Since early 2011 the mainstream press has expressed moral panic over an alleged “War on Cops.” That panic was sparked by a rash of police killings in January 2011. According to a March Christian Science Monitor article, 24 cops were killed on the job compared to only 15 during the same period in 2010. Speculation as to cause included rising anti-government sentiment, or disrespect for law enforcement.
The panic itself apparently fostered a “shoot first” mentality among police, reflected in a record number of so-called “justifiable homicides.” US Attorney General Eric Holder called this state of affairs — the spike in cop deaths, not the over-reaction — unacceptable, promising federal action.
Like most moral panics used to justify government “just doing something,” this one turned out to be — to say the least — quite overblown. Smith County, Texas, Sheriff J.B. Smith was quoted as saying: “I think it’s a hundred times more likely today that an officer will be assaulted compared to twenty, thirty years ago. It has become one of the most hazardous jobs in the United States, undoubtedly — in the top five.”
Well, not quite (that’s a polite, family-friendly substitute for “bull—-!”). In fact on-the-job police deaths had declined by almost half over the previous twenty years, at the same time as the number of police nearly doubled. The short-term upward fluctuation in police deaths was an anomaly, albeit a very visible one against the background of such low levels. That’s why statisticians look for large sample sizes.
Libertarian columnist Radley Balko reported in April of this year that police officer deaths were down 48% from last year — the lowest in sixty years. Death rates for cops is actually lower than that of the general population in 36 of America’s 74 largest cities. The job-related death rate for police is below that of several other occupations, including firefighter, coal miner and sanitation worker (from the carbon monoxide fumes they breathe walking behind garbage trucks).
But if violence AGAINST cops hasn’t increased, violence BY cops certainly has. Complaints of police brutality rose 25% in the seven-year period after 9/11, compared to the previous seven-year period. Despite an overall decline in crime rates and danger of on-the-job injury, police have developed an intensified sense of entitlement to minimize risk to themselves by any available means — no matter how unreasonable.
Nearly every day Balko, who specializes in stories of police abuse, cites accounts of police shooting non-hostile dogs and even unarmed citizens. Grounds? “The officer felt threatened.” Every day another story of a person tased or beaten to death — while in an epileptic seizure or diabetic coma — for “resisting arrest.” Police do whatever they feel necessary to avoid “feeling threatened” under any circumstances, and their political masters back them up.
With crime and on-the-job police deaths their lowest rates in decades, cops defend their hyper-militarization, aggressiveness and SS-chic aesthetic with siege mentality rhetoric about an “unprecedented danger” to police. Frankly, they sound like Lt. Calley psyching himself up to massacre the inhabitants of My Lai.
Situations that cops thirty years ago would have defused with talk and reason are now resolved with “less lethal force” such as the use of tasers on agitated 80-year-old women whose homes were invaded at 3AM. Even talking to a confused or upset person apparently poses a monstrous threat to life and limb — or at least an unacceptable inconvenience for someone in a hurry to reach the donut shop — justifying instant resort to boots and batons, tasers or bullets.
In recent years police resentment has escalated against the growing use of cell phone video to hold cops accountable for brutal assaults on non-violent citizens, perjury, and falsification of evidence. The proliferation of recorded police misconduct on YouTube is forcing a sea change in law enforcement culture, and they don’t like it. They grouse that they “can’t do anything” any more, that they’re “on a leash,” due to constant public scrutiny.
This sense of bruised entitlement is reflected in constant reports of police violence and harassment against citizens legally recording their activities. Other than accidentally witnessing a Mob execution, being spotted recording a cop in the process of brutalizing a prone citizen is about the single biggest danger to your health imaginable. This sense of entitlement to brutalize the citizenry whom they allegedly “protect and serve” resembles nothing so much as that of a big whiny baby, overdue to be weaned from the teat.
This is all typical of government activities aimed at “protecting” the citizenry: At a time of record-low objective danger, police attempt to whip the public into a frenzy of fear (cough cough TSA cough) to justify treating us with unprecedented indignity. Eighty years ago H.L. Mencken explained that government constantly instigated fear campaigns against imaginary hobgoblins to secure public acquiescence in the assault on their liberties and pocketbooks.
Don’t fall for it.
Citations to this article:
- Kevin Carson, The Fake War on Cops, Counterpunch, Late July 2012 Print Edition, 07/12
- Kevin Carson, The Phony “War on Cops”, Deming, New Mexico Headlight, 07/16/12
Apples to apples:
"Homicide by law enforcement personnel accounted for 2,931 (61%) of reported arrest-related deaths from 2003
through 2009 (table 1)."
