Police Need to be Licensed. Or Something.

Onyx Contributor:  Johnny Silvercloud (@JohnnySilverclo)

Anyone ever flew a plane?  Learning how to fly an aircraft — fixed wing that is — is something I always dreamed of doing.  When I lived in Fort Washington Maryland, there was this small airfield that always trained people how to fly.  It’s virtually impossible to be a kid near an airfield like that and not dream of flying.

As an adult unfortunately, I still haven’t found the time to learn how to fly.  One thing I do know is how some of it works.  An old buddy of mine who flies told me that a flight license is a little more detailed than a driver’s license.  If you get a driver’s license, you can drive many cars under many circumstances.  To get a flight license, that flight license goes precisely towards the exact plane you’ve flown.  With that being said, to fly a different model of an aircraft, you have to, you guessed it, once again get the license for it.  The licensing difference is based on the how the tail is made, how the wings are mounted, and where the engines are pretty much.  In short, you qualify for every different thing you hop in.

Again and again we have police operating as if they are a fraternity with no rules or regulation versus an actual professional force.  There’s mass confusion on whether their job is to protect all or to inflict their own will on the disadvantaged.  One thing that isn’t up for debate is their purpose however.  After watching a roid-raging cop brutalize a teenage girl, I figured out the perfect idea:  police need to be licensed to be police.  Sure the cop is fired, but technically he can just simply be a cop somewhere else, which has been done before with dire consequences.

You see, lawyers have licenses.  Lawyers have to have a license to operate as a lawyer somewhere.  Doctors and dentists also have to have a license.  The military doesn’t exactly have a license system, but it does have a Uniform Code of Military Justice system which has the “dishonorable discharge”.  The dishonorable discharge prevents the ex-military person from signing back up for military work, which is the point.  I imagine you can’t be a cop with a dishonorable discharge either.

If a cop is a licensed professional, like a dentist or a lawyer, then that license can be revoked when they commit an infraction against the regulations of their craft.  If this license is revoked, then that person simply cannot operate in that field of work.  It is only that simple.  The loss of the license to police — getting it revoked or pulled — should function similar to a military dishonorable discharge.  You cannot serve in that field anymore.  From there, the force remains the most professional and you deter repeat offenders.

The utility of this license goes even further.  Remember how flight licenses work?  Same deal:  If an officer wants to work in a school, you know, be that “resource officer” in a school… then working with children is another thing to be licensed on.  Yep, exactly:  that cop would have to be QUALIFIED to do the job.  Of course, this is dependent on training and testing that isn’t bullshit, but yeah.

Tamir Rice was murdered by a cop who got FAILED police testing; he shouldn’t have been a cop to begin with.  While officer Ben Fields is fired from the police force, he can infinitely become a cop elsewhere, roid-raging, terrorizing another person or another community.  Police in America either need to be licensed professionals or governed by congress like the military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice.  Anyway you slice it, SOMETHING has to be in place to prevent horrible policemen from being granted the same power over people’s lives again.