Baltimore

Baltimore

You may have noticed that I have been silent about my opinions of the recent events between the police and the good citizens of Baltimore.  There are reasons for that.  I am baffled, confused, and dismayed.  I’m also pretty perturbed. 

Rush to Judgment  First of all, I think it is terribly wrong for any rush to judgment about what has happened.  Even with the state’s attorney pressing charges against the defendant police officers, it means that she has met a minimum standard to file those charges against the officers.  Though she may have more than enough evidence to pursue charges against the officers, the legal standard is that she merely has more evidence against them than not.  It is a 51% standard, a mere tipping of the scales.  In criminal law it is called probable cause, which is a far cry from proof beyond a reasonable doubt.  If she has in fact met the low standard that is required for charging and arresting the defendant officers then there will be a much greater likelihood of somebody prevailing against the officers in a civil suit, which also simply requires the tilting of the scales in favor of the plaintiff.  In civil litigation it is called proof by a preponderance of the evidence. 

Personally, I think the state is going to have a difficult time getting convictions on all defendant officers of all charges, but that is pure conjecture.

Bottom Line: It is inappropriate to make any assumption of the guilt or innocence of the defendant officers in this case.

We Don’t Know All the Facts  Closely related to the Rush to Judgment is our total lack of knowledge of all the facts.  The only side of the story we have about what happened in the Baltimore case is what accusers and state’s witnesses have said.  We do not know the officers’ side of the events that took place.

Police Conspiracy  As I have watched the events of Baltimore unfold and their mushrooming effects on the rest of the country, the one theme that seems to be consistent throughout all the demonstrations and rioting is that there is a unified police conspiracy throughout the country to persecute and harass blacks and other minorities.  This assumes that thousands of police officers around the country have the necessary time and the desired inclination to carry out such a conspiracy.  It also assumes that police agencies would utilize tools available to them to carry out this conspiracy, namely the U.S. Mail or their interagency communications systems, which would just happen to be highly illegal and easily detectable by federal agencies.

More likely, the so-called oppression and persecution against and harassment of blacks and other minorities might have something to do with the fact that if you are in a high crime area and are acting suspiciously and run from us we are going to chase you, or if you have a gun pointed at us we are going to shoot you, or if you threaten us with a knife, a rock, or a baseball bat we are still going to shoot you, and if you resist an arrest we are going to hurt you.  Racism has nothing to do with it.  You behave badly you will treated accordingly.  Period. End of discussion.

There is a time and a place for being nice in police work.  It is O.K. for the police to interact with local neighborhood kids and play a pickup game of basketball from time to time.  It is O.K. to stop and chat with the women’s group meeting in the park.  It is O.K. to help the elderly couple stopped alongside the road changing a flat tire.  However, you don’t hand a coupon for a free Happy Meal to the guy who is yelling, screaming, and cursing at you for stopping him for speeding 20 mph over the speed limit.

Now, am I suggesting that all police are fair and even-handed and that there are no bad apples in the barrel? Not at all. There are men and women in the profession that have absolutely no business in the profession and the majority of us are happy to see them g-o-n-e.  Are there racist police out there?  Yes.  But does racism among police rise to the same level of public servantism there is among racial and other minorities toward the police?  You see, the public and the media has a habit of painting us all with the same broad brushstroke. It is like saying that all surgeons are fools because one surgeon operated on the wrong body part. It does not lessen the effect of the botched surgery, but it does not merit the labeling of all surgeons as bumbling idiots.

Sir Robert Peel  The Father of Modern Policing, Sir Robert Peel who began the London Metropolitan Police Department said that the police are the people and the people are the police. Unfortunately, the people seem to have abrogated their responsibility totally to the police.  Nevertheless, the police are a reflection of the values of the communities that they serve.  James Q. Wilson, noted criminologist from UC Berkley noted that police departments behave in one of three styles.  Actually, he says that departments rarely act in purely one style, but that they act in some combination of three styles: Watchman, or Legalistic, or Service Oriented styles.  Some departments may be more into assuring that the laws are strictly obeyed while others are more into providing (social) services to their communities.  Other communities are more interested in keeping outsiders at bay and having the police ignore all but the more egregious offenses.  Regardless, each community has some mix and balance of these three styles of policing and they are implemented because that is the community expectation.  Communities change their minds and when they do, police follow suit.

Everybody wants to be treated fairly.  Unfortunately, what is fair in the eyes of one person may not be fair in the eyes of another.  I like to refer to the Bell Curve, and I have found that it applies to people’s attitudes and behaviors when it comes to policing.  The vast majority (about two-thirds) don’t care what happens unless it happens directly to them.  About one-sixth of the population is ahead of the curve and they will always be pro-police no matter what happens.  It is the other one-sixth, the group that falls behind the curve that will never be happy with the police.  The police could rescue Grandma and six children under the age of 10 from a burning house and they would complain because the police didn’t go back into the collapsing house and rescue the gold fish.  (Trust me on this one.)

National Police Force  In the midst of all that has been going on ever since Trevon Martin there has been a call for revamping how police operate, even though the Trevon Martin case had absolutely nothing to do with the police.  Among the suggestions has been a nationalization of police.

As a side note, several years ago I predicted that there would be a move toward nationalization of police.  My good friends Gerry Weeks, John Chicoine, Chuck Barone, and Neal Colyer who are all occasional Facebook users will attest to this.

But, it isn’t going to happen; at least not now and not anytime soon.  We are fifty sovereign states with our own laws that were created at the will of the people.  We as a people really do not want to give up local control, and we should not.  And as a practical matter, moving to a nationalized police force would require the amendment of fifty state constitutions.

Celebration of Arrested Police  I think one of the most disgusting thing I've seen is the celebration that took place in the streets at the announcement of the charges being filed against the police officers in this sad incident.  Have you ever noticed that police do not make a public celebration when a criminal has been arrested. When a "civilian" is arrested there may be a press release or a press conference, but there is no popping of the champaign corks, no dancing in the streets, no whooping and hollering and chest thumping.  Police do not make a public display across the nation of the arrest of a murderer. Seattle police do not dance in the streets in celebration of the cleared murder investigation that took place in Houston or Chicago or Ferguson or Socorro, NM, or Whiteland, IN.  I think I can say with 99.9% certainty that the police in Seattle don't have a clue about a murder in Whiteland, Indiana.

At most, police breathe a sigh of relief at the apprehension of a serious offender. There might be a private small office celebration at the conclusion of a prolonged investigation. But camera hugging celebratory dancing in the street?

Police Don’t Riot  Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but the police don’t riot when one of their own is killed in the line of duty.  There are no mobs of police burning cars, breaking out windows, or looting stores, or shouting in the faces of the citizenry chanting “No Justice, No Peace”.  There is no rock throwing or pitching of bottles at fire trucks, no blocking of ambulances on their ways to render aid to the sick and injured, no charging head on into private citizens, no surrounding the homes of the families of people who assault and kill police, no crying to the media about how unjust the citizens are, no demands for exorbitant compensation.  There is no head run to attorneys to represent their grievances to the media.  There are no fire and brimstone sermons in churches calling for wholesale ignoring of requests from the public for help.  You don’t see the police getting all worked up over the death of a fellow officer.  What you see is a quiet, dignified display of honor and grief.  

Funny how that works.