Missouri’s Petulant Police in Ferguson
Last night the police didn’t intervene as the looters took to the streets of Ferguson Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. “I think the first message is to remind all law enforcement that they are hired to serve and protect and if they’re going to sit back and watch looting, they’re not serving us; they’re not protecting us,” Pastor Robert White told the local Fox News affiliate. Former St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch tweeted: “You did not see “police restraint” overnight. You saw police reluctant to act. We cannot keep stoning the keepers at the gate.”
This is a case of a police force clearly acting as petulant as a five year old who doesn’t get its way. Either we allow the police to do what they want, treat American soil as a de facto warzone and act as an army of occupation that is allowed to shoot first and ask questions later, or it’s not going to do its job. The “keepers at the gate” referred to by former police chief Fitch clearly have forgotten their mission to serve and protect. Their motto isn’t to disarm and pacify. This is Ferguson not Fallujah. Perhaps they need to get stoned to remember that, and if one of those rioters can’t hook them up Colorado is only 2 states away.
Do all American cops think this way? Do they see themselves working in a constant state of war in hostile territory? I need to understand how cops have become more paramilitary forces who subjugate and pacify the enemy and less beat cops who know the people they protect. I don’t see why such paramilitary tactics are needed in cities and suburbs in America of the 21st Century. We are a less violent society today than we were 40 years ago, so why are cops dressing and reacting as if they are living in a dystopian nightmare from the 1980s movie Robocop?
I want to believe that all cops don’t think this way, that there are some who understand the difference between policing and pacifying. But just because I want to believe doesn’t make it real.
Todd N:
It would seem to me that some of the police dept’s in this country have a siege mentality. In the town where I live a few years ago a section of town had at least one shooting or stabbing a week. One of our local college professors (a professor of criminal justice) said that the Police need to get out of their cars take off the mirrored shades and talk to the people in the neighborhood. Our local police dept did just that and low and behold crime went down. I don’t think the skin color of the police or the residence matters. Making that connection and communicating is what matters.
18 August 2014, 12:46 pmScott Kirwin:
Todd
That type of siege mentality really bothers me. It just creates a self-reinforcing cycle whereby the people don’t trust the police and the police don’t trust the people. My teenage son has expressed interest in law enforcement, so I believe cops need to understand that not all the critics of their tactics are anarchists who want cops to die. The last thing I want to do is see more cops shot; I don’t see why we can’t have fewer innocent people killed as well as fewer cops injured.
What about the idea of going back to two cops one car? I’m not sure what the solution is, only that the path we are on is dangerous for our society – and that includes the cops as well.
18 August 2014, 12:54 pm