…but I refuse to vilify our law enforcement agencies. Not because I condone their behavior - I abhor the methods and the brutality they are exhibiting - but rather because I would put the blame squarely on OUR shoulders as a nation. WE are a violent people, culturally if not individually; we committed genocide on the previous inhabitants of this land, then enslaved others to work the land in the natives' stead when they kept dying. We lead the world - or are in the top ten - in drug use, violent crime, incarceration, systemic inequality, etc., and we have among the most violent television, video games, books, magazines, sports and movies on the globe. Hell, we fought a civil war over the issue of slavery and state's rights. We've had politicians beat other politicians to death with a cane in the chambers of our government! Before we start blaming the police, we need to look hard at the dissonance between the values we accept, the values we show, and the values we claim to have. We are a violent nation.The cops just reflect this back at us, like a mirror no one wants to look at.
For much the same reason, I don't blame politicians for deficit spending in a nation where everyone lives beyond their means through the use of credit, nor for extra-marital sexual trysts, nor for a myriad of other behaviors which simply reflect the general populace. They are US, and come FROM us, at least in so far as we allow them to be. We got us here.
Although I must restate that I abhor - abhor - these issues of police brutality, I blame myself, my neighbors, my nation and my culture. We have a lot of self-reflection to do here, and history tells me we probably won't self-analyze so much as we'll find scapegoats and pin it all on them. Oh, wait, we are already doing that, aren't we?
I agree with Chris that it is a clear a sign of a failed society and culture as any other sign we're seeing nowadays.
Now please excuse me while I go find something to punch in my anger. As an American male, it's what I've been indoctrinated to do…
Don't assume that the "20-30" problematic contacts between the police and the public represents the number of problem encounters. These are the ones which managed to get on national news. The real number of police brutality or misbehavior episodes is much higher. There would not be the level of outrage in Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, etc. if these were isolated events. Virtually every black person in these cities has either had first hand experience with inappropriate police behavior or has a close friend or family member who has. They know that the police (in general, not all officers) treat them like garbage, frame them for things, etc.
In the case of Ferguson it appears that the policeman was justified, but the reaction of the populace is driven more by their experience than that event. They are willing to believe the victim was innocent because they know so many people in similar situations who were.
The victim in NY who was choked to death by police stood up to them because he had been hassled dozens of times before. He finally had enough and mouthed off back at them. Their response was to kill him.
Remember the OJ Simpson trial. It was obvious to the average viewer that he was guilty. However, his defense attorneys took the tack that he was framed by a bunch of racist police officers. Every person on that jury knew that the LAPD did that kind of thing all the time. They knew the police lied regularly. When asked to believe the word of a famous black man over the word of a corrupt police force it was an easy choice.
I have a friend (white) in the SF Bay area who was unjustly arrested by a corrupt police officer who then lied on the stand about what happened. The Assistant DA hid exculpatory evidence, apparently because he was friendly with the officer involved. Somebody edited the 911 tape and the Assistant DA submitted the edited version into evidence. The trial judge refused to allow a delay so the tape could be forensically examined. My friend eventually was able to get his conviction overturned in the California State Supreme Court, in part by demonstrating that the recording had been edited. In the ruling one of the judges explicitly told the Assistant DA that he had never seen such an abuse of prosecutorial authority. However, the experience has bankrupted my friend. Meanwhile neither the officer nor DA has been punished in any way. The DA declined to punish the ADA. The officer is now retired and living well off the taxpayers while my friend is reduced to poverty.
I now know that the cop shows you see on TV are bogus. I never would have believed it if it hadn't happened to someone I know well.
Our criminal injustice system is far worse than most white people can imagine.
You've just pulled some 'statistics' right out of you-know-where and then built a weak argument on them.
Please cite your sources for "20-30 bad encounters"
I can cite sources that will give you 20-30 bad encounters per day in one major city alone. For many people, especially those in target areas, every encounter is a bad one…as in hostile, uncivil, and demeaning.
The main thrust of this article was that this "us vs them" attitude prevails in our society. You can find evidence of that growing gulf in the Department of Agriculture having their own swat teams, among many others:
Dozens of federal agencies now have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to further an expanding definition of their missions. It’s not controversial that the Secret Service and the Bureau of Prisons have them.
But what about the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?
All of these have their own SWAT units and are part of a worrying trend towards the militarization of federal agencies — not to mention local police forces.
The fact of the matter at hand is that our police forces are acting as they have been trained which is really a recipe for the sorts of abuses and excesses detailed here.
They are trained to never back down, escalate any situation, but shoot when they "feel threatened."
Your "20 to 30" estimate is so far off the mark as to undercut the rest of your message which I think has merit; namely, without context things can be blown out or proportion.
Well, if you want to make that case, its doubly important that you not accidentally provide bad context, if you see what I mean.
