Mates,

Taking a cue from the Covid diary which was informative, I will try to do the same here, but about the issue of police, racism and brutality.   I worked in law enforcement in Socal for over a decade before coming back home to Michigan.  A substantial amount of my time was dedicated to gang enforcement and included running a task force with a Lt, 2 sergeants and 20 investigators from various agencies.  For years my cases were gang homicides, drive-by shootings, beatings, stabbings, tortures, etc.  How many bodies do you want, how do you want them killed, and I probably have a true-life story that fits.

It is a sad fact that there are racist, brutal, dishonest cops.  There are also racist, brutal, dishonest coaches.   And grocery store clerks.  And judges, and bloggers, and stockbrokers, and teachers, and you get the picture.  The problem with police officers is that their occupation makes them uniquely capable of adversely affecting or ending someone’s life in the process.  We see the fruits of that from time to time, but right now it is front and center.

Beyond racism is the fact that there are bad cops (and fill in every other profession) who lie, cheat, agitate and put everybody in their circle in danger.   It is the human condition, and until the second coming the world will have those people.  I want to look into what cops do, the environment they work in, and maybe an idea or two about making things better.

I. Race Relations in the Varrio

In a word, race relations in the varrio can be complex.   Your typical gang usually comes from a particular neighborhood and reflects the ethnicity of that neighborhood.  Most gangs are of a single shade of melanin (or lack thereof), though some other melanin combinations are occasionally mixed in.   To the extent that these folks go to the joint (state prison) then they will segregate themselves to a severe degree by racial lines. Painting with a broad brush here, but in the joint the most common troubles are between brown and black factions.   And if there is a big dust-up, usually the brown and white gangs will align.   YMMV. 

In the streets the gang warfare is usually by neighborhood and that means, frequently, by race.  However, the vast majority of the crimes will be inflicted on groups who have the same melanin content as the perpetrator.   Of course, you have some cross-racial disputes that can be very, very bitter and lethal.  As an aside, even though the black and brown gangsters were physically more imposing and more numerous, the Asian gangsters were not messed with as much as one might think as they were, candidly, more intelligent and better armed.   I don’t have time/space to talk about bikers and skinheads. 

 II. Cops in the Varrio + Some Examples

One of the things about police work is that it is different than literally any other occupation.  It demands skills that span from social worker to soldier and everything in between.   Beyond that, working in your worst urban neighborhoods is vastly different than working (or living) in swanky suburbs like Bloomfield Hills, Shaker Heights, or Evanston.  The mentality of those you meet in the streets, the level of danger and of chaos, is so much different than what most people will ever experience in their lives that its kind of hard to explain.  I’m going to try with a few stories, some I tell when asked to talk on the topic but I’m doing my best to abbreviate them here.

1.  K.R. and the Gangster Bar

One of my all-time favorite peace officers was a guy I’ll designate as K.R. KR was Hispanic and worked in the same city that he grew up in, though things had changed a lot.  He was as smart, gracious, and honest of a person as you would ever hope to meet in any occupation.  He was a gifted investigator with a knack of getting people to talk with him and also had an uncanny providence to have major crime happen right in front of his eyes – like shootings over the top of his car.  One night he and ‘Juice’ (NTJ) went into a gangster bar that was a cross between the Star Wars bar and the scene out of Animal House (“Hey, Otis!”).    They are looking for a guy who has a warrant.  They find him, and when he goes to stand up they see he has a gun.  At this point Juice broadcasts on the radio, “10-33”, which means ‘emergency radio traffic only’ – basically every law enforcement agency immediately shut up, no radio transmissions.   There is quiet ‘hiss’ of silence and then you hear Juice yell in rapid succession, “9-9-7!  9-9-7!’.   In the background of that call is an unholy roar.  The 9-9-7 call means, in essence, ‘We are dying. If you hear this call get here Code-3, lights and sirens, right now, we are dying’.   KR and Juice were literally being attacked by a bar-full of gangsters.  They were taking bottles, chairs, punches, kicks, and everything else.  The guy that KR was trying to get the gun from was going for KR’s gun and KR was getting hit so hard he was losing consciousness.  There’s lots more to the story, but the calvary arrived, K.R. lived and was taken to the hospital, and yeah, there were some bodies laid out.

2.  Execution on the Highway

One of the last warrants I filed before I left was for a gangster that murdered a CHP officer on a vehicle stop.  Pulled over at about 0300 hrs for speeding, the gangster who was driving put his gun under his left arm pit, and as the CHP approached the vehicle the gangster shot him, with the bullet going under the officer’s Kevlar vest.  The gangster then got out, put the gun to the forehead of the wounded officer, and pulled the trigger.

