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Volume 8 Educate for Better Police Interactions By The Veterans Site Oct/Nov 2016 Edition Tell the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education to work together to develop a curriculum to improve relationships between cops and the communities they serve that will be taught in all schools across the United States. The Petition The proper training could save countless lives (Image credit: Paul Zoeller) America and its police have a problem. There’s deep divisions in communities all across the United States and distrust on all sides. Every day, it seems like more police or members of the public are being needlessly killed. What can be done to address this? Both the public and police departments need to do a better job of communicating with each other. Police need to remember their role is to serve the people of their communities, while the public must understand the stress involved with the demands of policing and empathize with the human beings employed as police officers. Meeting each other in the middle would go a long way to improving relations. To help improve relations between communities and their police force, we are calling on the Departments of Education and Justice to collaborate on a program that will help cops and their communities better get to know each other. This program will bring cops into schools to teach kids how to interact with cops while also allowing law enforcement to better engage with the community and get to know the kids living in it. By presenting opportunities for interaction between law enforcement and the communities that does not involve an intervention or arrest, the hope is that police and the public will come to better understand each other and im prove relations. ‘To the United States Attorney General and the Secretary of Education, As a citizen concerned by the growing instances of miscommunication between police and the public and misuse of force, I am writing to the both of you to request you collaborate on a new and innovative program that will help cops and their communities better get to know each other. This program will bring cops into schools to teach kids how to interact with cops while also allowing law enforcement to better engage with the community and get to know the kids living in it. By presenting opportunities for interaction between law enforcement and the communities that does not involve an intervention or arrest, the hope is that police and the public will come to better understand each other and improve relations. Learning how to interact with the police should be a part of every civics class. It’s important knowledge for every citizen to have, on par with voting or understanding our governmental system. Please, work together to create a program that will address the systemic issues of policing in our communities. Just talking about cooperation without establishing trust will not be effective. We need something to prove to these two polarized and distrustful groups that there can be peace between them, and that they can work together to create more harmonious societies. Thank you for your time,’ To Sign the Petition, please go to http://theveteranssite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/vet/petition/ police-education Original post http://theveteranssite.greatergood. com/clickToGive/vet/petition/police-education 28