Police

Somewhere along the line the job of the police morphed from "serve and protect" to that of an occupying army. Maybe it's always been that way. As a white guy who grew up in a white neighborhood and then moved to another white neighborhood, perhaps I've been shielded from extreme actions of police. And other than a collection of speeding tickets I haven't broken any laws that  might draw the attention of the police. But over the last few years the media, abetted by the ubiquity of cell phone cameras, has shed a spotlight on incidents of police misconduct, including violence. Some of it is tied to racism, with many of the police shooting done by white officers on black men. But racism isn't the complete story, there have been incidents of black and Hispanic officers, and even one Muslim officer, shooting unarmed people in what seems, to those of us who aren't in law enforcement, totally unnecessary.

I first became aware of what I considered overkill by police during the Occupy Movement of several years ago. While there were no shootings (that I recall) associated with police action against these demonstrators, images from that time show SWAT teams assaulting the encampments as if attacking an opposing army. Arrests of the largely nonviolent protesters involved forcing arrestees face down on the pavement with the hands cuffed or zip-tied behind their backs. Surely these people could have been just as effectively restrained sitting down. It seemed like restraint to prevent flight was not the aim, but humiliation of the protesters. Even here in Lincoln, the Occupy group at Centennial Mall was invaded by a SWAT team in the middle of the night, with cameras of the few witnesses confiscated.

But a bigger problem was made manifest when incidents of unarmed  black men and boys being shot and killed by the police gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. Let me make clear that I am not addressing situations where those who were shot pointed weapons at police, or attempted to grab their weapon, or even attacked them with a knife. I'm not even addressing the times when fleeing suspects were shot.

I am not minimizing the risk to life and limb that is part of the job of a law enforcement officer. It's an extremely difficult job. I am also not minimizing the split-second nature of some of the scenarios that they encounter. Hesitating at the wrong time can cost an officer his life.

But I also question the training and acculturation that prioritizes the life and safety of the officer over the life and safety of innocent, law-abiding citizens. There's a saying that I've heard is common among police officers: "I'd rather be tried by  twelve than carried by six" - in other words, shoot first and ask questions later. This might sound logical within the bubble of the law enforcement community, where there is often a certainty that the people with whom they are dealing are "bad guys", but what about the innocent person who "looks suspicious", or panics because they have a bag of pot in their car and runs, or makes the wrong move? In the many publicized situations where police shot and killed unarmed and law-abiding people, the officer "feared for his life" or interpreted an innocuous move as dangerous. In all of these cases the police apologists rationalized the action, believing that the officers took appropriate action to protect themselves. Very seldom is the fact that the person who was killed was completely innocent of any wrongdoing brought up as a problem. It shouldn't be okay for a person to die because law enforcement got nervous, or misinterpreted  a movement. 

The police are not an occupying army, they are an organization that is tasked with protecting the community. They should not have a kill or be killed ethos.