“Support the Police”
“Thin Blue Line”
“Back the Blue”
The “thin blue line”- “support the police” – “back the blue” are terms that typically refers to the concept of the police as the line which keeps society from descending into violent chaos.
I struggled with this (past tense) – I no longer struggle with this because I dug a little deeper into it – I now view it like I view any crime, abuse, or hate – if it exist.
I 100% support the police WHEN the police function as designed, within their regulations and the law.
I 100% don’t support the police when the police DO NOT function as designed, within their regulations and the law.
Some background: I have regular conversations with many friends, family, and acquaintances about many social issues, which includes support (or the lack of support) for the police.
In many of these conversations the following questions often came into play:
First question – In America (land of the free), is there really a significant number of police who abuse their authority, and their ability to inflict harm or compromise a person’s civil rights? There’s a lot of gray areas associated with this topic, so we proceeded on the premise that there was (or was not) a significant number of these events – significant meaning measurable, observed, or quantifiable.
If the answer to the first question is “yes” then (second question), is abuse of policing extended exponentially more on people of color? To be clear, certainly not to imply that whites are not also on the receiving end of police abuse.
Third (and final) question – Are there significant numbers of police officers that typically function as designed (within their regulations and the law), but will not “call out” or report fellow officers for abusing their authority?
About 18 months ago a dear friend told me, “There were tens of thousands per year” of cases of police abuse, a significant number of which were against people of color” – I questioned the number (tens of thousands), seemed like a gross over exaggeration – so a few of us began to do the research (most people never do) to answer the three questions above.
We had to come up with sources for our findings – we agreed that court records (criminal, civil, law suits, and settlements) would prove to be the easiest to find and most verifiable – we agreed news reports (print, broadcast and digital) could be considered if we all agreed on the source (tragically, many new sources today are garbage) – we agreed first hand information could be used as long as two (or more) complete sides of the situation could be illustrated – we finally agreed to consider a balance of agencies/organizations who professed to be in support of police, as well as those not in support of police – we began to dig.
Remember our targeted number for our research was, “tens of thousands per year” of cases – a work friend pointed out that to reach that number, we’d have to validate about 30 cases a day of police abuse – we continued to work, accumulate and track our findings – our data tracking was very rudimentary – the first data cut was: courts, news, first hand, and other – the next data cut was locations, states and major cities – the finial cut was persons of color or not.
We stopped doing the research about ten months into the exercise – you know where this is going – the evidence was unmistakably overwhelming:
Question number 1: Yes, in America (land of the free), is there really a significant number of police who abuse their authority, and their ability to inflict harm or compromise a person’s civil rights? More than 10,000 per year.
Question number 2: Yes, abuse of policing extended exponentially more on people of color?
Question number 3: Yes, there were significant numbers of police officers that did not “call out” or report fellow officers for abusing their authority? NOTE: This means, in cases where abuse was evident, the report did not typically come from within the police.
As expected, high density cities and states had higher numbers of apparent cases of police abuse – low income, underdeveloped urban areas also illustrated increased numbers of abuse cases – the demographics were not surprising – the only surprise was the sheer numbers of cases.
In most cases, there was no real evidence of causation for the abuse – in about 30% of cases involving courts, and investigations, or rulings cause pointed to: absences systems of enforcement to prevent abuse, poor training, lack of leader or peer enforcement, compromised egos, mental illness issues, racists patterns, previous similar behavior – this is also not surprising.
NOTE: I experienced similar findings in my time in the military – many Soldiers were just bad and systems had to be in place to bring them to light and address the issues.
Its not a question of supporting police, or not supporting police – it’s really a question of supporting correct, fair, and just policing… or NOT supporting correct, fair, and just policing.
So, here’s the hard part… why are some many of us (who claim to be law abiding citizens) NOT standing against police who DO NOT function as designed, within their regulations or the law? Why do we ignore it? Why do we tolerate it? Why don’t we clearly stand against it? What does this say about us?
“Support the Police” “Thin Blue Line” “Back the Blue” – yes, of course – as long as the police function as designed, within their regulations and the law – otherwise they’re just another criminal.
Kevin's Thoughts 