About two weeks ago, America was hit with the horrifying story of Jeremy Mardis. Mardis was a 6-year-old boy who was shot to death by two police officers while riding in the car with his father in Marksville, Louisiana. Mardis’ father, Chris Few, had no outstanding warrants for his arrest, nor was there a gun found in Few’s vehicle. This information begs the question: Why were shots fired by police in the first place?
The death of Jeremy Mardis has put his name on the growing list of unwarranted deaths by police officers. According to a Washington Post article published in May, deaths from police shootings in 2015 are close to 400.
Police officers are supposed to be the ones who make people feel safe when they rest their heads to go to sleep, not the ones striking fear into millions of Americans and keeping them up at night. The trust in U.S. police departments needs to be restored. It can be done by asking one simple question: Do police officers need to carry guns?
Since the controversy in Ferguson, Missouri, local police departments and the U.S. government have been looking to change current policies that would turn the tide against the growing mistrust in U.S. law enforcement. The resounding answer, so far, has been to wear body cameras to track the actions of officers at all times. The Atlantic reported on Nov. 1 that complaints against police dropped by 80 percent in cities with police departments using body cameras.
President Barack Obama recently ordered the distribution of 50,000 body cameras to police departments across the country over the next three years. So far, many officers involved in police shootings have been charged for murder, which would’ve been impossible without camera footage. In fact, there is footage of the murder of Jeremy Mardis from a body camera worn by one of the officers that night.
Although body cameras significantly increase the accountability of police officers, the U.S. government needs to go a step further. Not only do the body cameras do close to nothing to prevent these shooting from happening in the first place, but having every cop in the U.S. wear a camera at all times is simply unfeasible. Just like you wouldn’t want to wear a camera that monitors your every move for more than 40 hours of the week, the majority of police officers are going to resist having to wear cameras. More importantly, body camera or no body camera, an innocent child was still shot to death last week by the very people who were supposed to keep him safe.
The technology for non-lethal weapons is already on the way. Alternative Ballistics, a company based in California, is developing an attachment that fits on the end of a handgun to lessen the impact of a bullet. According to the CEO of the company, the bullet is rendered almost completely nonlethal, but "it’s going to break some ribs." The problem is it only works for one shot. However, the takeaway is that the technology developed by Alternative Ballistics has proven that weapons can be produced to discharge a viable projectile to injure a suspect yet at a likely nonlethal force. If the technology is developed, this firearm could be a nonlethal alternative to today’s guns.
Having the same mentalities about guns as those alive 200 years ago is esoteric and barbaric. With the replacement of today’s guns issued to police officers with nonlethal firearms, trust and legitimacy could be restored in this country’s law enforcement. The bad guys may have deadly weapons, but they can still be stopped without a response of deadly force. The officers at my little sister’s softball games and the ones pulling people over for speeding do not need deadly weapons by their sides.
Americans cannot feel safe if they do not trust those serving to protect them. If deadly police shootings were made impossible by officers not having guns to begin with, U.S. law enforcement would continue to take steps in the right direction to gaining the larger American public’s support.
Joshua Udvardy is a UF engineering freshman. His column appears on Wednesdays.
