I remember the first time my dad took me out for target practice. I was probably 6 or 7. There was this little out of the way spot in the woods in the middle of nowhere, beside my grandparents house. My brother and I shot a little .22 pistol. It was fun, not because I thought I had some special power, not because I felt some kind of love for hitting a target, although those feelings did come later in life, but it was mainly fun because I got to be with my dad. My dad was a cop. And it’s sometimes hard growing up with a cop. So getting to be with him was special. I was never sure how much he loved being on the daily police beat, but eventually he became a sex crimes detective. I know he loved working there. I used to tell my friends with pleasure about my dad being a detective. It always sounds so cool when you’re in middle school. But I would never tell them about the cases he worked on. I bet my teachers would have pulled me aside, if I had.
He chose sex crimes, because he had a real passion for people who had been terribly abused. He was making a difference in people’s lives, and that was what he wanted to do. Of course it takes a toll on a person. He only stayed in that division for a few years, before transferring to a section with less emotional trauma.
But along with my dad being detective, he was also a labor organizer. It all started back in the early 90s. Several pay grade disputes and lots of changes in how things worked or didn’t had pushed him to realize that without some kind of union, we weren’t really going to survive. Police unions are hard to maintain. Lots of people are afraid to help out in police labor disputes, so you have to choose your allies carefully. He used to tell me which senators and representatives were supporting the police pay bills running through the state assembly. It was always a fight trying to get fair pay raises. But that wasn’t the real fighting ground. You see, being a police officer, one has a very negative public presence, so whenever an officer would be accused of say, brutality, it gets really hard to have a fair judgement. The most important thing my dad’s union did was get legal counsel for their officers. Sure, you might be offered the department’s counsel, but is that any good to you when the department is also trying to save face?
Still, I remember my dad struggling with one thing that got in the way of so much of what he worked for. People were afraid of the police. I remember him talking with my grandmother, his mother, one day as she was babysitting some young children. She had made a comment to one of the children as my father stepped in the house. She told him to watch out, to be on his best behavior and all, since he was a law man. My dad was hurt by the comment, because it tended to inspire fear. I know my grandmother thought nothing of it before she said it, but this is the kind of systematic fear that sets up a division between society at large and police officers.
There are plenty of other divisions too. My father, for instance, cannot listen to rap music. Why? well, at first he was ok with it. Then suddenly it was the music that always portended trouble. When the music is at the source of the bullets flying your way, you start to not like the music too.
Then there’s the fact that we always had an unlisted phone number. Not to avoid telemarketers, but to avoid the kind nightmare situation that could happen if a criminal, fresh out of jail, wanted to exact revenge. A name and a telephone book need only a map to find you.
So what does this have to do with the recent police – protestor interactions. Well, probably quite a lot. We’ll start with the fear/power relationship. Most people probably have a certain fear of police officers. Most police officers feel they have a certain amount of power and authority delegated to them to make things “right.” In fact, they are extensively trained to use different scales of force. (Pepper spray probably being one of the lowest – it won’t stop bullets, after all) They are also trained to use these scales of force whenever people behave in “combative” ways. Basically on both sides of the fear / power equation you have a few automatic responses (not that these are the only possible responses). Fight or flight on the one hand. And the use of force on the other. Of course, neither side is limited to those responses. Here’s the first problem. Once one of these automatic responses sets in, the other is usually pretty close by. You get an automated escalation of intensity in the situation. Things get ugly. Everybody starts doing what they are supposed to do, except that, in the case of what we see here, it isn’t always the result that either party wants.
2nd problem. The police in these pictures are wearing riot gear. There is a big difference between crowd control and riot control. In the mind of a police officer, crowd control is keeping things peaceful, and letting people know where the boundaries are. “Don’t come crashing the stage, the performers don’t need your drunken self pounding on the drums.” Riot control is probably more like suppressing people who are already considered out of control, separating out anybody who is “threatening” (again, not only carrying a gun, but on a scale of threat levels), from those who are just caught in the middle. Now if you get sent into a riot you are already going to be figuring out how to use an appropriate level of force. Your training sets in and you say “ok, combative person withnno weapons, no knives, no guns = pepper spray, maybe taser if things get rougher ” You don’t go in thinking, I bet if I ask politely, this person will move to my left, and maybe they need a minute to grab their book bag. You go in thinking, if they reach for a book bag, Pray! They might have a weapon. It looks to me like these officers were ordered to treat the place like a riot, not like a peaceful protest.
