LAW AND DISORDER
Demands for accountability in policing are increasing, but will they really amount to change? »
I believe police departments need to be more transparent, and I think some form of civilian input is needed.
I’m coming at this from the perspective that the vast majority of police officers are exactly like the vast majority of the rest of us: They’re decent humans who want to do their job, go home, eat dinner with their family, have a beer, and bet on some Korean Baseball (that last one might just be me).
I’m also coming at this from the perspective that most police departments are a nest of vipers, that police unions are entirely too strong, that we sometimes all forget police are in our employ, and that somewhere along the way we ceded way too much power to the idea of police serving and protecting — at any cost.
To be clear: I sure do like law and order. I just don’t like law and order at the expense of liberty.
Here’s a story I’ve told before: 1994 or thereabouts, I’m riding shotgun in a burgundy red Plymouth Reliant K. We’re headed to Monmouth Park down I-195 to bet on the ponies. I’ve got hair like a Black Crowes session player.
We get pulled over by a state trooper. He asks my buddy driving the car if he knows why he got pulled over. He didn’t know. The answer? Air freshener hanging from the rearview. Then the officer asked us all to get out of the car. He asked us if we had marijuana. Then he searched the car. Then he asked for all of our IDs. He saw mine and said, “Oh, a nice Irish boy, huh?” He then searched us. Hands in our pockets. He pulled out my friend’s Marlboro reds and rooted around. He came up empty. He let us go.
When I got back to my room later (I was in college), I called the state police. I wanted to file a complaint against this trooper. There is zero reason we should’ve been pulled over — seriously, the air freshener was not putting anyone in danger — and there was even less reason we should’ve been bodily searched.
The answer I got from whoever I spoke with on the phone? In a nutshell, this: “Go ahead and file a report. We’ll know who you are, we’ll know your license plate number, we’ll know everything about you.”
I didn’t file a report.
We weren’t hurting anyone, we weren’t doing anything wrong, but we were in a beat up car and I had long hair and the trooper’s notion of “protect and serve” certainly went way too far. And when I wanted to complain about the treatment, I was legitimately threatened. (Honestly, a better solution to all this would be to decriminalize drugs, but that’s a column for another day).
Now granted — this was some 25 years ago, and I’m sure a lot has changed. But I’m also sure a lot hasn’t. (And furthermore, if I was really scared, I could have cut my hair. Hence, zero in the way today of Black Crowes Session Player-Looking Dudes Lives Matter).
OK. Storytime is over. Let’s quick go over those “perspectives” I laid out earlier.
Nest of vipers: It’s true. I have plenty of friends who are or were police officers, and every single one has stories about how police departments seem to always have a high level of internal bickering. This is from guys new to the force to old-timers who walked the beat in the 1960s. They’re all like old married couples. To my ears, it makes it hard to effectively govern each other when there’s so much backbiting.
Unions too strong: How many police officers are fired for job performance? I’m not even talking about actual, honest-to-goodness misconduct. I’m just talk
ing police that are lousy at their jobs. I have to imagine the number is in the single digits. As for actual,
honest-to-goodness misconduct? Many end up getting rehired at other departments.
Police work for us: We’ve lost that. It’s gone. Don’t believe me? I don’t care who you are, when you get pulled over,
your heart starts racing. That shouldn’t be our base response. It doesn’t feel like “protect and serve” when you’re getting pulled over because you’re going 10 MPH over the limit, or you forgot to re-register your car, or your taillight is out. Granted these are legitimate “offenses,” but they end up being expensive and help keep the “us vs. them” mentality alive. (Again, laws should probably be changed).
All of this adds up to police departments being entirely too insular. It’s clearly time for some level of civilian input into the workings of police departments. Transparency
should be of tantamount importance. Newark has been in a four-year court battle over this issue, and the state Supreme Court will be weighing in. That decision will have a monster impact on what other towns and cities in New Jersey will do.
I truly believe the overwhelming majority of police officers are in the job for the right reasons, that they are good people tasked with helping to keep our towns, cities, counties, states and nation safe. It’s a tough job, and we need to support them. It would be easier if we, the people, had some access to their dayto-day. Civilian input is
imperfect, to be sure, but it sure seems like a necessary step right now. (Yes, imperfect. Why? Because the unless you’re a police officer, you don’t know what it’s like to be a police officer. Take an excessive force complaint: Who gets to decide what is necessary and what is excessive? Sometimes, it may be obvious. Other times - and probably most of the time — it’s not obvious. This isn’t a blanket “do what you gotta do, boys in blue,” but seriously: There are probably countless times when what might look like bad actions by police are, in fact, necessary. I’m guessing/hoping it massively
outweighs the unnecessary instances.)
One thing I always hear from the conservative crowd on this issue is something like, “If you aren’t a criminal, you don’t need to fear the police.” We all know that’s not entirely true — see ol’ Long Hair above — but I guess all I’m really saying here is “If you’re not a bad cop, you don’t need to fear transparency and civilian input.”
Jeff Edelstein is a columnist for The Trentonian. He can be reached at jedelstein@ trentonian.com, facebook. com/jeffreyedelstein and @jeffedelstein on Twitter.