Minneapolis Police award winning embarrassment

The Minneapolis Police award the officers involved in the mistaken raid on the wrong home. See the details at http://www.startribune.com/local/26083024.html?location_refer=Minneapolis:highlightModules:4.
The Minneapolis Shadow believes that it is correct to award officers’ that get shot in the line of duty. I can’t imagine how tough it is to be a police officer and I have the utmost respect for the police, and thank God they are out there. However, this is a total and complete blunder by the administration, and a good example of one of the major problems facing Minneapolis. As the story goes Chief Dolan didn’t speak with the family, but did spoke with Hmong community leaders who were mostly understanding of the awards. Not speaking to the family before the awards were handed out is the wrong thing to do. He might not have been successful in getting the family to talk with him or getting them to understand, but it should have been attempted. Be it the Mayor, City Council, County Board, State Representatives, or whoever from Minneapolis; it seems that the idea of talking with certain community leaders is what they always do instead of talking directly to the people themselves. Most of the time I find that so called “community leaders” really don’t have the backing of the majority of a group of people to begin with. On the national scene people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are looked upon as “community leaders” and end up speaking for black people. I have found that most black people don't think the same way these two do, and therefore aren’t a true representation of their beliefs, needs, wants, and desires. The “elected” need to be more careful who they are putting in front of the line of communication, especially in a situation such as this. Why allow anyone else to speak for the people who are most directly concerned? Talking to just the “leaders” is either an attempt at putting forward just a token effort, or is just plain misguided.