I’m writing this in response to the race riots currently happening in our world. I do have a unique
 perspective. I am a retired policeman, who retired in 2002.

My department was small, a chief, a 
lieutenant, three sergeants, three corporals and nine officers. I was one of the officers. I really enjoyed the work and Pendleton is a small city, fewer than 20,000 people, but we do have the same kinds of crime and issues
 as larger cities.

I can’t begin to imagine what was going through the officer’s mind when he held down the Black youth 
with his knee on his neck. I don’t know at this point the incidents, to that officer, that occurred before
 this. The officer was and is responsible for his actions. I can imagine all kinds of scenarios other
 than what was witnessed. For me, I always tried to respect all people that I had dealings with, and for some
 it was very difficult to give them respect.

It was drilled into me in training that my safety and the safety and well-being of my fellow officers was
 paramount, and equally the safety of the public. Each year at the Pendleton Police Department we, the
 officers, had to pass a use-of-force test, which was intended to protect all involved.

Before I was a policeman I worked and lived in Barbados, in the Caribbean. I have a master’s degree 
from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. I was hired by a church development
 organization (Christian Action for Development in the Eastern Caribbean) that was funding a training
 center for young people to train them as potters. The old potters in Chalky Mount had no young people
 that they had trained. Even though Barbados is a coral island, underneath the coral cap are good clays. I did enjoy the time there and learning about a different society.

A gal who I knew well was also white 
and was from the island of Dominica, where her family had a copra plantation. The Rastafarian
 movement was becoming popular on many of the islands. Sara’s father was killed by a Rastafarian 
group. I never knew the reason for his death. It was a horrible death; he was killed with a Collins,
 which is a machete used for cutting undergrowth and/or sugar cane.

I drove a Honda motorcycle to and from the pottery at 
Chalky Mount, and one morning while going to work I ran out of gas. There was a small shack to my left
 and I walked over there and knocked on the door. A Rasta answered the door. I was somewhat 
apprehensive about leaving my motorcycle. I told him the story of Sara’s father and how I was not at 
ease with leaving the motorcycle there. He looked at me square in the eye and said, “We does all be 
one.”

I was shocked at my own attitude. Here I was being given a life lesson from a Rasta, who was 
radically different from me, yet caring and perceptive.

I returned the next morning with gas and thanked the Rasta. The bike had not been touched.
 This event has stayed with me for many years and it is a lesson I will not forget.

It keeps going through my mind — all lives matter, we does all be one.

Robert A. Lanman


Pendleton