he said.