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/ard0309s…
359 law enforcement officers feloniously killed between 2003 and 2009
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/leoka-….
'"Situations that cops thirty years ago would have defused with talk and reason are now resolved with 'less lethal force' such as the use of tasers on agitated 80-year-old women whose homes were invaded at 3AM."
Indeed. My father was a police officer and I grew up around the local P.D.. Incidentally, he retired before the mass distribution of tasers and before 9-11. Both of these events are rather important when you consider the current state of policing.
While we must be careful not to over romanticize police practices of yesterday, I can confirm from my experiences that there is just a different mindset out there today. Police of my father's era (roughly 70s through 90s) seemed more like blue-collar family men & women to me. Being a cop was a job, not your life. Today's police, in my opinion, seem to be true believers who also have the emotional intelligence of teenage jocks. They seem to enjoy the bureaucratic nitpicking my father and his fellow officers loathed. They are thin-skinned and quick to punish dissenters. And the drug war has given this new generation of police permission to take the gloves off and play soldier. And its not just the ghettos that are being occupied these days!
I completed my undergrad in Criminal Justice and, until fairly recently, I was still considering law enforcement jobs. I had some hope that things in policing would change for the better, since more college-educated recruits have been joining the ranks. It turns out I was naive and I placed too much value on higher education. Frankly, I think we'd be better off with high school grads like my dad and many of his fellow officers.
Looking back at my dad's approach to policing, I think some people would have considered him to be "lazy." I don't think he was, but I will say he was not a "hard charger" (a term he used to describe up and coming newer police that loved "action"). My belief is that he understood that the system was, at best, ridiculous. Thus, he didn't take it too seriously. Based on what we are seeing today, I will take a "lazy" cop over a "hard charger" any day. Well, at least until the day we dismantle law enforcement as we know it and develop community-based alternatives to deal with security issues.
Also, thanks for mentioning Radley Balko's valuable work on policing. He has a new book coming out in the spring, which he just started plugging on his blog, The Agitator.
they are on a dry lake bed or something and you see one 18 wheeler in the distance then all his friends come out from behind him and it is pretty much and 18 wheeler vs police war… cant remember the name is this movie… please help
One (unpopular) thought first: Could it be that we are comparing the wrong statistics, given that police now wear body armor that wasn't available 30 years ago? (Or even 20, IIRC.)
Also of note, the weapons and tactics have changed, which actually GOES ALONG with the higher education levels (less real-life experience, less THOUGHT in the classroom, plus less freedom as children and more ingrained "respect for authority")… A high School Grad even today IS a better choice than the (Liberal – note capital L) College grad, because there's LESS of a Box he thinks inisde – the college grad has been indoctrinated more, restrained more and longer, and in more subtle ways, and been socialized to hide his cognitivie dissonance and pyschological pathologies…. things that WOULD get a cop kicked out, or beaten and taught a lesson, not long ago. Blanket Party might be military terminology, but hey – if a cops; rotten and everyone knows it, you remove the offender, there's a clean line between (sociological) Good and Bad, and everyone knows where they stand. Now, I would almost prefer the Blue Cossacks recruited from the Mafia – instead, they're more like ghetto punks and thugs demanding 'they're respeck!" (Spelling and bad grammar intentional.)
Of course, such approaches result in a worse situation all around – hence the reason the "sword hunt" (Assualt weapons ban? Brady bill? et al?) happened LONG before the police deteriorated to this level. Although… Maybe the removal of weapons from the "subjects" has resulted in abuse of power by the police? If only the state has the RIGHT to kill people? We are cogs in the machine, nothing more.
I think there will be a very ugly future coming, very soon. This election could be the catalyst: No matter who Wins, WE lose.
Last thoughts, now that I've read the rest:
1. Explosive sales will likely go up. Sticky bombs, punji sticks, etc will become viable. CO2 instead of powder, etc. Paintball and Crossfit, only change the painballs to musket balls…
2. If the police were LIMITED to dealing with ACTUAL CRIMES instead of being Tax collectors, maybe most fo this discussion wouldn't START, let alone get to this level.
I guess we'd have to draft people again. Just imagine if there were a world war (which is possible if gas goes up so high everyone's economy tanks), and here we are stuck in Iraq twiddling our thumbs.
Taliban destroying afg pakistan helping terrorist us bombarded JAPAN drones killing civilians vitnam war iraq invasion sudan bombing ready to attack on iran sopporting israil against palestinian…
My recent post Taekwondo at India Fest 2012
The first point of that article is already in place at the federal level in the USA. top criminal justice schools