Policing has to change

Disclaimer: I am a middle aged straight white male. That places me in the most privileged of all categories of people.

I grew up being taught that the police were our friends. They were there to protect us. My grandfather was a police officer, my uncle an RCMP officer. My Father instilled a healthy respect for these people. After all they risked their lives every day to protect us right? I am mostly writing this for my friends and my family, for them to understand why I choose to be so vocal about recent events, and why I am siding so strongly with the protesters in this case.

I still very much want to respect our police. I want to believe that they have our best interests in mind. That they take the job to do good. But lately my faith has wavered. My respect for the system at the very least is absolutely gone, and my respect for the people that are part of that system is going away fast. This is very much a struggle for me.

One thing that has always bothered me is the concept of the “thin blue line”, the idea that police officers should stand up for each other. While I believe this in theory is a good thing, in practice it is utter shit and dangerous. How often have we heard the “few bad apples” argument? If it were just a few bad apples where the hell are the good cops when they are doing their bad things? If the bad apples are so outnumbered by good cops, how can they possibly exist? Why aren’t the good cops doing something about it? I mean be serious, if you work somewhere and one or two people are destroying your efforts do you protect them? Do you make excuses for them?

So the “few bad apples” argument is utter bullshit. If you’re not doing something actively to get those bad apples out of your ranks, then guess what, you’re no better.

I watched a news report the other day that sent in undercover journalists to police stations to ask how to file a complaint against a police officer. In most cases the person was met with visible hostility, in many cases they were threatened, told lies about how the process worked. In one case one officer threatened to arrest the person making the request, when asked on what charge the officer responded “I’ll make something up”. In another case the officer followed the person out of the station and actually arrested them on a trumped up charge.

Of course there were stations that followed the rules, gave the person a complaint form to take away without any harassment at all, but they were very much the minority.

During these recent protests the video of the behaviour of police is disturbing at best, and mostly disgusting. I have watched on live TV as police fire tear gas and rubber bullets into peaceful crowds. I have watched them attack journalists clearly showing their press credentials. I have seen them pepper spray pedestrians from cruiser windows as they drive by. I have watched them pepper spray people from behind just walking down the street. I have watched them drive SUV’s through groups of protesters. The MPD attacked a group of people sitting on their own porch with paintball guns while screaming “light them up”.

During protests about police brutality, the vast majority of the response has been to double down on the brutality. The US is attacking their own citizens. Instead of laying proper charges on the 4 officers involved in George Floyd’s death they have attacked and arrested thousands of protesters.

Now there have been videos of the protesters behaving “badly”. There has been looting and fires. But, again, in many many cases the aggressors have been the authorities.

When white protesters showed up at government buildings with guns, where were the police in riot gear? Where were the tanks? Just showing up in riot gear is an escalation. That tells people that you don’t care about their rights. When you do that to people protesting for their very lives, that show up with water and snacks, but you don’t do it for people protesting that they can’t get a hair cut what message are you sending.

In Canada we spent $15 billion dollars on policing and $5 billion dollars on prisons in a year, we spent $13.4 billion on federal programs for affordable housing in the last DECADE.

We are militarizing our police, why do the police need tanks and military level weapons? They are supposed to be protecting us, who are they protecting us against that require these things? The cost of one of those tanks could feed thousands of homeless people. This is insane.

Then you have the “just do what they tell you and you’ll be fine” crowd. Sorry but this is decidedly a privileged view. I can comply and likely everything will be fine. But then I am a middle aged white male.

George Floyd was complying. Enough said.

Ask yourself a question. If you were caught on video, kneeling on someone’s neck while they begged that they couldn’t breathe, and three of your friends stood by and just watched. What do you think the outcome would have been?

Do you think prosecutors would wait until they had their “ducks in a row” before arresting you? Do you think the initial charge would have been third degree murder? Do you think “I feared for my life” would be a reasonable defense?

Police are supposed to be held to a higher standard than the general public. They are trusted to be our protectors. When they break that trust they should be punished more severely, not less.

Conclusion

I could keep going, on and on, about what is broken but I doubt many people will even read this far.

I want to believe there are good cops and I want to believe they are the majority, recent evidence doesn’t support this though. Good people do not turn a blind eye to bad behaviour.

I want to believe our police are here to protect us, but recent evidence doesn’t support that either. They protect property, which in turn equates to they protect the wealthy, the privileged and their own.

Policing is broken, the culture surrounding it is broken. I am sure there are good police officers, after all they are humans too, but until those good people start shunning the bad apples and forcing them out of their ranks. Until those good people stop closing ranks to protect each other. Then policing will remain broken, and the “few bad apples” argument is a lie.

Being silent, is being complicit.