I was talking to a cop. Yes, I talk to cops. In fact, I know quite a few, and have some I count as friends. This will not only come as a shock to some, but will repulse a few. They’re the enemy. They’re evil. Maybe not as people, out of uniform and playing ball with their kids, but strap on a gun and shield and they’re the personification of a blue monster that subjugates ordinary Americans.
By reducing police to caricatures, we diminish ourselves and our ability to make any headway on changing a troubling situation. Back in the 50’s and early 60’s, the public saw cops as Andy Griffith and Barney Fife. Sheriff Andy was wise and caring, invariably honest and trustworthy. Deputy Barney was a lovable imbecile with a heart of gold. Then came the protests of Vietnam, the Yippies, and cops earned a new name: Pigs.
Neither was quite true, yet neither was entirely false either. Like judges, like lawyers, like everyone, cops are people. Some are quite smart and caring. Many aren’t the sharpest knives on the Sam Browne. But what distinguishes them is that they embrace a culture that includes one certainty, that no one understands the job of a cop except another cop.
As I spoke with this cop, someone I had known for many years and with whom I shared some yucks in the past, the subject turned slightly unpleasant. It was about expectations, whether he had done his job well enough. I suggested he hadn’t. This made him angry. I apologized for “hurting his feelings,” which he vehemently denied. “You can’t hurt my feelings,” he responded. Of course, I did, but by denying it, he could avoid dealing with the issue.
We talked about good cops and bad cops, and about good cops who close their eyes when other cops do bad things. We talked about how a good cop does something bad. We talked about how hard it is to get rid of bad cops. We talked about responsibility to the public. He explained to me how nothing is as simple as non-cops thought it was. To hear him, the police were as close to sainthood any anyone with a gun could be. “Not perfect,” he conceded, but as nearly perfect as any human beings could be by his characterization.
I challenged this assessment.
After going around the block a few times, and accomplishing nothing, he finally told me that I was just a cop hater. A cop hater? By saying that, an ad hominem in the logical fallacy sense, he was able to dismiss anything I said, any argument I made. The discussion was at its end.
Not long ago, Brian Tannebaum called for a national conversation on law enforcement. Mirriam Seddiq demonstrated how the situation has gone on for too long, without improvement. In my little way, I tried to have this chat with one cop, and it didn’t go well. Rather than discuss the good and the bad, I ran head first into the wall of “cop hater.”
Many have given up hope of change, screaming at every opportunity about how cops are evil. What would they do? We need police. There are bad people out there and, most of the time, the police serve to protect us from them. They do so at personal risk, even though we can excuse that as being part of their job. Would the screamers get rid of cops? That won’t work out well. The police exist for a purpose, and that purpose has to be served. We need police.
Just as people see only the cop who beats the guy for nothing, or arrests someone for standing too close to a subway door, they are blind to the cop who helps someone, or who protects the person in need. What haters refuse to see is that it’s the same cop, the same person. One day, you thank him. The next day, you curse him. And when you scream your hatred, he only hears the shriek of a cop hater.
What was clear is that the cop wasn’t going to accept me as a voice worthy of questioning him. I wasn’t a cop. I didn’t get it. I could never get it in his mind. So anything I said, no matter how reasonable or true, could be dismissed as the words of a cop hater. He was happy to listen to me compliment him, thank him, but there was no way he was going to accept my criticism or question.
It occurred to me that the only way any conversation could be had was one cop to another. Only then could the facile ad hominem be refused. A cop can tell me I don’t get it, but he can’t say that to another cop. Or a former cop, though I’m not entirely clear that cops accept the idea that a former cop, the minute he puts in his papers, loses all memory of the job and all credibility. There may be a precipitous drop as soon as a cop hangs up his shield, where he goes from “us” to “them” in a flash.
I know there are cops who see the problems, who feel the pain people suffer at the hands of their brethren. You join LEAP. You have blogs. You speak out here from time to time. Cops won’t listen to me. The screamers make the situation significantly worse, adding to the polarization of the respective interests. But you, officer and detective, you can speak out.
They can’t say you don’t get it. They can’t call you a cop hater. If you believe we have a problem that needs to be addressed, then it’s time for you to say something. Maybe they won’t listen to you either, but you need to try because they will never listen to us “cop haters.”
Simple Justice
Thanks for bringing up an important topic.
You are asking the police to self-correct but the hitch is to self-correct they have admit that something needs correcting. As soon as they do that the cop-haters will be on them like an avalanche.
The police want to control the information given to the public. That means they will be accused of cooking-the-books. Sometimes they do but the cop-haters think they do all the time. My experience is that people with years of experience working with data can make mistakes so it is not a huge surprise that police officers with little or no training make mistakes with records.
One other aspect of this problem is the people who think that the cops-can-do-no-wrong. Or if you are critical of them you are damaging their ability to protect public safety.
