This article originally appeared in the Fall 2020 edition of The Missouri Times Magazine.
Officer Tamarris Bohannon answered the call to an active shooter. A husband and wife were calling in a shooting victim when the shooter walked through their front door and told them to get out. They made it down the block when they saw an officer walk toward their home.
Officer Bohannon put on his uniform to protect the city he lived in, to protect his wife and three children, to be there for us. And on Aug. 29, he walked right up to danger and stood between us and a bullet.
He was 29 years old.
Officer Bohannon became another loss of ours to violence. Violence is surging in Missouri. It’s not just in cities. It’s all across the state, rural to urban.
Our economy is leaving people behind. Our public institutions don’t have the resources to deal with the enormous problem. Our government is using the same strategies and talking points to address an old problem taking root in new ways.
Not all violence is preventable. But many of the situations we have asked officers to deal with don’t need to end in someone’s death. We know because other places have succeeded in reducing and preventing violence.
When an officer responds to a call, a crime has already been committed. When a prosecutor puts a murderer away, it doesn’t bring back the person we lost. A true crime plan intervenes in the process earlier.
There are several key areas our state should invest in to protect Missourians, including community intervention, rehabilitation, and accountability.
We need to invest and intervene in those communities most in need. There are several effective programs that treat violence as a public health crisis and hire local community members to mediate violent situations and stabilize neighborhoods. These programs have been successful with long-term support.
Rehabilitation needs to be the focus of the justice system. Most people who go to prison eventually get out, but we don’t invest much in rehabilitation. And many defendants would be better served outside of prison. Missouri must invest in diversion courts, like drug and veterans’ courts, which treat the underlying issues of criminal activity and get people the help they need.
Accountability is essential, and it’s missing. The lack of public trust in public institutions is damaging public service. We need to hold criminals accountable, get illegal guns off the street, stop massive corporate monopolies from destroying local economies and local opportunities, and enforce civil rights protections for all Missourians. We cannot address violent crime without the public, and we cannot earn public support without trust. Missouri can start by joining other states and create a Civil Rights Division to build that trust.
Our system is broken, and our country is breaking right along with it. We’re losing loved ones to the brokenness. Despite these failures, we still have dedicated public servants ready to walk into danger every day. We need to stop exploiting their willingness to serve. It’s beyond time for our government to serve us too.
Elad Gross is a civil rights attorney, educator, and former assistant attorney general of Missouri.
