For the Love of the Game

Many things were learned in Week 4. It’s very helpful to analyze what’s going on around you rather than just letting the days fly by in anticipation of graduating. The most important lesson I gained this week was how to handle irritations originating from co-workers. Or in this case, fellow recruits.

Without going into detail, I’ve had some minor confrontations with squadmates about trivial issues. I discovered that regardless of how minor or trivial the circumstances were, I still found myself frustrated, angry, and even resentful about what was going on. After thinking about it for a bit, I asked myself, “Seriously? You’re already getting upset about this crap when an entire career of working with people like this awaits you?” Now is the time to learn how to effectively deal with annoying coworkers, not how to get my panties in a bundle over nothing.

A couple nights ago I finished reading David Simon’s Homicide. A truly amazing book, one which I would consider a must-read for serious law enforcement enthusiasts. One passage of the book really spoke to me regarding the above circumstances. One of the players in the book, Balitmore Police Detective Donald Kincaid, gets extremely frustrated about the conduct of one of the other detectives and it eventually leads to his early retirement. Here’s what Simon had to say about it:

For a detective or street police, the only real satisfaction is the work itself; when a cop spends more and more time getting aggravated with the details, he’s finished. The attitude of co-workers, the indifference of superiors, the poor quality of the equipment–all of it pales if you love the job; all of it matters if you don’t.

CYA at Its Finest

In 1991, David Simon wrote a book called Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, which has become my latest project. Simon spent a year with Baltimore’s Homicide investigation unit and came away with a masterful piece of story-telling that I have only just begun and am already enjoying immensely. Here’s an observation he made 17 years ago regarding the changing nature of Police Use of Force:

A quarter century ago, an American law officer could fire his weapon without worrying whether the entrance wound would be anterior or posterior. Now, the risk of civil liability and possible criminal prosecution settles on a cop every time he un-holsters a weapon, and what could once be justified by an earlier generation of patrolmen is now enough of get the next generation indicted.

This painfully brings to mind the plight of the Utah State Trooper who is being sued for using his Taser on a civilian motorist during a traffic stop. For the record, I do not believe that the Trooper’s use of the Taser in the matter at hand was necessary. However, I further do not believe that fact alone entitles the complainant Mr. Massey to what will doubtless prove to be godless sums of money in punitive damages at the Trooper’s expense. The Police should be held accountable for their actions, but people like Massey put undue strain not only on governmental budgets but also on the consciences and decision-making processes of officers in potentially life-threatening situations.

A Word on Gratuities

The subject of police gratuities is nigh-universal in the experience of American law enforcement.  You hear about it in the news, you hear about during the academy, you hear about it during departmental in-service training, you hear about it your entire career.  I will attempt to break it down.

There are four levels of gratuities with which the police around the world come into contact.  The first is huge payoffs to corrupt, top-level police administrators by groups intending to influence police activity in their favor.  An example would be Mafia bribes, drug lords in Central America, that type of thing.  The second is small amounts of money passed to officers on an individual basis with the intent of influencing police activity – the famous “$20 bill clipped to the back of the driver license”.  We can agree that such interaction is corrupt and wrong without further discussion.

The third level of gratuity is insignificant, indirect courtesies given with the intent of influencing police activity.  For instance, a certain 24-hour corner store makes police officers aware that they can have free coffee, any time of the day.  The goal here is to increase police presence on the premises.  The offers of free coffee, free fast-food meals, half-off this, free that, is a pervasive reality of American policing which is universally condemned by departmental regulations.  Despite this, such “minor” gratuities are just as universally accepted daily by officers on duty.

So what’s the deal?  Are these third-level gratuities wrong?  Does accepting them compromise an officer’s integrity?  Why is it that the vast majority of police departments do almost nothing to enforce their anti-gratuity regulations?

My opinion is that an officer should abide by the regulations of the department they serve.  Pay for your coffee, pay for your meals, obviously keep the $20 clipped to the license (and max them out on any possible citations for attempting to bribe the police).  Is it morally wrong to accept a free meal?  No.  Are there good reasons for not doing so, and hence good reasons for such policies regulating these gratuities?  Definitely yes.  I believe that if an officer expects to have the integrity to deal with major matters, he/she ought first to have the integrity to deal with minor matters.