My son married the daughter of a county sheriff (in this is part of the world basically a policeman) and had this insight.
I appreciate the effort in presenting a "solution" but from what I've seen, the problem is far more complex. It should be noted that, in order to meet the standards based on being politically correct, departments have had to lower their standards. Not only that but with fewer people applying to join the police force, standards are once again lower in order to bring in more workers.
Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking. She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram...
...For the family of “Rachel” (not her real name), the ordeal began before dawn — with the same loud, insistent knocking. Still in her pajamas, Rachel answered the door and saw uniformed police, poised to enter her home. When Rachel asked to wake her children herself, the officer insisted on walking into their rooms. The kids woke to an armed officer, standing near their beds. The entire family was herded into one room, and there they watched as the police carried off their personal possessions, including items that had nothing to do with the subject of the search warrant — even her daughter’s computer. And, yes, there were the warnings. Don’t call your lawyer. Don’t talk to anyone about this. Don’t tell your friends. The kids watched — alarmed — as the school bus drove by, with the students inside watching the spectacle of uniformed police surrounding the house, carrying out the family’s belongings. Yet they were told they couldn’t tell anyone at school.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisconsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french
Does anyone have data on psychological research on the average cop? I know from personal conversations with a psychologist that works for the internal affairs division of our city's police department that one of their main jobs is to review all arrest reports and look for 'employees' who repeatedly escalate situations to cause an arrest. He explained that there are some police officers who are addicted to the adrenaline high that comes when they are in a confrontational situation. These officers are a liability to the department. What I don't know is how they are dealt with in the department. The current militarized training of our officers is probably attracting this type of person. At some point they become a functional majority. Wendy's story from Wisconsin would indicate that intimidation is systemic at least in that Wisconsin department. This all goes back to Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex. Cheap/free military equipment for the local sheriff/ military training for local police/ private prisons/ etc all point to a nation that has forfeited too much personal responsibility for its own cultural behavior.
How many more cities will we see burn in the coming years? What the police have done to Freddie Gray does not make the violence in Baltimore tonight right but it does make it inevitable given the past history of abuses. This is the same form of breakdown now happening across the country. Responses are likely to get more and more disproportionate as case after case of police brutality gets publicized, even if some events are warranted. When the police treat the public with respect and live as members of the community they wield tremendous moral authority and can expect to be supported by the public or obeyed with little questioning. However, by creating an increasingly adversarial situation of us versus them they appear more as an occupational force than keepers of the peace. This is sad because I believe that the vast majority of those involved in law enforcement are getting a bad rap. The policies in recent decades and the increasingly flagrant abuse of authority have undermined police powers and changed its source from respect to fear. A fearful populace does not support law enforcement they hide from it or resist it. We depend on police services but they depend on the public's acquiescence to their role in society. If that breaks down then all the body armor and grenade launchers will not suffice in the face of raw numbers of angry mobs. Police departments and city leaders need to work seriously on repairing the bond with the public before things spin out of control and escalate further. The police are a part of all of us in this society. We need to all be on the same side as resources become more limited and stress levels continue to rise. If the social fabric starts tearing already while we are still 'recovering' what are things going to be like when times are truly tough?
Mark
Pretty standard stuff, except that we know it could’ve turned out differently. De-escalation is far from a universal tactic taught to American police, although a number of departments began training it after Ferguson became a national news story. The failure to de-escalate increases the likelihood of deadly force being used, and is rooted in the failure to differentiate between the ability of the police officer, technically a trained professional, to act toward de-escalating the situation and the ability of the suspect, often someone in a poor state of mind, to do the same.
Some departments are not struggling with low quality candidates, but actually select preferentially for lower IQs. The courts have said rejecting higher IQ applicants is A-OK because, government, or something.
A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.
“This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,” Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.”
He said he does not plan to take any further legal action.
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.
Most Cops Just Above Normal The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.
I'm not sure if there's a correlation between IQ and certain behaviors but I'm pretty sure that IQ and complex decision making go hand in hand.
At any rate, when it comes to the "public sphere" being allowed to discriminate, I guess the message here is go for it, just don't try this as a private business. The courts will land on you hard if you do.
The fact of the matter at hand is that our police forces are acting as they have been trained which is really a recipe for the sorts of abuses and excesses detailed here.
They are trained to never back down, escalate any situation, but shoot when they "feel threatened."
I'm calling you on that one. Let's have some documentation, or some personal anecdotes, anything.
You say police are trained: 1) to never back down, 2) to escalate any situation, and 3) to shoot when they feel threatened. Of course that will require you to define your terms (back down, escalate, feel threatened). While you're at it, let's have a definition of "bad encounters" because I'm guessing you and Oliveoilguy are defining it differently, especially when you write
For many people, especially those in target areas, every encounter is a bad one...as in hostile, uncivil, and demeaning.
