How many people see police - Part I: Teach 'em YOUNG!

This is a two part post.  Bare with me here.  This one might sound a little whiny, but I'm going somewhere with this.

This is not political. If it is made political, the point is missed.  This is about the police and perception.  Specifically, this is about the perception that police consider everyone a criminal and may gun them down in the street with impugnity, at their whim.  This is about how we got these ideas and how to fix them.

Unfortunately, the facts are that you may be detained without charge, while being 100% lawful. If a law enforcement official wishes, they can charge you, or have you charged, with just about anything, any time.  At this point in American law, there are federal, state, and local laws on the books that make things you do every day illegal, or so the internet would lead me to believe.  

If you know you've done nothing wrong, and don't wish to have someone who knows nothing about you besmirch your good name by arresting you, objection may get your beaten, resistance or dismissal may get your killed.  The past week's events indicate this.  This guy corroborates it.

Prof./Officer Sunil Dutta.  Image use without permission from Washington Post

Don't get me wrong.  I'm a law abiding citizen with a good job, insurance, and retirement.  I wear suit and tie to work, and my friends consider me to be a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to doing the rule breaking that so many my age do.  I'll stick to my Old Bottle of Crow, thank you very much.

And moist.  YAY!

I am not going to touch on inherent racism, as it's already being addressed on almost every blog that is covering Ferguson.  I am white (in most of the US), and I can only speak from inference and 2nd hand description as to what it is to be a "person of color" in a land that would feel the need use a term like that... at least they use that term in the polite parts.  I will say that I feel like what I'm about to explain is maybe about 1/5 power of what it's like to be suspected based on your heritage alone, not your choices to stray from the "norm."

What we're focusing on here is on how the perception of police as "oppressive" seems to be a reasonable outcome of firsthand experience of police behavior.  The police may not mean to, but they teach this impression to many youths with whom they professionally interact.

If you grew up anything like I did (suburban rock/rap listening youth exercising his God given right to wander around and explore your town), your earliest solo experiences with police went something like this.

Don't be fooled.  I was way fatter than that.

After having to explain, twice, why you would dare buy things from a convenience store and walk around town in the middle of summer, you would have gotten to go on your merry way, minus your pocket knife (something kids were allowed to carry back in the olden days, apparently).  I guess it was OK to carry a knife if you were at Boy Scout meetings, in church basements, but not if you were out in the wide world where you might actually need the utility.

If you said anything to the cop who stopped you, other than answering questions and handing over whatever you had in your pockets that the constable on patrol might wish to take,  physical intimidation and threats of arrest/detainment were the alternative.  When kids did this to each other, it was called bullying. Isn't there some sort of national campaign to end that kind of behavior?

I understand why they did this. My T-shirts or jeans were often drawn on with sharpie, my hair was longer and often dyed some color or other. It's important to remember that I looked like an "at-risk" kid, which I was.  "At-risk" means "criminal" unless you are a politician or social worker.  The fact that I was some sort of misguided straight edge at this point in my life means nothing, as the meaning of the X's drawn on my hands hadn't made it into the news yet.  Even if they had, I would have not been the first punk to do some false advertising to avoid hassle, search, and seizure.

These brushes with the law were not exactly daily occurrences in my teens, but they taught me immediately that if I wished to go about my business expressing myself as I saw fit, I had to avoid the police.  They WOULD keep me from my business.  This became worse as a young adult, but we'll get to that in Part II.  

The schools weren't much help. We had a resource officer whose responsibility involved watching for gang activity (and yes, there was a fair amount of gang activity) and informing students each year of their rights and school policy.  Specifically, his shtick involved informing us that if we were attacked by anyone, that any effort to defend ourselves would lead to suspension, expulsion, or worse.

So lets re-cap two of the early lessons taught to teens: If you look the least bit weird or unusual, you had better watch out.  You may be legally mugged of your things and have your time wasted.  If you defend yourself against any attack, which very well may happen during this most hormone laden time in young men's life, you are at fault and may face educational and legal repercussions. It doesn't matter if you mind your business or handle your business, you could be pretty well screwed by the law.  Neither protection nor service there. The seeds of mistrust are sown early.

Tomorrow, in Part II, we'll get to this guy below, and how we can return police to being trusted and perceived as something other than an ever-present threat.