Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
An Officer’s Lament
One of my good friends serves as a police officer here in the Pacific Northwest. Over time, he’s been frustrated. About a month ago, he expressed his frustrations thusly:
Dear Conservative Ideology — There is no easy way to say this, so I am just going to say it. I’m breaking up with you. I know what you are thinking. No I am not seeing anyone else. I am not going to remove my conservative sign and replace it with a liberal one. Right now, I’m just going to stand on my own. Ironically, the thing that has pushed you away from me is the one thing that has always kept me far away from liberal ideology … anti-police rhetoric.
He goes on:
I love being a police officer. I know that there isn’t a lot of glory in being one. I know that it’s a pretty thankless job. I’m okay with that. But every day, I love going out and getting a chance to really help. I know that sometimes all I can do is place a dirty band-aid on a gushing wound, delaying society from tearing itself apart. I know that sometimes I may use a tone of voice that is a little tough when dealing with citizens. But it is because it is a tough world, and this is a tough job. And yes, there is a lot of despair in my job, but every once in awhile, I get a chance to help people. I don’t enjoy arresting people. I don’t enjoy writing tickets. I don’t enjoy using force on people. I enjoy doing my duty and knowing that, maybe even just a little at a time, I am making the world a better place. I took an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution, all of it. Not your amended interpretation of it.
Which brings me to you, conservative ideology. It is true that, as a whole movement, there is not a widespread call for violence against police officers. However, there is a subtle ideology in your thinking. There is a hostile demeanor in your articles, essays, and online posts. And there is ominous silence when your masses respond to such media calling for open violence against “pigs, Fascists, Nazis, and oppressors.” There is no call for violence in your words. But there are words like “revolution, demand action, excessive force, trampled rights,” and “police state.” Often these words are used out of context, or applied to half-truths and partial facts. Your words are stirring followers to use words that advocate, encourage, and call for the deaths of police officers. I have turned a blind eye to it for far too long. But your silence towards the recent shooting of two Las Vegas Officers while they were eating lunch, and the death of a concealed carry American citizen who tried to stop the shooters, is just as hypocritical of the liberal silence over the loss of four lives in Benghazi. The shooters draped a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag on one of the officers, and a handful of swastikas on the other officer, (which, contrary to what the media told you, was meant to imply the officer was a Nazi. The swastikas were not placed on the dead officer due to white supremacist ideology.) Where do you suppose that symbolic gesture comes from? Both of these officers had families … wives and children. You always bitch about the “militarization” of American police, because we now wear body armor outside of our shirts and have armored cars? We carry rifles now because criminals carry them and wear body armor. We have armored vehicles because criminals have rifles that can shoot through cars now. You know what? We’re okay with that. We’re okay with law-abiding citizens having the option of bearing arms. But a law-abiding gun owner can go south pretty quick when he loses his job, his wife leaves him, or some other life event takes a turn for the worst. That’s fine. We’ll respond. It’s what we do. But don’t bitch at us because we want vests, armor, and rifles to deal with the problem. Especially when we, the police, as an institution, are overwhelmingly supportive of citizens’ rights to bear arms.
I’ve also heard you complain about police wearing BDUs now. You know why we’re wearing BDU’s? Because $40 slacks that you the taxpayer pay for are not comfortable for the work we do. They tear and need to be replaced due to us working in the increasingly violent world that you and your liberal ideological brother are making for us. Oh, and here’s a news flash: Bullet-resistant vests are not comfortable. Wearing them over our shirts is more comfortable and allows us to carry gear on our vest rather than our waists. Gear on the vest spreads out weight that is normally concentrated on your waist and lower back. This helps prevent back problems, which, for your information, is very common among police officers.
So we are done, conservative ideology. I thought you were different. Turns out you’re just as full of crap as your liberal opposite. I’ll stand on my own with my God, my family, my brothers and sisters in blue, and all of my countrymen.
I’ve been delaying sharing here for a while, but George Savage’s recent article about our militarized interior compelled me to cease my delays. I can see a problem. While I believe there is genuine concern about the increased militarization of federal bureaucracies (I’m not sure why the EPA requires SWAT teams, for example), it’s becoming more necessary for the police officers who serve to gear up and protect themselves. It seems that, as of late, more officers have been victims of shootings not in the line of duty, but doing nothing more than enjoying a bit of down time. If it’s not more common, we’re at least becoming more aware of it.