I suspect he's talking about unarmed suspects being shot in the back while running away, and the like (unnecessary deaths caused by excessive use of force).
You're indicting the whole system of training police and the values behind it with a nationwide blanket. Admittedly, all my personal experience is only in one 8-month police academy experience and 15 years of ongoing training, all in one police department. I may not know as much about the training provided to police around the country as you do. However, all my training experiences include de-escalation, some of it particularly related to people who suffer from mental illness or other illnesses (eg. diabetes, seizures) which may effect their interactions with police. The training I've received on the use of deadly force is VERY VERY clear that the use of deadly force by police is the most profound action we could take and it must be used only in the most dire circumstances to protect life (the officer's or another person's). To characterize my training as "shoot when you feel threatened" is a cheap shot (but maybe you're aware of training like that). I also provide ongoing training to my subordinates, and nothing I have taught or demonstrated on the street (as an example to follow) comes anywhere close to "shoot when you feel threatened; or hostile, uncivil, demeaning; or never de-escalate, always escalate.
On the subject of "never back down" I'll await your operational definition. However, if I walk into a living room to respond to a domestic violence call, and I find a man with bloody fists standing over a woman beaten to a pulp and she shouts, "He's beating me to death!" you can be 100% sure I won't be backing down. When I tell him he's under arrest and to put his hands behind his back, if he refuses or initiates an attack on me or one of my officers, I/we will not be backing down. However, if we can calm him down verbally first, we will. If we don't succeed in calming him down or the situation doesn't even permit us to try, I won't be backing down. He is going to be arrested and taken to jail. The only question is whether he forces us to use force and how much force he forces us to use (in which case he'll go to the hospital first, then to jail). Now in the calmness of this moment, as in training, I am aware that a violent struggle to arrest a man in that situation might lead to my being injured or killed, or him being injured or killed. I would like to avoid that if possible, but if not possible I will not be backing down. Whether anyone besides the beaten woman is injured is up to the suspect 100%. Justice for the beaten woman demands he be arrested. And here's where you may have a legitimate problem with the law and police training. If I have probable cause to make an arrest (as in the above hypothetical scenario), I am required to make an arrest and I have the legal authority to use as much force as necessary (up to and including lethal force) to overcome the subject's resistance, but I am required to use the least amount of force necessary to be successful. Usually, just showing up in uniform and giving orders is sufficient to get a suspect arrested and under control. Usually, if they resist with bare hands, my strength and bare handed fighting skills are sufficient to overcome the suspect's resistance. But sometimes an officer has to move up the "force continuum" to make the arrest or even to save his own life during an arrest situation. If you would have me "back down" in the above hypothetical arrest situation, please explain what happens next (after I don't arrest him and leave his house as he demands with "his woman" laying at his feet). What would my defense be in the civil rights lawsuit filed against me for not taking police action to arrest the man who beat that woman? How should police be trained to back down, and when?
I don't have any big issues with the main points of your article as I see them: 1) our culture is falling apart, and 2) police abuses are one sign of it. My objections are about a lack of context, as you mentioned is important in your follow up comment to Oliveoilguy. I dare say I could write four more articles taking exactly the same approach and making the same points (our culture is falling apart and the uncorrected abuses by _____ profession are a sign of it). To provide some context to the police article, I would address grievous abuses by:
1. Professionals in the banking, finance and investment field. Not one banker has gone to jail over the abuses and law breaking that caused the Great Recession. Cops get away with too much. More cops should be arrested and fired. But what about the bankers? Shouldn't at least ONE of them go to jail?
2. Professionals in the medical field. Conservative estimates are that medical professionals cause or negligently allow a minimum of 100,000 to 200,000 unnecessary deaths per year. But how many doctors and nurses lose their licenses, get sued successfully, or lose their jobs? Don't bad doctors usually just move on to another hospital in another city or state? Don't they cover up for each other?
3. Lawyers. Enough said.
4. Elected officials. Enough said.
(And Doug: couldn't we also say of all these people as you said of police - the good ones seem to tolerate the bad ones?)
Police don't have a corner on the corruption and incompetence in our society. It's everywhere, and THAT'S the sign that our society is falling apart.
Big Brother is watching me so I have to watch what I say, but you should know that I can't stand working in this field, but for reasons somewhat different than what you're discussing here. I like the actual work, but it's the bureaucracy and "the system" that has broken me. If I was younger, I imagine I would have embarked on a quixotic quest to reform the system by myself (in high school and college I saw Frank Serpico as one of my heroes). But I'm older and wiser, and I see that the system is far too big for that. So I control the tiny slice I can control (which is mostly me and my subordinates) and leave the rest alone. I had planned to work 20 years, then retire, but I got so fed up I moved it up to 18 years, now 19 years for financial reasons. I'd leave today if I could afford to and on many days I half hope for one of my "triggers to leave immediately" occurs. There are some things that could happen that would make me retire immediately (the official bankruptcy of my city, an economic collapse leading to civil war type conditions, etc.). These are all bad things but the silver lining in them would be that I could get out of here before 2019.
