Policing the police

By Tim Dunkin

If you don't think there is a problem with the police in America, then you simply aren't paying attention.

This may seem like an odd thing for someone on the Right to say. However, I don't think anyone who has been keeping up with current events can deny that in recent years, America has seen an increase in the heavy-handedness of police agencies at every level. The situation is even to the point where many consider us to already be a de facto police state, and one cannot credibly deny that in many cases, the police have acted more like Nazi or Soviet thugs than peace officers upholding the laws of a constitutional republic. In fact, the police often patently disregard the Constitution.

One of the latest episodes of excessive police force, violence, and official repression under the color of authority took place in Boiling Spring Lakes, North Carolina, just a few days ago. According to news reports, Boiling Spring Lakes police officers responded to a call at a home, placed by the father of a young man with diagnosed mental illness who was acting strangely. The father was simply seeking help from the police to get his son calmed down. Two officers arrived, and succeeded in calming down the young man (who had picked up a small electronics screwdriver). Unfortunately, it was at this point that an officer from the Southport Police Department arrived, and instructed (illegal, it would seem, as he was from an entirely different agency) the two officers to taser the young man, who if you will recall was already calmed down and cooperating with the officers. Then, while the two officers held the young man down after the tasering, the third officer reportedly said, "We don't have time for this," pulled his service weapon, and shot the young man to death in cold blood.

In the very least, a story like this ought to make the rest of us very wary about calling the police for anything short of a bona fide violent crime such as a home invasion or a murder. Domestic disputes or trouble with the neighbors? Handle it yourselves.

Regrettably, stories of official police misconduct – even if not always to this extreme – are becoming more and more commonplace. It has gotten to the point where it seems rare for a day to pass without my seeing a news report in which law enforcement officers overreach, overreact, and overbear against an average citizen while going about what would seem to be the normal course of their duties. For instance, take the case in Omaha, Nebraska, where a simple parking ticket was quickly escalated by police officers in multiple arrests followed by roughing up the arrestees. Then, there's the case of the Harris County, Texas, deputy who physically assaulted an entire family (as well as kicking their small dog!) on their own property, which started out as a simple traffic stop for speeding. There is also the case where police in Waukegan, Illinois broke the nose of a 13-year old detainee during questioning because he refused to confess to a crime that it was later proven he did not commit. Police officers in Harvey, Illinois shot a man in the back of the leg without cause, and then threatened to shoot a witness who was filming the event, and then did shoot the witness' puppy. Of course, who can forget the three instances last year (two in New Mexico, and one in Texas) where citizens being detained on routine traffic stops were then subjected to forcible anal examinations, enemas, and other medical procedures that essentially amount to rape – and those are just the three that we know about. In one case, the arrestee was subjected to this because police officers believed he "clenched his buttocks," which they apparently felt meant he was hiding narcotics where the sun doesn't shine.

Maybe Triple-A should issue some new travel guidelines? "When travelling through the state of New Mexico, always remember to relax your gluteal muscles when interacting with law enforcement personnel."

I could – literally – fill page after page with linked examples of police abuses and excesses that have occurred within just the past couple of years. Police officers have shot a man while he was watching TV in his own home; they routinely beat handcuffed detainees in jail; they have shot a man for the crime of watering his own lawn; they have beaten a detainee with Down's Syndrome who couldn't understand what the police meant when they shouted multiple, contradictory, rapid-fire commands at him. Warrantless, no-knock paramilitary raids on Americans – often for trivial offenses, and often even at wrong addresses – have become the norm for police investigations of suspected criminal activity. Since 2001, more Americans have died due to violence by our own police than died in the Iraq War. By some estimates, you are 29 times more likely, as an American citizen, to be killed by your own police than you are by a terrorist.

Consider these things, the next time somebody argues that local police departments need military-grade armored personnel carriers armed with 50-caliber machine guns "for our safety."

It wasn't always this way, of course. Our family enjoys watching vintage television from days gone by, shows like Adam-12 or The Andy Griffith Show, in which the law enforcement officers were actually fair, reasonable, and sane. Yes, there may have been times when Officers Reed and Malloy had to use their service revolvers, but common sense justified these uses. In some cases, I am almost flabbergasted by how "lax" they seem in some of the situations depicted – situations where today's police officers would be driving up the SWAT armored vehicle, shooting any dogs in the vicinity, and pointing their weapons at the heads of every person present, suspect or not. The police depicted in these shows were fair and even-handed and act like they genuinely want to resolve situations to everybody's advantage. Today, the police seem like they just want to flex their authority and make up for all the times they were bullied in junior high school. And while I understand and agree that not every law enforcement officer abuses his or her authority or acts in a highhanded manner, enough do that it has become a problem that seriously needs to be addressed post haste.

How did it get this way?

I think there are a number of reasons why we see the police acting the way they do today.

First, there is simply the fact of over-bureaucratization. The more minute regulations you put into place governing somebody's on-the-job behavior, the more that person is going to simply let "the book" do their thinking for them. Many times, when officers come into a situation that would require some flexibility of response, they will not apply it for fear of running afoul of internal regulations, and they end up creating a confrontation, or making one worse. Within heavily bureaucratic entities, whether public or private, common sense is not so common.

Second, and related somewhat to the first, is the fact that many, perhaps most, police departments actively screen out applicants who are too intelligent, on the premise that officers who are too smart will become bored with routine police work and soon leave, thus wasting money and man-hours on their training. The result is that you have departments full of officers with only average intelligence – they're smart enough to handle the work the job requires, but are not really at the level of taking the initiative in instances that don't fit the "by the book" pattern discussed above. They end up making poor decisions that can harm themselves and others, all while applying the letter, rather than the spirit, of a regulation or principle.

