There is a fundamental distinction that seems to be lacking in our cultural understanding of what this nation should be about. I think this must be addressed and absorbed into our culture, and soon. In short, it is this: when a cop commits a crime on or off duty, he is not longer a cop, he is a criminal. By simple definition, whatever your occupation, when you commit a crime you are a criminal. There is no exceptional exclusion or implied license for any occupation including law enforcement that provides a get out of jail free card for criminal activity. Let me explain.
I was raised to respect law enforcement and to this day I still do. When I was young I was told in no uncertain terms that if I was in trouble I should go to a policeman and he or she could be trusted as a safe haven. If you deduced from that that I am white, you would be correct. But never the less that is how society viewed police officers: as trained and reliable community members whose purpose in life was to serve and protect. I still believe that is how it should be even as I see the illusion shattered every day in America. Why should that be?
We are a nation of laws. Common sense dictates that the more densely populated we become and the more diverse and rich our culture is, the more we must define and regulate how people and businesses conduct themselves to protect our citizens and assure as smooth as possible a flow of life and business. Conflicts will arise. Criminal elements will exist for many reasons, from drugs to racial anger to corrupt and greed driven individuals in positions of power abusing the freedom we offer them. This makes a well trained and equipped and motivated law enforcement and justice system of great importance to our culture. Unfortunately we have allowed our law enforcement and particularly our justice system to decay and become riddled with corruption and opportunism.
Being a cop is a tough job. No one in their right mind could deny that simple truth. I doubt that I could do it. Similar to the military or fire fighters, it demands a level of courage and integrity and sense of honor and commitment a cut above other citizens, and rightly so. When a person applies to be a law enforcement officer, they are in fact asking the community to put full faith and trust in their courage and honesty and judgment, that they are able and committed to do the task assigned. In return we hand them a uniform and a badge and a gun along with the responsibility to use deadly force as the last resort if absolutely necessary to protect lives in the line of duty. That is how it must be.
In a perfect world, only those exceptional people who meet those criteria would be attracted to the profession. Of course this is far from a perfect world and positions of power often attract individuals who have no business in the profession. Whether lacking in basic morality or looking for a place to be a bully or sociopath, or just criminal opportunism, some people see the profession as an opportunity to live out their shortcomings as humans. Police departments are supposed to recognize and weed out the majority of these opportunists or thoroughly train it out of them. Increasingly it seems that vetting process is failing. Training that is supposed to give officers tools to defuse and control tense situations with humanity and respect and minimal physical violence is apparently failing abysmally. In return, young people are not taught to trust and respect law enforcement officers, and why should they?
In a nation where unions in general have been under ruthless attack for decades and most are nearly destroyed, it is interesting to note that police unions are actively supported and, in fact, retain inordinate power in local politics and the justice system. Why is that? I don’t think it would be too cynical to deduce that police unions have been allowed to prosper because the political and corporate powers that be still need police support to protect them and enforce their agenda. Once again in a perfect world, the police union would maintain levels of professionalism among their ranks and actively seek to remove members who destroy police credibility and community support. However nothing could be further from the truth. The community is not only the victim but is painted as the enemy, resulting in a siege mentality in the department, destroying dialog and credibility in the process. In the real world, police unions consistently support members accused and often clearly guilty of crimes of corruption, rape, assault and battery, and even murder. Evidence such as live video of the crime or witness testimony are routinely stonewalled and only determined community outrage brings those items forth, on a good day. Police officers who maintain levels of integrity and professionalism seem virtually powerless to change this “Blue Wall” mentality, even when they witness blatant crimes committed by fellow officers. Those who have come forward in the past are savagely attacked by their own union and co-workers, losing their jobs, suffering for the very attributes that would seem to make them an outstanding police officer.
The burning irony of this situation begs to be addressed but there seems to be no legitimate way to do so. Citizens are left with public demonstration or civil disobedience, petition campaigns, and repeated appeals to community leaders to even get recognition, much less justice. It puts those who support law enforcement and believe in our police at an impossible disadvantage to claim that the problem is “a few bad apples”. The result is that we have watched as the situation deteriorates in many of our cities ( NYC, Chicago, Albuquerque, Baltimore and Cleveland, the state of Texas immediately come to mind ). Rather than striving for dialogue, many police departments have instead adopted a posture of an occupying army rather than as community members striving to serve and protect. The citizens also view the departments in that light, especially communities of color who tend to be marginalized and oppressed more heavily than Middle Class or Upper Class communities that might have more political clout to demand justice. The warning of history tells us that the proper response to an occupying army is resistance, to the level of public insurrection and destruction if pushed to that extreme. This becomes a feedback loop of sorts as oppressed communities resist and police departments entrench and arm themselves even more. And no one at any level of leadership seems to be able to exert the influence necessary to turn this around.