Chris… Point taken…The 40 million police / civilian encounters comes from The Bureau of Justice Stastics. This is a statistic. And on the other number I used the word estimate. We both know that estimates are not statistics.
But here is another stat. "Approximately 85% of drivers pulled over by police in 2008 felt they had been stopped for a legitimate reason. "(Bureau of Justice Statistcs)
Yes, the number of "bad" encounters is impossible to quantify. One can only watch the news and be sure that any injustice will make major headlines. My observation is that 30 violent newsworthy police brutality cases in 2008 might not be far off. I would welcome an accurate stat.
My point stands firm that most police/ civilian encounters are handled professionally.
An interesting anecdote from yesterday. The family attorney for the slain black man in Baltimore pleaded with the media to not highlight the burning parts of the city because it would exacerbate the rioting. He asked why the media did not show the parts of Baltimore that were "normal".
Exactly my point. The media and others grab onto the sensational and actually add fuel to the fire. Let's keep some perspective here. Even if there were 40,000 bad police encounters in the year sampled, the ratio of good encounters to bad would be 1000 / 1. Still not a bad number.
I don't have any big issues with the main points of your article as I see them: 1) our culture is falling apart, and 2) police abuses are one sign of it. My objections are about a lack of context, as you mentioned is important in your follow up comment to Oliveoilguy. I dare say I could write four more articles taking exactly the same approach and making the same points (our culture is falling apart and the uncorrected abuses by _____ profession are a sign of it). To provide some context to the police article, I would address grievous abuses by:
1. Professionals in the banking, finance and investment field. Not one banker has gone to jail over the abuses and law breaking that caused the Great Recession. Cops get away with too much. More cops should be arrested and fired. But what about the bankers? Shouldn't at least ONE of them go to jail?
2. Professionals in the medical field. Conservative estimates are that medical professionals cause or negligently allow a minimum of 100,000 to 200,000 unnecessary deaths per year. But how many doctors and nurses lose their licenses, get sued successfully, or lose their jobs? Don't bad doctors usually just move on to another hospital in another city or state? Don't they cover up for each other?
3. Lawyers. Enough said.
4. Elected officials. Enough said.
(And Doug: couldn't we also say of all these people as you said of police - the good ones seem to tolerate the bad ones?)
Police don't have a corner on the corruption and incompetence in our society. It's everywhere, and THAT'S the sign that our society is falling apart.
Big Brother is watching me so I have to watch what I say, but you should know that I can't stand working in this field, but for reasons somewhat different than what you're discussing here. I like the actual work, but it's the bureaucracy and "the system" that has broken me. If I was younger, I imagine I would have embarked on a quixotic quest to reform the system by myself (in high school and college I saw Frank Serpico as one of my heroes). But I'm older and wiser, and I see that the system is far too big for that. So I control the tiny slice I can control (which is mostly me and my subordinates) and leave the rest alone. I had planned to work 20 years, then retire, but I got so fed up I moved it up to 18 years, now 19 years for financial reasons. I'd leave today if I could afford to and on many days I half hope for one of my "triggers to leave immediately" occurs. There are some things that could happen that would make me retire immediately (the official bankruptcy of my city, an economic collapse leading to civil war type conditions, etc.). These are all bad things but the silver lining in them would be that I could get out of here before 2019.
That is really profound and true. Thanks, Tom. I think about the majority of encounters between desperate Seniors and investment portfolio managers who are ripping them off and wonder if the ratio of good/bad encounters is that high.
Want to help reduce police violence? If you haven't already, take your TV outside and introduce it to a sledgehammer. Even better to let a few neighbors see you do it. You might find that your exposure to violence of all sorts drops off precipitously (a personal observation). And if you are really lucky, a good neighbor might offer to join in and help. Consider offering a beer. YLMMV.
We told Dish Network to leave our lives a few years ago. The only thing we watch is "Dogs with Jobs" on streaming netflix. Also Dr. Pol Vet. We can't stomach anything on air. Feels like swimming in pollution.
When we purchased a cabin in the Northern Woods of New England three years ago we opted not to connect to cable (yes there was a cable line a mile down a dirt road, in a town with twelve hundred people, forty miles from the interstate) or to get a dish tv link. I did get a dedicated internet link from my cell phone carrier.
We have not missed tv and do not even think about it when we are at the cabin. The trick now is to pull the plug at home.
