I had been the cops and courts reporter at the Newton Daily News for only three weeks when I went on my first police ride-along. I spent the evening patrol with a young, pleasant officer who is still serving at the NPD today.
It was a fairly quiet evening in February of 2011, but we took a call regarding a middle-aged male subject who was allegedly looking at young teens from his pickup truck. We received reports that the subject was driving through a park in northern Newton. The officer spoke to a group of children in the park who corroborated the story.
The officer immediately recognized the subject’s vehicle and physical description and knew the man had a history of looking at young girls in an inappropriate manner. With a sense of urgency, the officer drove to the subject’s last know position, and we found the man driving through the southwest neighborhoods of town not too far from Maytag Park.
We followed him for a bit, and when the subject arrived at his residence, the officer — a bulky built fellow in his mid-20s — spoke with the subject about his behavior. The officer had a very calming presence, but made it quite clear to the man this activity would eventually to lead to a devastating place. Knowing that he had no cause for arrest, the officer put the fear of God in the man without even raising his voice. This demeanor is a talent and difficult to mimic.
In smaller, Midwestern communities relationships with local police departments tend to be less adversarial. Core groups of repeat offenders might take issue with police activity, but the general public has an overall positive viewpoint of law enforcement.
But in larger cities, a contentious culture between minority and low income communities and police has persisted for decades. The profiling and subconscious racial biases of the Caucasian population toward Black America, Hispanic America and minorities in America in general has manifested itself in recent incidents of police action against young black men in two notable instances, resulting in fatalities. For these cops, cultural misunderstanding leads to fear which leads to aggression and hate. It’s easy to fear what is not understood.
The August 2014 shooting of black teen Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo., is well documented, as is the rioting and violence which persisted after the grand jury decided not to indict the officer who shot the teen. This was followed by a widely agreed upon injustice in New York City where an unarmed black man was suffocated by an arresting officer in the aftermath of a nonviolent crime.
The reprehensible slaying of NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu which followed the protests is an example of how misplaced anger can quickly spread to the innocent. The violent protesting has done nothing but fuel the anxiety of our men and women in uniform as they put on their Kevlar vests and go to work each day.
But as those who might feel farther removed form these events, we should attempt to look at these protests — both violent and peaceful — through the lens of history. The new Hollywood adaptation Selma directed by Ava DuVernay reminds us the shadow cast by the detractors of the Civil Rights Movement and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is not that far from memory. The progress gained since the 1960s cannot be described in any other way other than fragile. We have given people the rights assured by the constitution, but our society has yet to prove we can rid ourselves of unconscious biases that still persist and truly transcend the legacy of our forebears.
This doubt has manifested itself in the events of Ferguson and New York. But police officers around the country go to work every day, not able to fully promise their families that they will come home safely, so the people of Ferguson and those around the United States can exercise their rights to peacefully protest. Although the injustices by some police departments have been brought to light, as a society we cannot allow ourselves to forget the tens of thousands of cops who go to work daily to defend our neighborhoods regardless of the dominant creed, ethnicity or orientation.
We need to continue to train our police forces how to deescalate potential deadly situations, but we also need to learn to trust law enforcement in this country. Only when those who feel oppressed feel they are supported by our officers, and our officers feel there is nothing to fear, will we move forward with clarity toward a just society.