Cops of 1950s, ‘60s

I want to suggest something that’s often overlooked in cases of police violence: the pernicious effects of the war on drugs.

We tell police they’re warriors and then act surprised when they treat people as the enemy. It wasn’t always like this. I’d like to share what I heard from some former police officers a half century ago.

One of my first jobs after high school was in the mailroom at Miles Laboratories in Elkhart, Indiana, in 1972. Next to the mailroom was office supplies. The guys in office supplies were retired cops from South Bend, Indiana. They were all nice guys. We had coffee breaks together twice a day.

Cops who were retired in the early 1970s were guys who worked through the ‘50s and ‘60s. It wasn’t all “Ozzie and Harriet” and “Leave It to Beaver,” but it wasn’t a dystopian hellscape, either.

They told me they all knew who was selling drugs and who was running the brothels. If there was a serious crime in a neighborhood, they would make the rounds and say, “We’ve been going easy on you, as you know, but now we need to know who committed this crime.” The dealers and the madams often knew how to find out who the police were looking for. Dangerous people went to jail, and life went on.

Cops then weren’t fighting a war on drugs or a war on crime. They were just regular guys trying to do their jobs. Most cops today are still decent men and women trying to do their jobs. But today, we’re asking them to do the impossible. And sometimes they get frustrated.

And angry.

And they carry deadly weapons.

— Dave Coyne, Goshen, Indiana