Police departments become warrior cultures. We have seen too many instances of steroid driven police demonstrating entirely unreasonable levels of violence and coercion with little or no attempt to defuse or divert the situation at hand. The instances we view all too often seem unbelievable and yet are becoming commonplace. A handcuffed woman is raped in police custody; a man in handcuffs on the ground and helpless is tazed repeatedly to death; an unarmed homeless man is surrounded by muscular officers and beaten to death as he cries for his mother…on camera; a young man walking away from an officer has a clip emptied into his back and then the officer reloads and empties another clip into his body on the ground. None of these instances are necessary to the situation, none are justified by circumstances, extreme force is used as a first resort rather than a last resort with no professional attempt to defuse or avoid harm. No longer shocked, we run the risk of becoming numbed to outrageous behavior. Make no mistake, these instances, whether prosecuted or deemed “justified” are crimes. The perpetrators are criminals, no longer police officers. The failure of other officers on the scene to stop it is clear aiding and abetting and often includes destruction of evidence and false testimony. And all of those “good” officers are apparently cowed by the reprisals of their fellow officers and union.
Behind this openly un-American and tragic situation lies the shredded remains of the American justice system and the Bill of Rights. Logically, anyone with a brain should agree that the point of prisons should be to end up being empty! That is, successful incarceration should result in fewer inmates over time. Of course they will never be empty, but we still face the public disgrace of incarcerating more people in this nation, by percent of population as well as total numbers, than any nation in the world. This includes all of those “evil” nations that we love to bash for their human rights abuses. Could it possibly have anything to do with for-profit privatization of prisons? After all, corporations exist to make money…period. Since jailing people went from being a public service to protect civilians to a profit center and people became commodities to fill prison beds, prison populations have shot up to record highs. Obviously a failure by any account unless you have stock in a prison corporation. Adding more bodies to the beds, cutting costs on extras such as food, charging people in prison with no jobs outrageous amounts for such amenities as bedding and toothpaste, all add to the bottom line. And forget rehabilitation. That would only see to it that they don’t return to prison again and result in an empty bed, right? So even when people have served their time, we dump them right back into their crime infested environments with no training and no hope for the future, and also no hope of getting a decent job with a felony record. So when they are discharged, it’s not “Good luck” but “see you soon” from the prisons.
So….serious problems growing every day with no end in sight. What’s the quick and easy answer to solve this and move on? Are you also looking for unicorns to fly through the air farting rainbows? No. There is no easy answer but some necessary components are: serious citizen involvement in large numbers and with unpleasant attitudes, from all levels of society, demanding as a group that law enforcement and the justice system reform immediately. Back this up with votes. Vote out every Republican in Congress and your state legislature…a good start. Demand from your legislators that private prisons be outlawed, and that public prisons be properly funded to achieve the results that they should be achieving.
Properly fund and physically support our public schools to help divert at risk young people from the quagmire of poverty and crime to jobs and hope. Support non-governmental groups that work with the prison system to provide services to prisoners, even if it is only recognition and hope for a future. Demand affordable, safe and decent housing for the growing class of citizens who work and still cannot afford a place to live.There is massive work to be done and millions of bodies and minds and dollars needed to see it through. It will take perseverance, real solutions offered to leaders, with demands that they be implemented. And most of all a durable and long standing sense of outrage that will not be averted until real, visible change in our society has been implemented. All pretty abstract ideas, I know but it’s all I have.
Poverty is not an accident. It is not inevitable; it is planned and supported by corrupt influence on our leaders both political and corporate. Humans are not commodities, just as corporations are not people. Only when large numbers of Americans gain awareness and move their outrage to the public arena can we hope for any change. The powerful will never ever give up any of their power without a fight. We have to give them that fight and seize back our human rights from them, or roll over and let the future happen to us. It is a choice.
