I get it. We have a lot of people in jail. We have mental
health issues associated with violence and criminality. We have concerns about
police shootings. And we have an irrational, emotional, perversely political
response by activists, elected representatives, and politicized police
administrators.
In this past year we’ve seen California’s Governor sign the
repeal of a law that requires citizens to assist police officers. While some saw
the law as a vestige of the wild west posse, I see it as a confirmation of
bystanders who are happy to videotape a police officer struggling with no sense
of responsibility as a fellow citizen. This repeal is symbolically a further
tearing away at the essential morality of being a community’s citizen and
bearing the mutual burden of peace keeping. The repeal was justified, in part,
by the irrelevant use of the law in previous centuries to track down runaway slaves,
just to make sure politicians can claim yet another blow against police racism.
Our American ideals of policing are rooted to a large degree
in the principles of Sir Robert Peel, the father of English policing for whom “Bobbies”
are named. Peel famously said that the police are the people and the people are
the police. With professionalization, technology, and increasingly complex laws,
policing has become separate from the citizenry and has often cautioned against
non-police citizens getting involved. The courageous convenience store clerk who
draws a firearm to thwart a robbery is often lightly praised while the public
is cautioned to just call 911 if they see a crime in progress.
In New
Jersey, Camden Police Chief J. Scott Thomson, now retired, instituted a force
policy that requires deadly force to be a last resort. While this is, in fact,
the de facto practice in nearly all fatal police shootings, the limitation can
be problematic. Stuart Alterman, an attorney who often represents officers,
called it an “unnecessary progressive stance” that will lead to more lawsuits
against police and put them at risk. Saying the policy “will only cause police
officers to second guess themselves during the most critical moments of their
careers.”, Alternman stated “With all due respect to those individuals involved
in drafting this new use-of-force policy, I’m wondering if it was really
drafted by anarchists instead of those individuals attempting to support police
officers,” he said.
By definition, a “last resort” implies intervening
responses, a prophetic gift of knowing when that moment is, and that all other
means have been excluded in the milliseconds during which an officer must
decide whether to pull the trigger or give a deadly attacker another moment to
repent.
Oregon’s Governor Katherine Brown signed a bill this month
ending the death penalty for cop killers unless there is premeditation. So apparently
only official cop assassins might face the ultimate accountability for murdering
one of our public servants.
Criticizing use of force by police isn’t enough. Jesse
Smollet – actor and architect of a fake assault on himself to proclaim a hate
crime attack – has his lawyers lashing out against Chicago Police for their
aggressive investigation of Smollet’s false report. At a time when hate crimes
can literally ignite cities, Smollet’s suits are telling cops not to
investigate quite so hard, implying that investigating is racist in an of
itself.
A prosecutor in the crime torn St. Louis, Circuit Attorney
Kim Gardner recently blamed St. Louis police officers for enforcing drug laws
that resulted in a contact with a criminal who fought with and attempted to shoot
officers who were able to stop the four time felon with deadly force. Gardner
is also believed to have summarily dropped several violent felony cases because
they involved officers whom she labeled as racist.
In Sacramento, the local police were excoriated for putting
a bag over a young arrestee’s head in a video that was widely circulated as an outrageous
example of police being meanies. With no understanding of netting equipment
specifically designed to keep police officers from being covered in disease
ridden spittle from combative subjects, the critique reached a fever pitch.
This kind of reasonable and necessary police strategies
often generate a morale killing apology from police leaders, instead of an
opportunity to educate the public. Worse yet, they can generate stupid
laws that are aimed at punishing law enforcement for doing police work and
which create greater opportunities for crime to breed and incentives for police
officers to step away from doing their job. Recruitment and retention rates, as
well as increasing crime in some areas is a measurable outcome of this rhetoric
and regulation.
I don’t have enough blood pressure medication to talk about
the Presidential candidates who smear the law enforcement profession, including
the one who continues to refer to the “murder of Mike Brown” in Ferguson. This
malicious, slanderous ignoring of the facts (i.e. a lie) was spoken in the face
of overwhelming evidence that this “unarmed teen” lumbered into a convenience
store, stole items in a strong arm robbery in which he shoved an elderly shopkeeper,
shortly after which he reached into a patrol car, attempted to take Officer
Wilson’s sidearm, and, when Brown continued his assault, was lawfully and
righteously shot.
This happened in an era when President Obama invited Brown’s
parents for a night out. Yes, the same President that said police “acted
stupidly” while investigating a report of a possible burglary when a
resident was attempting to get into his locked house after forgetting his keys.
Obama solicitously postured a pretend apology by sharing beer and nuts on the
lawn with the officer.
On other criminal justice fronts we’re finding massive
decriminalization of drug offenses. This may be a well-intended way to increase
awareness of mental illness and addiction, or an easy way to reduce costs of
incarceration. In either case, one result is that the criminal behavior of drug
offenders is not being appropriately addressed. Legalization of marijuana,
predicated on the false impression that thousands of people are spending many
years behind bars for possession of small amounts of weed, that pot is not
addictive, that it is benign and even beneficial, and that sellers in pot shops
are local mom and pop operations divorced from big business and organized
crime, has had no positive effects that balance against the social ills of it.
I’m hoping that America will do for police officers what we
eventually did for military veterans of Vietnam. We moved from spitting on them
for being baby-killers, to admitting that they deserved yellow ribbons and
appreciation for their service, and stop blaming them for the war. My hope is
that our police officers - who do an amazingly professional job every day
(according to study after study) and are not the blame for our social ills –
will get their yellow ribbons from our fellow citizens, too.