Easier said than done, perhaps, but that’s life, innit?

Oh yes, the fourth level of gratuity.  Level Four consists of small courtesies which are tokens of actual gratitude, often of only sentimental value, from citizens who appreciate the work that police and other first responders do – this level looks much like level three, but lacks any intent to influence.

Think Before You Type

Today I found a blog post entitled “7 Reasons the Police will always be able to abuse power with impunity”. While it’s true that there are police officers and departments that abuse their power, if you look at the entire nation it’s far from the norm in American society. Try to read through the article without coughing up your lunch, then read my responses.

1. If it didn’t happen to you, it doesn’t matter

Complacency is a real problem in American society in many different ways. This rule applies to police doing good things as it does to police doing bad things, however. If all you do is read news, you will have an opinion of the police that is filtered by the media – which will be very negative and far from the actual truth, I can assure you.

2. If it happened to someone who is deemed trash, you don’t care

“Underclass” is and has always been a social problem in all human communities. This is why police departments have been making great strides these days with Community-Oriented Policing. Police leaders have recognized that the old system of simply stomping on the underclass to keep the overclass happy hasn’t worked, and steps are being taken to bring the underclass up rather than keep them down.

3. People feel safer is the person attacked is black or Hispanic (which they usually are), guilty or not

This point is related to #2, and both are true thanks to human nature. I am not here to argue that police abuse doesn’t happen. It most certainly does. This point subliminally implies that all police action taken against blacks and Hispanics is abusive, which is obviously false.

4. The police are glamorized, deified in popular culture, despite serving no practical purpose

This is the point at which the article deviates from accurate descriptions of human nature into ignorance of who the police are and what they actually do. Police are indeed glamorized in pop culture, however it is only a small fraction of police work that is glamorized. The gun-slinging, crime-fighting, foot/car pursuing, handcuff-slapping cop in today’s movies and TV shows is not representative of how the police serve the community.

“What do they do, really?” asks the author. The reality is that close to 90% of police activity has nothing to do with fighting crime, consisting rather of service to the citizenry. Police respond to every traffic crash, every missing person report, every vehicle stranded on a motorway, every parade and other large civic function, and on and on and on. The sheer ignorance of the author’s statement “I have never heard of the police actually protecting anybody” overwhelms me. If you really think that police only deal with criminals, then you have bought in to the media version of police work. You’re duped, and you should really take steps to research what the police really do before you make sweeping denouncements of them.

5. Schadenfreude

The author now takes a very pessimistic view of the human condition. Not even the most hardened, bitter, cynical street cop would say that humans have “no capacity for empathy and no common sense.” It’s clear that many, most in fact, do. Many people these days are outraged by police abuse of power, and that’s why the Taser is such a big deal in the news lately. That’s just one tiny little example.

6. You are dumb enough to believe that they are a threat only to the criminals

The point is made here that police officers are just humans too, with all the limitations and problems that come with it. That’s true. Most (in the United States, at least) live up to the oath they have sworn, though. The author then says that the aforementioned view of cops “comes from the fact that the majority of people’s only knowledge of how law-enforcement operates comes from TV, and TV is basically about propaganda.” Ironically, the author clearly hasn’t looked anywhere else for an opinion about law enforcement, either.

7. Most people feel safest as humble serfs needing the protection of stronger people

The police are necessary to keep criminal activity in check. The crux of what we call “law” is the fact that the magistrate has a divine authority to punish law-breakers. Without that authority, there is no law. Police officers are the first and foremost manifestation of the authority of the law. Without such officers, there would be no compliance with laws and consequently chaos and anarchy. All that being said, the police still need to be “policed”. In fairness to the author, some of the points accurately describe why corruption does find its way into police departments.

However, I would recommend to the author of this article two things. Try to find out what police officers really do, rather than just buying into the negative media hype about them. Doing a few ride-alongs would be my first suggestion, followed up by attending a “citizen police academy” which many good departments will host. I would also recommend getting out and enjoying life a bit, because you sound rather depressed.