Because of inflamed and politicized controversy about the police, thinking clearly and talking coolly are hard, hard, hard. With differences of degree, I suppose that many people share my ambivalent feelings about police officers; I love them, and I hate them. When I see a police car in my rearview mirror, I feel fear; then, when they pass me, relief. But when I am pulled over for speeding and treated competently and courteously—do I benefit from white privilege? Probably—, I respect them. We depend on police officers when we need them; as Al Pacino says in Sea of Love, “in the wet-ass hour, who’s your daddy?” But when, increasingly, we witness them behaving disrespectfully or dangerously toward others, we (should) react with disgust or outrage.
My thinking about police officers often begins with responses to their two most common defensive responses to criticism. One: most police officers are good apples, but a few are bad apples. I have big problems with this defense. If most police officers were good apples, their unions would have leadership supporting dismissal of the bad apples and reforms which would help all police officers improve. And, since the good apples know who the bad apples are yet do nothing about them, the good apples are not all that good. I remind myself of the apt adage in full: a few bad apples spoil the barrel.
Two: police officers are just like us. Desmond, a Black, Republican, court investigator says at the end of a New York Times interview (23-01-03), “Hey, at the end of the day, we’re just like you, just in blue.” I could hardly disagree more. I do not for one moment deny that police officers are people—or so much like them that it is hard to tell the difference—, but differences there are. Put people in a police uniform, pin on a badge, issue them weapons, and train them to dominate in every situation—and their work places them in different situations and changes their behavior in them. I agree only so far with Peter Goodman’s apology for LCPD Officer Jared Cosper; I agree that he did not get out of bed with the idea of murdering anyone. But, once at the scene, he murdered Sra. Amelia Baca. Trained as a soldier, instructed in rules of engagement, and having served in a combat zone, I would not have murdered her. No, Desmond, you are not just like me, and I am insulted by your glib, self-serving comparison.
So what are we to think about police officers? Of course, we can think of them as just plain folk, flipping burgers at backyard cook-outs, going to PTA meetings, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera (“just like them”). But the first thing to think about police officers is that they are members of society. They must be regarded as people who share the attitudes, beliefs, and conduct available in the general culture. Their roles and responsibilities reflect and may exaggerate, almost to the point of caricature, our cultural and societal propensities, but the populace must accept that they reflect its propensities writ large. Society assigns them their roles and responsibilities; in justice and fairness, it cannot suddenly treat them as scapegoats.
The second thing is that police officers are no better or faster at changing lifelong attitudes, beliefs, and conduct than others are. Indeed, for them, unlike other members of society, they are impeded by their commitment to their profession and its customs. They aspired and trained to become police officers, and now serve. They cannot easily redefine themselves and their life-long commitment to their profession, transform their perspectives and values, or adjust to changes in established customs of conduct—or as easily as society can redefine them in order to reform police roles and responsibilities. In decency, society must make allowance for “cultural lag.”
An instance taking these two things together. If society is racist, police officers are racist; if society renounces racism, police officers face the challenge of renouncing lifelong dispositions to think, feel, and act in previously sanctioned ways about race and members of a race. Their challenge is great. Doubters should remind themselves that antisemitism, though long publicly scorned, remains widespread and motivates antisemitic acts.
If citizens want reasonable, effective, and enduring reforms of police departments, they must be considerate of police officers. They must think about how the necessary transition can be achieved with due respect for police officers facing both public criticism and personal difficulties. For them, it is neither pleasant to have their life work reviled nor painless to have to adjust to career and attendant personal changes for an uncertain future.
That consideration for police officers is balanced by citizens’ expectations, even though they will sometimes be disappointed. All citizens—indeed, all people, citizens or not--should expect police officers to treat them as equal under the law, with respect in all circumstances and at all times, and as innocent until proven otherwise. People should expect police officers to comply with all laws and all Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and respect societal norms. People should expect police officers to understand that their enforcing the law does not make them superior to the law and that the need for their services in public safety and law enforcement does not exempt them from liability under the law. People should expect police officers to understand that, as public employees, they are not exempt from criticism, accountability, or transparency.
Yet talk of police reform too often seems contentious, not cooperative. If contentious, it will be unlikely to succeed; if cooperative, it may possibly succeed. I qualify this even-handedness by admitting that, because reform makes demands which will be difficult for most police officers to fulfill, I worry that their “cooperation” may be half-hearted or even bad-faith gestures. But I proceed as if my worry is ill-founded.
Although I have supported local efforts for a Civilian Police Oversight Board (CPOB), its initial presentation suggests a hostile or adversarial posture toward the police. The word “oversight” suggests evaluation more than analysis. Of course, much about the CPOB has not been defined, and details might falsify this first impression. One suggestion would be to include two police officers at its meetings: the Deputy Police Chief for operations (currently, Sean Mullen) and the officer for community outreach (formerly, Kiri Daines).
In lieu of that reform initiative, I propose the following suggestions, all in the interest of transparency.
1. Council should abolish all “advisory“ committees, especially the secret ones, on police-related matters. The fact that their existence and everything else about them has been concealed from most members of City Council suggests that their conduct is not in the public interest. It is not clear how these committees are “advisory” and not “executive.” As such, they may be in violation of the Open Meetings Act. Mayor Ken Miyagishima and Councilor Tessa Abeyta should be condemned for such secrecy and their contempt for their colleagues on Council. Abeyta should be repudiated at the polls this November for her sneaky conduct.
2. Council should make itself the final authority on SPOs. The current sequence of authorities—Chief of Police for development, City Manager for approval—, should insert the City Attorney between them for legal sufficiency and add Council as the final word for their acceptability in light of citizens’ principles and values for high-quality policing.
3. Council should conduct at regular intervals, perhaps by ad hoc citizen/police advisory committee, a review of all SOPs to recommend eliminating obsolete ones; identifying ineffective or offensive ones; and suggesting others to remedy gaps.
4. Council should review at regular intervals, perhaps by ad hoc citizen/police advisory committee, all police training materials to ensure that instruction is consistent with SOPs and high-quality policing principles and values.
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