Greensboro City Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter is finally going to get a long time request granted.
For months Abuzuaiter has been pushing for a mini-police academy course for members of the City Council.
Abuzuaiter is a proud graduate of the Police Citizens’ Academy, which is a program to teach citizens about the Police Department, and has long advocated for the City Council to spend a few hours in a similar setting learning about police policies and procedures.
The City Council has been focused on police procedures this year and during just about every discussion Abuzuaiter has advocated for a mini-police academy class for councilmembers. At one point, Abuzuaiter had given up on the idea of ever having a mini-police academy and suggested that the City Council simply have a work session on the Police Department rather than looking at the issue of the day in isolation.
At the City Council virtual work session on Tuesday, Sept. 15, City Manager David Parrish confirmed that a mini-police academy session would be provided for councilmembers who wished to participate and it would last for less than a day.
Assistant City Manager Trey Davis said it would be a short course based on the Police Citizens’ Academy model and would cover things like use of force, procedural justice, traffic stops, the early warning system, the Fourth Amendment and other topics. Abuzuaiter said, “A lot of these questions that keep arising would be handled in a course like that.”
Councilmember Sharon Hightower said, “We don’t need to learn how to be a police officer.” She added, “I think we already know what they do.”
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said that she did a similar one-day course with the fire department, learned a lot and had a lot of fun.
Vaughan also said that the media was invited to the fire department class.
Councilmember Goldie Wells said that police were under attack all over the country and would benefit the council in its decision making to know and understand more about the day-to-day life of a police officer.
All of the Councilmembers should be required to do at least 5 days and nights of ridealongs with police officers which include serving warrants and dealing with domestic disputes and crowd control. Despite what Ms. Hightower thinks she knows until one has walked in their shoes one does now know what they do and how they might react to the issues presented by their jobs until they actually have to do the job. The Councilmembers are getting off light doing less than a day of the academy training. In my opinion, they should also have to do the firearm training and go through the part where they have to make decisions whether or not to shoot the “good/bad guys”. It’s not as easy to decide as they think it is.
Will the council training include sections on how their spouses get treated when speeding in the city with an illegal handgun that is illegally concealed? Or when theres a huge underage party hosted by their underage kids with alcohol and no supervision ? How to curfew? Harass panhandlers? Deny buskers? How to use decibel meters on rooftops? How to hide and supress body camera footage?
I’d like to ask the council the following
Should an officer be fired for hiring a known child abuser to work in his group home?
Should an officer be fired for not checking the backgrounds of the people he hires to work at his group home?
Should the Chief be fired for not firing the officer that hires known child abusers to work at his group home?
Should an officer be fired for not reporting child abuse that happens at his group home? It is (in real life) a class h felony for a police officer to NOT report child abuse.
Hightower is on her high horse and thinks she knows everything. That’s the problem with a lot of politicians. They think their smarter and better than you, and since they have nothing new to learn, they’re gonna tell you what to do.
We The People are their boss, not the other way around.
Hightower is the last person on Earth that knows what a police officer does. She looks down on officers with contempt and hate. Her district has the highest crime rate in the city and she has done nothing but complain and promote rediculous ideas that do nothing to solve crime or address crime causation or ameliorate human suffering in her district. SHE is the problem, not the police. I would love to see her go through a force on force scenario or a FATS simulator…she knows she cannot do the job so she avoids learning about it and thumb her nose at the idea.
Amen Bob, Sharon Hightower is a narcissist, certain she is smarter than everyone, and above the law herself. Such police exposure would perhaps get her to at least open one eye enough to recognize that our police are crucial to a civilized society. One other thing Ms. Hightower is ignorant of.
All council members should be required to ride with the police for several days and nights. Ms Hightower seems arrogant and biased with her remarks. How can you make decisions about police policy if you know very little about the life and death decisions they have to make. The every day stress from their jobs is enough and deserve a raise not defunding. We are lucky anyone will be a police officer. Totally disgusting remark by Hightower shows total disrespect and ignorance on her part.
Can’t begin to tell everyone who has written how much I appreciate comments on Sharon Hightower. Just had a confrontation with that imbecile. Her yelling, screaming, disparaging my race, and telling me until I am a black woman I cannot understand what real work is! Sharon a disgrace to the HUMAN race, the black race, and to women everywhere. There’s another “black business woman” Sharon thinks walks on water who Sharon says is professional even though she screams at people who disagree with her. But because I’m white and disagree with them, I’m disrespectful and unprofessional.
Blacks are universally more racist than white people, in my experience.
I don’t know what you guys are talking about. Policing is easy. Just make perfect decisions every time, even in a split second and you are good to go. Never get angry or lose patience, just be perfect. Talk active shooters, the violently mentally unstable, and ultra drugged out maniacs down with nothing more than a few well placed words or, worst case, shoot the gun out of their hands. Super easy and well worth the $19 an hour they get paid. Heck, some people pay good money to be spit on and worse. Police get paid for it. What a simple pleasure it must be to be a cop.
Instead of talk about defunding police, maybe we need to dethrone Sharon Hightower. Anyone as smart as her is obviously overqualified to be on a city council.
Our beloved council should live where they spend our money.
They should spend a week in a patrol car.
Just for openers.
No more Coop. Kaput, Finito, Verbotten, Zip, ido, bye-bye-Roye.
Marikay Abuzuaiter is the epitome of an empty-headed virtue signaling liberal.
And a hypocrite. She used to pay her restaurant staff less than minimum wage, but she enthusiastically voted for a $15/hour minimum wage for city employees.
Well, it’s a lot easier to be generous when you’re spending other peoples’ money, isn’t it?
That’s the whole problem with government really.