“Any publicity is good publicity” is a longstanding “rule” of public relations. That obviously doesn’t apply to police. Some cops, along with their die-hard supporters, believe they are above scrutiny and cannot be criticized. It’s bad enough that some of the most egregious violators get to keep receiving paychecks and pensions. We’re also supposed to drink the Kool-aid and believe that some of these brutes really are nice people. How? Through personalized and targeted PR services when things go, uh, awry.
This isn’t about whether or not an officer followed departmental policy correctly or not—that pathology will be tackled in another post. This is about individual officers, already bestowed with the blessings, power, and resources of the state, who can now purchase services to “restore” their reputations. That’s what Monrovia, California, businessman Robert Parry will provide via his newest venture, CopPRotect.
Using the odious example of former Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, Parry says his service provides cops with ”a trusted friend to tell their stories in ways agency information officers, union representatives and the media cannot or will not.”
That is soooo not cool. Not because of the odious example of Darren Wilson, but because most complaints against police officers, investigations of excessive force, and disciplinary action are already shielded from the public via various state laws across the country. These laws, known as the “Police Officer Bill of Rights,” state that such information is part of an officer’s confidential personnel file, as David Greenwald writes. Regular folks are unable to find out if an officer involved in a shooting has an itchy trigger finger, or if a cop has a history of breaking bones during misdemeanor traffic stops. Thus, we are unable to see with our own eyes a police officer’s true record, and now, the officer gets to have personalized public relations services, including talking points and strategically placed stories in the media? The stacked deck just keeps getting taller.
And you thought last year’s media training sponsored by the St. Louis County Police Academy was bad. Which it was.
Let’s be clear: Such moves have absolutely nothing to do with labor/privacy or the constitutional rights of police officers, and everything to do with ideology. Any critique or attempt to change business as usual for the police officers who are the armed agents of the state, or to hold them accountable in any way, is met with shrieks of being anti-cop/a cop hater. These shrieks are designed to make us shrink into silence. They are designed to keep us from ultimately turning our eyes towards the paymasters of police.
Those days are done.