And that’s the problem: this idea that police are a class above the rest of humanity. From that stems the idea that a police officer must be given the benefit of the doubt at all times, no matter the evidence to the contrary. That the lives of police are so important, and so must be protected at all costs, that it’s OK for them to use lethal force on an otherwise innocent civilian who makes them feel ‘threatened,’ even though the entire reason the police are supposedly special is because they put their lives on the line to protect innocent civilians. And yes, I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but the doublethink inherent in that idea really grinds my gears.
The road goes two ways.
If there are “cop haters” among the civilian population, then there are “civilian haters” among the police population.
Funny, the cop in this story didn’t seem to have room in his closed little mind for that concept. Hence the problem(s).
I lived in a neighborhood where the police were afraid of the neighbors and they in turn were afraid of the police but they were more afraid of the criminals. However it seemed to me that they hated the criminals not the police. OTOH none of them had any illusions about the cops being the “good guys”.
There are cops who get it. I don’t expect the ones who are still on the job to have the cojones to buck cop culture. That’s exceedingly rare, but many former cops who no longer fear retaliation can speak up. That’s the point. They won’t listen to us. They have a facile response, that we’re just cop haters (which, sadly, seems to be proven when reactions all bare the smell of cop hating rather than trying to fix the problem). They can’t say that to their own.
We know the problem. That’s why we need to look for viable solutions. It doesn’t help to keep banging the problem if it just makes discussion that much more difficult and feeds into their belief that we’re just cop haters.
I don’t think there is any avoiding the inherent conflict in the “cop point of view”. Cops work for us, the public: therefore the prevailing public view of their actions is the correct one. If cops can’t accept that or won’t change their behavior to please us, their employers, then only one conclusion can logically be drawn:
They have chosen to be at war with us.
I assume the placement of this post immediately before “Excellent excuses” was not an accident, and I agree with that. When cops are free to kill even people they acknowledge to be innocent bystanders and the system won’t even slap them on the wrist for it, then the only way for the public to be safe is to be prepared to shoot back.
God bless that old man, and I hope he draws a jury full of people like me.
What is the prevailing public view? Is it lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key?
This is refreshing. I was on another site where a guy hoped that I watched my children die because I am a cop. It was not a pleasant experience after that. All I was trying to do was convince him that all cops were not evil and get him to support statements that he had made. I despise dirty cops, they have no place in law enforcement. I’ve worked in IA and have had to deal with mistakes and some intentional violations of policy and law. There is a problem, but it is nothing new. Corruption in law enforcement has been around since the beginning. Power is a great corruptor of people. I’m not saying that all cops are corrupt with power. That’s just not the case. I’ve been in LE for 15 years and haven’t participated in any illegal activities.
Thank you for having an honest, non-hate spreading approach to identifying your concerns. It was refreshing.
There’s a lot of knee-jerk hatred on both sides. Read the comments at Police One and it’s pretty easy to understand. My hope is to break down the walls at least a little, and I appreciate hearing from a cop who feels the same.
Police assaults and killings are done in the name of bad cops who tattoo revenge markers on the brain of the police avenger.
I knew a cop in Pomona Cal. that would put fear into the people he came in contact with. He was the MAN and YOU had no chance of even thinking about doing anything he didn’t want you to do!
His fear approach and demoralization to the citizens he came in contact with festered a hatred in the community for him. He demanded respect at any cost! One day an CHP officer(Steiner) was shot in the head at point blank and killed at a local court building while on duty covering the front door after court. ( This was in California 2007, you may have heard of it?) The 16 y/o kid (gang banger) who shot the officer,
was told to do so (never proven) in the name of the mean cop.(The mean cop had arrested and beaten the brother of the gang leader of the area who ordered cop killing 6 months earlier). The Officer that was killed was a great guy and was hand picked by the gang to be killed because of his perfect record and great stance with the community.The message was to let the good cops know that thier blind eye to their collegues tactics was worse than the mean cop himself!
The gang leader who setup the hit, was never convicted and the 16 year old kid who shot the cop is a gangster hero doing life eligable in 2028. The mean cop is well known to his collegues for his aggressive approach to the citizens. he is not very respected by his fellow officers but they play the game. As for officer Steiner who was killed, he was called a Hero by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Kind of a rubber stamp award for all fallen police officers.
I’m a retired Paramedic who worked that area for many many year’s. I heard the messages after the police would leave the scene’s we worked. I couldn’t tell ANY police officer in the year’s I worked there about this mean cop and afew others; about the problem that was brewing in the area! They wouldn’t listen.
Murders unsolved,total hatred for the police and even worse, FEAR of the police caused this situation to rear its ugly head!
As I’ve read in other post’s, it’s a real problem with no plan to resolve in the near future. A cop in Athens Ga. in 2011 came the same way. Community hatred for a cop and an innocent cop payed the price.
How many have to die before the rest of the force will see the writing on the wall?
I take therapy for my career as a paramedic and most of the trauma and fear on the job was from bad police officer’s and other criminals.
My heart goes out to those who serve the public.
Public anger, hatred and frustration are the natural outgrowth of police misconduct and abuse, but this message needs to be driven home within the law enforcement community.