Third, police at all levels have an institutional mindset that causes them to close ranks around their own. As a result, good cops still end up protecting violent, dirty, or abusive fellow officers. This makes it difficult for citizens to be able to successfully lodge complaints against individual officers and see those complaints dealt with fairly. Indeed, there have been a few recorded instances where complainers have themselves been harassed and even beaten by other officers than the one against whom the original complaint was filed. This lack of effective oversight allows the police to act poorly without much fear of ever having to give an account for their actions.

Fourth is the regrettable fact that some police officers are in that position because they like the sense of power, superiority, and authority that they derive from it. They like the psychological feeling of being able to force other people, under threat of official sanction, to do what they want. In any organization, you are always going to have some bad apples who will abuse the system to their perceived advantage. In a regular 9-to-5 office job, this just may mean someone is a jerk or steals office supplies. On a police department, this means the abuser has access to a gun, a taser, pepper spray, handcuffs, and the delegated legal authority to use them – which requires much more responsibility, and causes much greater harm when misused.

Fifth, there is the obvious fact of America's social decay. In one sense, you can't blame police officers for being somewhat defensive and suspicious. You and I probably would be to if we had to constantly deal with the detritus of society day in and day out. Let's face it – ours is no longer an orderly society, and the breakdown has created the conditions whereby the government can plausibly make the case (at least in the minds of the "mushy middle") that more policing, more tightening of security, and less freedom are needed to "get control" of the situation. It is to our shame that conservatives for the past several decades have helped to craft those arguments and have been at the forefront in helping to set up a "law and order" police state. While conservatives may not have intended it to reach as far as it has, they forgot that once you uncage the beast, you can't control it anymore.

Six, and perhaps most important of all, is the disrespect for the Constitution and a desire to broaden and deepen the police powers of the state found at the very top – the President and the executive police agencies over which he is the putative head. While the security state began under Bush, it has greatly accelerated under Obama, who has "set the tone," so to speak, for all the executive agencies under him, even reaching down to the state and local levels (especially true as these lower levels become federalized through funding, equipment transfer, and even direct delegation of authority). As he sets an example of executive highhandedness, authoritarianism, and lawlessness, police agencies below the federal level have also began to adopt this mindset.

Let's face it, unless the police are reined in, the present situation is only going to worsen. Increasingly, middle class folks such as myself – who used to be the mainstay of support for the police – are more and more coming to distrust the police, simply because the police routinely treat people who are stopped for a traffic ticket on their way home from work the same way they would a recidivist gangland thug caught dealing crack cocaine. As much as we may want to support the police – and I would like to be able to say I still do, but can't – we support maintaining our natural, constitutional rights even more. No amount of theoretical support for "law and order" should override the Bill of Rights.

So what should be done?

Well, it really starts with holding the police accountable for what they do. In recent years, there have been a lot of problems caused by the police (illegally) attempting to prevent citizens from filming them or otherwise taking public record of their actions. Understand that the courts have repeatedly ruled that it is legal to record police officers in the performance of their public duties. Any officer who tells you that you can't is lying to you. What we need are MORE cameras on the police, instead of fewer. More transparency leads to more accountability. This isn't just theory, either. In a groundbreaking test case, the Rialto, California police department required all street officers to wear body cameras that recorded their actions. The result? Over the year-long trial period, the department saw an 88% reduction in public complaints against police officers, and a 60% reduction in instances where police officers used force in the performance of their duties. The data seems to suggest what common sense also would – accountability breeds good behavior.

We also need to find ways to put mechanisms into place to prevent violations of the Constitution. Warrantless, no-knock raids need to be outlawed. Even in legitimate cases where a SWAT team is called out to deal with a potentially violent criminal, constitutional procedure must be followed. Police officers themselves need to be held legally accountable when they violate somebody's constitutional rights – the costs of their decision to steal someone else's rights should not be shuttled off onto the taxpayers in their communities. Perhaps education for police officers at the precinct or watch level is in order: remind officers what they constitutionally can and cannot do, and what citizens are allowed to do (e.g. refuse searches, refuse officer's entry to their homes, remain silent, etc.).

Demilitarizing the police is an absolute necessity. No municipal of county police agency (or even federal agencies, for that matter) in America needs a tank. They can perform their police work without being de facto violators of the Posse Comitatus Act. Busting up a meth lab is not more important than maintaining the distinction between civilian and military lines of authority.

Lastly, though, what is needed to police the police is a resolve on the part of liberty-loving American citizens to insist upon their rights, regardless of what arguments police agencies or other government officials might make as far as the "need" for security. Failing in this resolve is ultimately what has allowed all the other problems above to exist and to persist. It was sad to see the residents of Boston silently acquiesce to the lockdown of their city by tank-driving, automatic weapon-wielding stormtroopers last year, even if it was does in the name of "fighting terrorism." We cannot allow blind emotion, even that created by as terrible as an attack as the Boston Marathon bombing was, to override our fundamental desire for liberty. In short, we have to ask whether we value liberty or security more – and we have to choose for liberty. Going the route of the police state, as history shows time and again, does not make you ultimately safer. Choosing liberty – even though it rejects the short-term, simplistic answers of the security state – makes you bother safer and freer in the long run.

© Tim Dunkin