Here’s the thing: many of these officers are our allies. They love freedom and liberty as much as we do, but they understand that everyone’s liberty comes at a cost. Those of us who enjoy what liberties we have do so because there are officers like my friend defending them. That takes them to dangerous places. And yes, those places can be inside the borders of this country. One needs only look at Chicago’s murder statistics to realize just how dangerous life can be right here at home. That we don’t experience it every day is thanks to the work of men and women like my friend who go there for us.
The last thing we should be doing is treating them with suspicion or contempt. The questions are: How do we support them? How do we reconcile with them? How do I behave towards my fellow man?
Published in General
But then your defenses of SWAT teams are merely reflexive.
Oh, sorry. I thought the guy was supposed to be a cop in *this* universe. My mistake.
Why not just get rid of the unjustified raids rather than all of them entirely?
Am I defending SWAT teams? I thought I was trying to understand your criticisms of them.
Because certain error rates are never going away. The percentage of wrong identity and wrong address mistakes isn’t going to decrease (much like waste fraud and abuse in government programs), but is less of a problem if the officers aren’t carrying rifles, flashbangs, and para military training into the scenario.
I’m in favor of drug legalization, which theoretically removes the need for most of these raids, but my hunch is they’ll find new reasons to use these teams, rather than cut back on them.
More broadly I was trying to understand your assertion that “The problem is that the very job of a police officer is, at it’s core, assuming extra risk so that the rest of us don’t have to. Instead, officers are using no-knock warrants and shooting and throwing flash bangs first, and asking questions later.”
If those tactics are sometimes justified, it is entirely relevant to determine how often those tactics are unjustifiably employed before we can decide whether they do more harm than good. It is entirely relevant to determine whether we can diminish the error or abuse rate before we assert that it’s better to eliminate all instances entirely.
Ed,
The only reason for a SWAT team to serve a warrant as opposed to ordinary police is to reduce the risks that police face while doing so. Yet in doing that, they dramatically increase the risk to the civilians they are encountering. Using them for this purpose is an effort to shift the risks from the people whose job it is to assume those risks, to the people who are paying them to assume those risks. I find this morally objectionable in addition to creating practical problems.
Yet if we are uncomfortable with a militarized police force, then the rest doesn’t matter. Two people need not agree on where to fight in order to fight. Given determination, the fight will happen somewhere.
First all incidents involving police officers and citizens cannot be generalized. Each incident, especially incidents that involve force, or deadly physical force has its own set of unique elements. Second of all I do not use hypotheticals in evaluating specific incidents for the simple reason that hypothetical situations are not reality so there is no wrong answer or right answer from either a police officer(s) or the critic(s) of an officer’s actions concerning an incident.
In any debate terms or words should be defined at the beginning of any argument.
libertarian
: an advocate of the doctrine of free will
: a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action
anarchist
:a person who rebels against any authority, established order, or ruling power
: a person who believes in, advocates, or promotes anarchism or anarchy; especially : one who uses violent means to overthrow the established order.
Individuals can define themselves in any way they choose but it is really their actions that define them. Any arrest I made was based upon a person’s actions I never needed to ask them or their former third grade teacher to define my arrestee for my Incident Report.
Under what conditions must citizens be “SWATTED”?
The original section I quoted from you wasn’t just about SWAT teams, it was about police generally.
You already said that sometimes there is justification for taking extra precautions but that you would favor denying them anyway because they do more harm than good and because it shifts risk inappropriately. How do you know that the extra precautions are actually shifting risk rather than simply diminishing risk?
How do you know that the extra precautions are doing more harm than good anyway?
If there is justification for that extraordinary risk shift in specific cases then wouldn’t denying the precautions in those specific cases be morally objectionable too?
On what is your assertion of a militarized police force based, then, if not on the total number of police interactions compared to the number of interactions that can be fairly characterized as militarized?
On what is your discomfort based, then, if not number of instances where these extraordinary measures are employed compared to instances where they are employed unjustifiably?
Ed,
This is a jumbled mess. I get the criticism you are trying to make, but you are trying to play an absolutist game that I never played. I can turn it around on you just as easily on almost any issue. Exceptions prove rules. So let’s stay on target.