3rd problem. Personal discretion is not always appreciated or sanctioned. So, if there is an infraction, in some cases, police are not given the discretion to say, “writing this ticket is not the answer,” or “maybe this person just needs a second to process the situation, and then they will peacefully do the ‘right’ thing.” Discretion is hard to teach, and probably even more dangerous to legislate, but without it, police can only choose from a series of prescribed responses.
4th problem. Being a police officer is lonely. Sure, you have force on your hip, and some people are attracted to power. But carrying a gun means that you are always on the lookout. Your guard is always up. This is more than just looking out for criminals. Because you can’t just have your guard up for criminals, you always have your guard up against everything, emotional things, empathy things. Suicide rates are probably a little above average. But what about officers who have been fired? They have to be watched carefully for suicidal developments. They feel as if the only world they ever were a part of has rejected them, and the rest of society has already rejected them. They have nowhere to go. That’s why police officers will lookout for each other so carefully. They don’t want to lose their friends, they have already lost the world. So when the police are even just monitoring a peaceful protest, even one they have a vested interest in, they are going to be keeping their guard up a bit, and likely won’t be able to join in, even if they wanted to. Maybe when their shift is over they could join up, but even then, they might be recognized.
So what change is required here? I’m not really sure. We don’t want to see this kind of force used against peaceful protestors. People are getting hurt. I think we have to work on some deep society questions to settle this. First, the relationship of state-sponsored use of force must be met with by state approved kinds of discretion. We must ask when force is inappropriate. How does an officer decide to stand down? How can an officer do that without putting himself/herself and others in danger? Not easy to answer. Second, or maybe first, we must address the systematic fear relationship. When people relate to each other in fear things tend to work very poorly. Have a look at racism for other fear/hate relationships. While it’s not the same, there are some terrible similarities and perhaps not so unfathomable coincidences . Third, we must begin to talk about what constitutes orderly and non-orderly conduct, as well as when and how we intend to use them both. My guess is that the police and the protestors don’t share the same ideas here, and that if they at least knew what the other was thinking, the results might have been different. There are appropriate uses of non-orderly conduct, and those uses will carry consequences. The more we can be upfront about those consequences, the more we can mitigate the fear/force escalations. Finally, we have to be ready to love even those who are our enemies … or only seem like enemies. Both the 99% and the police officers (who are also really the 99% – trust me I know what a cop’s salary is like.) are in need of a better relational matrix. Fear and power cannot be the best way to relate to each other.
So how do you love a cop? First, you recognize that a cop is there because he wants to put himself in danger for your sake. He or she will most likely appreciate a friendly smile and a quick thanks. But if a cop is on duty, they will not appreciate you trying to have a long conversation with them, about anything whatsoever… no matter what. They have too much on their mind, and will think you are trying to disrupt them doing their job. They will also appreciate you trusting them. I know that trust isn’t cheap, and that cops may need to work on this one even more than the general public.
So how do cops love people? Pretty much like the rest of us do. My dad loves to spend time with me, even if his long hours take him away. He loves the fact that I got a great college and graduate education. He’s proud of what I’ve done. He will confide in me about the decisions he is working through. He would give me anything he had, to make sure I was ok. Cops would give their lives in the line of duty for you. Although they do tend to be pretty cynical about giving other things. They tend to be overly suspicious of others, but only because their suspicions have been too often confirmed. If you show yourself to be honest, respectful, and caring, they will think the better of you. (And I’m not trying to imply that the occupiers weren’t doing that.)
When I talked to my dad today, he said how he was just then putting the smaller clip into his handgun. For as long as I can remember, he carried that gun. We used to call it his secret. But that’s not the real secret. The secret is that he wants to make the world a better place, just like you and I. The secret is that, more than anything, he wants to make sure that the 99% are just as safe as 1%.
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