There have been some disturbing news articles concerning law enforcement over the past year. Several have involved despicable career criminals who murdered police officers in cold blood - these people have rightly been viewed with the contempt that they deserve.
There have been other contemptible acts as well, however.
#1 A police officer uses a Taser on a pregnant woman who refuses to sign a traffic ticket.
#2 A police officer fatally shoots a drunken man who refuses to exit his car, an act for which he is currently facing murder charges.
#3 In Maryland, a man who was simply walking home from a sports event and who attempted to comply with police is brutally beaten with nightsticks. Further, the department in question attempted to cover up the incident by blaming the student for the circumstances.
One thing that our society does not need is to continue or see worsened the Us vs. Them rift that frequently exists between the police and the populace. In some respects this rift is understandable because our citizenry is one that deeply prizes their independence and rights (although often failing to understand the responsibilities that naturally accompany those rights) and law enforcement is trained to force compliance (sometimes with a lack of common sense).
Most encounters between the populace and the police end politely and professionally because most cops are good cops and most people know better than to escalate a simple traffic stop into a life changing event. I'm not sure what the solution is, when a confrontation does develop but both extremes (a sullen, disobedient populace vs. police interested in winning confrontations above all) seem like dangerous ideas, where our freedom and the stability of our society are concerned.
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I don't see the problem being the cops as much as the politicians that are writing these laws. A large part of the disrespect comes from traffic enforcement. You have laws that millions of people break every day, lots of times right in front of cops (hey 1 mph over is illegal, right?) We watch cops break them basically every time they are moving. How can you possibly respect a law like that, and that leads to, how can you respect the people trying to enforce those laws while breaking it themselves. You hear the BS, oh, they have training, yet you don't see professional race car drivers given a pass to drive like a cop who I would argue are vastly safer behind the wheel of a speeding car then a cop is given the amount of time each spends driving at those speeds. People see it as revenue collection, no longer having anything to do with safety.
ReplyDeleteThis lack of respect that stems from this flows into other aspects of our encounters with officers. It's hard not to, honestly. I know that pretty much anytime I see a motorcycle cop, who's primary duty is traffic enforcement (I once had a Snohomish County Sheriffs tell me how wonderful it was to riding around on his motorcycle all day and give people tickets) I get this feeling of overall disrespect for them before they've done anything, even if they are just directing traffic after a sporting event. I don't like this feeling. There are lots of officers I know personally who are very good people. I dated a girl who's dad was a police chief and learned a lot about law enforcement during that time. I learned that a lot of them take people breaking the law personally. How DARE they break the law, they think, I'll show them. This isn't how the system should work, but it is.
Example: My sister gets a speeding ticket on the way to school. She hires a lawyer and he beats it in court. The few days after the court hearing she receives a notice of infraction in the mail... for wreckless driving. The date it was issued was the day after the other ticket was beat in court, issued for the same traffic stop as the ticket that just got beat. Apparently the officer took it personally that the ticket got beat and decided that he'd show her for fighting it.
Of course, now my sister flips off pretty much every cop she drives by. That incident showed her how messed up the system is and she is pretty much disillusioned on cops being there to help.
The more and more that have experiences that they view as unfair like that, the worse the polarity becomes between citizens and cops. It slowly goes down a path where the percentage of cops who are in it because they want to do good vs the amount of cops who are there because they got picked on as kids starts to sway toward the latter, which just makes things worse. It's a downward spiral from there, and we are slowly heading toward that point.