The shift in risk is displayed most obviously in no-knock warrants. By not knocking, the police increase the likely hood of the person inside getting hurt, as they might assume its a home invasion and grab their gun, but they decrease the odds of themselves getting hurt, as they have the element of surprise.
This action does not mitigate risk to civilians, it greatly increases it as if they ever appear to be a threat to the officers (being startled and making a sudden move while holding something, perhaps a cell pone to call the cops because someone just broke into their house) officers are trained to shoot.
The only time I find this scenario to be favorable is if the person is known to be extremely dangerous, and is confirmed to be inside.
I wasn’t aware of this distinction. Do you know if they’re dressed in full tactical gear for this?
I think Frank is saying that SWAT teams are used too liberally, not that they shouldn’t be used at all.
This is right, specifically I am saying that about 90% of the time they are used they shouldn’t be.
Ok, so you do favor these tactics being used in some circumstances rather than doing away with them entirely as you said before.
Your criteria seem within the reasonable range to me – on the stringent end but within the margins. So how do you know that these extraordinary tactics are being used too liberally now? In what proportion of cases are these extraordinary tactics being used unjustifiably (ie where your criteria don’t apply)?
And no, I’m not playing a game with you – absolutist or otherwise.
What is the 90% based on?
They wear vests, but otherwise are normally equipped the same way as detectives. No assault rifles, no military fatigues.
Another note: this is one of the most decent and good-humored guys I know. There’s no maliciousness or ill-intent when he wrote this. Do be careful when imputing motives.
I’ve some sympathy for the officer: I’m sure there are folks who’ve said horrible, unjustified things about LEOs, and they’re wrong to. I’m further certain that — given how alien LEO work is from the experience of most other citizens– it’s absolutely necessary for us to make sure our criticisms are informed and accurate.
But blaming these murders on the Tea Party is wholly unjustified. First, I’d like to see links from anything in vaguely mainstream that uses this kind of rhetoric about LEOs. Second, the couple who murdered those officers in Las Vegas had been previously turned away from Cliven Bundy ranch fiasco because Bundy and his supporters accurately judged that they were insane, dangerous felons. They were monsters looking for a fight long before they eve saw a Gasden Flag.
If that’s correct, those services shouldn’t count in the same statistics as the raids.
That 7% of such raids relate to hostage, barricade or active shooters. Give a few extra percents for other extreme scenarios.
But your criteria were 1) known to be dangerous and 2) confirmed present. The statistic you’re using here is not a valid representation.
I haven’t read all 5 pages of comments yet, but here’s my quick take on the matter. All it takes to turn your average, law abiding, law officer respecting citizen against the state and its now much more militarized forces is a single interaction with them. The system no longer functions to keep the peace among citizens and punish criminals. Rather, it functions to deal only with criminals. Law enforcement has become a hammer to which everything appears to be a nail. Dealing almost exclusively with the criminal class has taken its toll on our officers. They now treat every person they encounter as a criminal until proven otherwise. Liberty is being treated as a free citizen by the state until proven otherwise. Our system has inverted the matter.
As I argued earlier, don’t we still require warrants, reasonable cause, Miranda warnings, and such? What does our system do to treat citizens as if they are guilty or unfree? Isn’t the “They now treat every person they encounter as a criminal until proven otherwise” bit more than a little bit of an exaggeration? I’m sure there are cases where that happens, but what is the proportion of those injustices to the total pool of police interactions?
“Libertarianism” is what I would call it.
“Libertarains” do indeed have very irrational concepts of the police, and irrational fears. And they do love making up irrational and fact-less stories about the police. Just visit any of their websites (Reason and company) to read the disregard they have for the concept of law enforcement…or law itself.
Certain sections of “libertarians”, and yes “conservatives” too, do have a rather idealistic notion of what law enforcement does, or what “Small Town USA” really is.
Apparently some seem to think that criminals only reside in Detroit and Chicago, not in “Small Town USA”, which apparently only requires Chief Wiggum as a cop. Nothing every happens in “Small Town USA”…except for all the meth producing and dealing, for example.
It’s been a nice discussion, but I have to go now to make up the work I avoided this afternoon. Have a good night all!
All this requires evidence. Any evidence to back this up? Because otherwise, it just confirms certain anti-police…feelings…from the “right”.