After reading an article on BuzzFeed about an officer breaking up a fight with a dance battle, I realized I wanted to write about it as well. Turns out, a police officer responded to a 911 call in Washington D.C., where a group of teenagers had been trying to fight each other. When the police officer arrived to break up the fight, she had challenged them to a dance battle. Aaliyah Taylor was one of the girls that took her offer. The way the officer used dancing to positively break up a fight, shows that not all officers are bad people. The fact that it worked, is even better. This cop had no intentions of using violence to stop this fight. She used something that the teenagers had been interested in. It is easier to get someones attention when you do something that fits in with their standards. Teenagers are the type of people that need an approach that makes you seem more of an acquaintance (or friend), rather than a monster.
After the dance off, Aaliyah Taylor had said that this officer taught her “not all cops are bad.” This make me happy to know that there are still people who know cops are truly good people. Wanting to be an officer, myself, helps me believe that some people may not hate on me. A lot of videos surface on a daily basis with the phrase “Police Brutality.” It really scares me; it makes me not want to be a cop anymore, but when I see things like this dance battle, it makes me happy that some cops do show other ways to break up fights. It makes me happy that they show the positive ways of dealing with cases. This video has inspired me to be a good officer because she found a more subtle way of breaking up the fight. It makes me think of ways to detain someone in many cases. I know it can be hard to not break up a fight by pulling on them to get them away, so this officer is an inspiration for all cops to just stop and think about how they can get their attention.
In a lot of videos I have seen on Facebook there are officers that are engaging in police brutality. In a certain case that I have come across, there was an officer standing over a teenager's desk at her high school in South Carolina. I decided to research more about it. He asks her if she will get out of the desk herself, or if he should do it for her. She doesn't get up so he grabs her and yanks her out of the desk. It seems that she reaches up and punches him (when he puts his hands on her), but as she is doing that, he is pushing the desk back and dragging her across the room. It sucks to see videos like this because it is not acceptable to do that, even if the person is listening or not. This officer should have found another way to get her out of her desk and out of the class room. In this case, a dance battle may not be a good idea, but there are other ways. Perhaps he could have called the student's parents and had them come in to get her. They could have either took her to the station, or convinced her to go with the officer. Anything other than violence would have been a better option.
People should not be scared of the police. They should feel safe around them. I am beyond ecstatic to see that the video of the dance battle has gone viral. I am so happy to see that this woman is restoring the faith and that feeling of safety (that should always be there) with the police. This video will keep me going toward my dream of becoming an officer. I can’t wait to keep my society safe. I can’t wait to give everyone the sense of safety that they deserve.
“Stop labeling, start living.” –Cara Delevigne
The video of the dance battle can be found here.
The video of the violent arrest can be found here.