3.  Parolees in Paradise

Dealing with parolees is its own joy.  Understanding that I’m painting with a broad brush, the psychology of felons is really hard to describe without writing a book.  The thing most likely to be missing is logic and self-control.  However, at least in my day, there were some honest cons (slang for convicts, having been to the joint).  We went to hook one up one evening and there was a regular beat officer who rolled back-up to transport the arrestee.  The parolee was calm the whole time until the transport officer was getting involved.  The con called one of our guys over and asked that we take the cuffs off of him so he could kick that transport officer’s tail.  The con was getting $^t-talked by that other cop for no good reason.   The Sgt pulled that cop aside and he got a talking to, and we were sorely tempted to take the cuffs off.  In retrospect, that’s the type of cop that is trouble.  That’s the guy that is going to agitate, cause trouble, and resort to force too soon.  

Outside of Rodney King’s evening back in ’91, I really didn’t see what most would call brutality.  And to parse the King matter more closely than most like to, the use of force was justified at the start of that rodeo.   As providence would have it, Rodney’s next arrest came across my desk a couple years later.  Talk about a hot potato.

III. Some Suggestions – And What About Jerk Cops

Having sons, and with xtramelanin in our household, you know I’ve had ‘the talk’ with them.  That talk is given more than once and with greater specificity as they get older.   There is a heightened alert for many cops when pulling over people of color.   The race issue gets wrapped up with the safety issue and whether the cop is a jerk issue.  Remember too, the first rule of law enforcement is go home at the end of your shift which means to be alive at the end of your shift.  I will add that I have been to too many ‘cop’ funerals, guys I knew.   There is something that pulls at your heart beyond the normal funeral.   Anyway, a couple of suggestions. 

1.  Body cams.  Body cams.  Body cams.

As simple as it sounds it is beyond belief how many problems this one provision solves.  No longer having a swearing contest.  No longer guessing who said what and when.  Certainty as to how much time a given activity took, what the witness or arrestee did, the route a chase took, etc.  They aren’t perfect but I have to tell you this one simple idea will solve about 99% of the issues in terms of what happened and who gets held accountable for what.  

Police officers train on the proper techniques to use force and to arrest.  More training isn’t a bad idea, but ultimately knowing that someone will be held accountable is the trump card of behavior modification.  I would add that Detroit PD is notorious for ‘losing’ the downloads of video from their scout cars.   That is what corruption looks like, more benign than a fight or a riot, but the effects can be horrendous. 

2.  What To Do If You’re Pulled Over

I imagine every set of eyes that sees this has been pulled over, and many will be pulled over again.   Reading the earlier thread today we see not all encounters like that go fine and one thing that might be helpful is to be prepared.  Remember, the officer wants to go home at the end of the shift and you can help her/him do that and if you’re cool, you have a way better chance of not getting a ticket.  If you get pulled over:

1.  Turn all music/sound off immediately
2.   Pull over quickly and if it’s possible, in as safe of a place as you can find
3.   All windows go down unless it’s a blizzard or downpour – ease of view
4.   If you’ve got it quickly available have your insurance and registration at hand. In our rigs      we put both items in one envelope that is clearly marked that way. 
5.   Drivers, keep your hands on steering wheel with palms facing you. 
6.   Easy, relaxed movements and don’t reach for anything unless you let the officer know, ‘My    insurance is in the glove compartment, want me to get it now?’
7.  If its dark turn your inside dome lights on once you have pulled over – again, put the officer   at ease.   
8. IV. Conclusions

A couple of quick conclusions.  We all know that racism is bad and so is brutality.  Some cops are awesome.  Many are pretty good, but some are horrible.  They are the ones that never made the JV team and got swirlied in high school by some of you and they haven’t forgotten that indignity.  That said, police work can be unbelievably taxing, tense, difficult and require a host of skills that no other profession demands.  And its dangerous: precious few of you have been a one-man unit, at night, pulling over a car load of who knows what type of people, and if somebody starts acting up you might be at the wrong end of a 2,3,4-on-1 fight to the death.   Most cops deserve our respect.  The bad ones deserve to be fired and/or prosecuted.  Record, record, record. 

p.s.   I wrote this with the other board posts in mind and hope I am not adding fuel to any fires.  If so, take it down, I’m not offended and certainly don’t want to offend others.

XM