Image via WikipediaI occasionally like to peruse the Police Blotter section of my local newspaper, just to see what sort of hi-jinks my fellow free citizens are up to in the surrounding areas. I don't really recommend it, but I also make it a habit of doing things that are of no benefit to my well being and peace of mine.
The Warren Reporter, my local free weekly paper full of local news and community activities, has a segment in the Police News section they like to call Fugitive of the Week. What is worrisome about this is that they don't bother to explain why this individual is in such great demand this particular week, but only that authorities are really eager to speak with him or her about something or other. The perpetrator's nefarious deeds are kept a sadistic secret, leaving me with only their physical description, last known location, and driver's license photo to hint at what offense could have possibly elevated this person to such a prestigious position. What sort of heinous misdeeds could have drawn such attention? Loitering around school playgrounds carrying a fishing pole with Tootsie Roll lures? Tackling priests naked during baptisms? Molesting dead squirrels beneath the highway off ramp? I have too sordid and perverse of an imagination to be left with such an unanswered question.
The truths behind this week's highlights is a little easier to divine, as was a general rule to live by: don't call attention to yourself if you have something to hide.
It seems that police were summoned last Friday night with reports that a Phillipsburg man had fired six shots from a handgun. Police arrived and were informed that the man had indeed fired six shots, but had done so because a Pit Bull had attacked his own dog. The police didn't find a Pit Bull or any discernible marks on the man's dog, but they did find that the remaining four shells in the man's .44-caliber handgun were illegal hollow-point bullets.
That previous Wednesday night, while police were interviewing a woman while investigating a "civil matter," the man in question drove by the front porch where the officers were talking to the woman and honked; not once, but twice. Annoyed enough to pull the man over in a nearby parking lot, police noticed a steel pipe and a baggy full of a leafy substance in his center console when he pulled out his license and registration. He was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia, synthetic cannabis and, go figure, a suspended license.
Everyone's heard the story by now. Renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. gets a visit from police officers after someone reports a someone trying to break into Gates' home. The perp, as it turns out, is Gates himself, who locked himself out of his home. On the off chance that the well-dressed sixty year old man that answered the door for police might still be some kind of burglar, Gates was asked to prove his residency. At the end of the debacle, during which the noted literary critic and intellectual demanded the police officer's name and badge number, he was arrested for "Disorderly Conduct."
Of course, when I first heard the news, I immediately thought of the Dave Chapelle routine about black homeowners and their reluctance to call for police in major cities like New York or Los Angeles. "Open and shut case, Johnson! Apparently this black guy broke in and hung up pictures of his family everywhere!"
There's been a lot of debate over the whole thing, of course. Whenever a minority is victimized or singled out in some fashion, whether initially justified or not, there is going to be a heated debate. One side will insist it is indicative of institutionalized racism and unfair treatment of minorities by racist cops, whether the person was guilt or not. The other side will rabidly defend the innocence of the police despite any evidence to the contrary, and complain about political correctness and affirmative action. Even the President of the United States of America weighed in on this one, calling the arrest "stupid" and taking the institutionalized racism side. Of course, since Obama is America's first Black President, it makes sense that he would have to give his opinion on the major news story.
But of course, the part of this story that surprises me the least is that the arresting officer, James Crowley, refuses to apologize.
I've known police officers, both directly and through family members, and one major gripe they've always had is the negative attitude that the general public feels towards them. Its a justified complaint; spending your life in service of the public, only to have that public constantly dismissive and suspicious of you, can be a major emotional drain. But no matter how many positive and even outright pro-police propaganda television shows and films are cranked out, public opinion of the police in general is on the negative side. For the men and women in law enforcement, that kind of publicity can make you wonder if the job is worth it.
So who do you blame for negative public opinion of the police? For a start, idiots like James Crowley. Of course, that's a little unfair to Crowley; he isn't the first cop to refuse any civil response to an awkward situation, and it isn't just individual officers spreading that kind of pig-headed stubbornness around. When Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo was shot forty-one times by NYPD officers because they claimed his wallet looked like a gun, there was no humility on display in their public statements to the press. Granted, no one expected them to throw their own officers under the bus. But not only did they continuously defend shooting an unarmed man forty-one times as a reasonable response and well within the line of duty, they (meaning the
NYPD as a whole) also never showed any real remorse for Diallo's death. And they sure as hell never apologized for accidentally killing the man.
Is this kind of bully-boy arrogance really necessary? I'm not saying that cops should run around saying Please and Thank You and asking permission for every little inconvenience. But when someone like James Crowley pulls an obviously ego-driven bonehead move like arresting someone in their own home for being 'belligerent', especially when the racial ramifications of the misunderstanding are painfully obvious, would it really be damaging to police department's public image to shout out a quick "Oops, my bad?"
Sadly, that's not an isolated incident, and not nearly the worst example to be made. I could spend pages listing children and elderly people being tasered to death and being placed in fatal choke-holds, unwarranted brutality and abuse at the hands of chest-thumping 'roid gorillas with badges, gross mishandling of innocent people by the system at a bureaucratic level, and an endless stream of harassment of private citizens for purely personal, political, or ethically unsound reasons. Not all of these examples take place in New York, California, and Texas, either. Honest.
Many will argue that cops shouldn't have to say "I'm sorry." My response is that nobody has to say "I'm sorry," but they tend to do so diplomatically when mistakes have been made. And my warning is that, if you are going to fight the occasional act of grace and courtesy so vehemently, then I don't want to hear you asking why so many people distrust, fear, or outright hate the police. You know why.
Image via WikipediaI occasionally like to peruse the Police Blotter section of my local newspaper, just to see what sort of hi-jinks my fellow free citizens are up to in the surrounding areas. I don't really recommend it, but I also make it a habit of doing things that are of no benefit to my well being and peace of mine.
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