YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Reading Between Lines

So many are angry that things aren't the way  they would like them to be, but rarely do I see anyone come up with a solution that doesn't betray ignorance of the situation.  It's sometimes tragic to me that the people who want to do the most to help end up doing the most damage because they followed the instructions of others who also had no idea what they were doing.

Time to change.

I found out recently that I am approximately 230 lbs. overweight, according to my BMI.  I’m honestly surprised I’m not dead.

You don’t really notice it as it gets worse, just some things get harder to do.  You think “I’m just getting a little older.”  Then you decide “what the heck.  I haven’t stepped onto a scale in a few months.  Let’s see where we are with this whole ‘being a pudgy guy, sopping up the joys of life.’”  Then you notice that you can’t weigh yourself on the office gym’s doctor’s scale because the scale doesn’t go that high.  Then you find a digital scale that can be used to weigh medium-sized livestock...  Then you get scared for your life.



You're a dead man waddling.

 

What’s worse is that you don’t realize what you are seeing in the mirror until someone puts a number in to add perspective.  What you thought you saw in the mirror every morning, from the chest up, suddenly tastes like a lie you were telling yourself.  And it was.

Draw on your phone.

How many people see police - Part II: Maybe it can be fixed.

This is Part II of a quickly outdated rant. Read Part I here, then throw stones.

Let's start this off stating very clearly that we need police. Police serve a very necessary purpose, and are indispensable in human society of any volume larger than a familial village.  You need people who will put themselves in harms way, on threat of death and destruction, to protect the innocent from those who would cause harm.  Police don't have to be the enemy.  At this point, the basic actions of officers following their own policies in the line of duty make people feel like they are.

As a young adult, I learned two very important lessons about police from observation alone:  

1. Police are people doing specific jobs. 
   
2. Police are not there to help you.

Regular, everyday police officers appear to have a long punch list of responsibilities, much of which seams secretarial. They check info, search records, write mandatory invoices (citations), keep up with email, texts, and verbal communications, and generally stay on top of paperwork.  All of this is to support their most visible duty of catching bad guys, generating revenue in the form of fines, and keeping things "normal."  The best that I can tell, "normal" means non-threatening to conservative middle class citizens who need to get up and go to work in the morning.

Of those three visible duties, only the first two appear to benefit the officers directly.  Unless someone complains, you can't reasonably measure peacefulness.  You can measure arrests/convictions, you can measure infractions, and you can measure volume of citations.  On what do you suppose police officers' performance appraisals are based? 

There must be a direct correlation between a cop's approval from his superiors and the number of crappy days he can hand out to individuals in the general public.  This means than he is going to sniff out each and every easy collar he can grab. That means you are getting searched via dog, Mr. Pipe With A Mostly Burnt Bowl In The Glove Box, and you are spending some of the night in the drunk tank, Ms. Openly Drinking Your Third Smirnoff Ice On Your Front Porch. If your actions can lead to an easy conviction and make an officer look better, you had better believe you're spending the night or posting bail. 

This brings us to the nastier bit. If he  can't easily catch you doing something illegal, it makes him look good to incite you into aggravation, then arrest you, or worse.  Imagine you're some regular schlubby guy, out for a drive with your girlfriend in a beater of a car, and you pop a flat.   Your car sucks, was bought used and was not well maintained, so one or more of the lugs are frozen.  You've been fighting the thing for an 30 minutes to get it unstuck and are just starting to make headway.  Then two 6 foot tall 20 something's, who obviously spend hours in the gym each day, pull up with lights flashing, including a random strobes. From their, they chuckle about how you aren't strong enough to even change a tire, they proceed to threaten you with a ticket for being stopped on a highway, start staring hard through your windows of your car window, begin actively questioning your girlfriend about you and what your doing, where your going, etc., and start telling you how bad your car sucks, how it shouldn't be on the road, how you are a dumbass for driving such a crappy beat up wreck, and asking why you can't afford something better...Maybe a little autobiographical, but I've seen this happen several times.

  

These two officers are larger, in better shape, wearing body armor, (harshly) talking to your girl while keeping you separated from her, insulting your vehicle, insulting your intelligence, insulting your strength, and insulting you economic status.  Basically, all those things that can be done to make a man feel incompetent and emasculated are being done by these two men.  Add disorienting lights flashing and flashlights shining in your eyes every few seconds.  You feel angry and hurt, even if you don't give a crap about what they think. This is on a basic animal level, and it is a set up to create a potentially aggressive situation initiated by you, the citizen.  Act aggressively to a policeman on a regular traffic stop and see what happens.  I'll see you when you get out of county jail, assuming you make it there. 

Maybe this is not really the case, but my personal experience and the testimony of a fired NY police officer tell me differently.  This process is reportedly supported unofficially, but not supported by the law or official policy, so you probably won't find this information in public records, aside from lawsuits filed by people who refused to take it.  

In addition to this set of very specific jobs, police are not there to do anything else. They are not there to be helpful or get you out of a jam, even if you are powerless to fix the problem on your own and are creating a public hazard by letting it continue. A real life example of this is completely autobiographical.  I was in college, driving a heap of gold Chevy Cavalier, when my crappy old car died on a hill just past and intersection.  I had no chance of fixing it, and had no cash, so I was left to try to push the thing back into a parking lot.  As I got the thing rolling, an officer pulled up in my path, then threw up his lights, forcing me to jump into the vehicle to keep from smacking into his bumper.  He questioned me, then proceeded to stand there, still slightly blocking the way, and watch me  struggle with this vehicle.  I asked if he was could give me a hand, and he said he could write me a ticket and have my vehicle impounded, if he was going to do anything. I guess he was being nice. And, while having a crappy attitude as he said it, he was being nice.  He stopped traffic so I could fix my problem could and wasn't making my crappy night worse.  Helping me was not his job, and he was doing a favor to me (and probably him) by holding back on his job, thus not starting what amounted to a lot of paperwork and hassle for everyone.

Imagine if that guy was having a bad day and wanted to push someone around.   I was young and angry enough to have had a really bad last day.

Lets go ever these points one more time: the job of police is to suspect you of everything and to do what they can to catch you doing ANYTHING that will lead to a conviction,  even if they have to essentially force your hand. Police are not there to be at the public's disposal, and they are not on your side. They are on their side.  You might be on their side today, but that does not make you friends or allies.  The Law is generally designed to hurt everyone equally.  That it doesn't is often considered an injustice rooted in prejudice, targeted laws, and all sorts of privilege that you can decide about for yourself.  I'll scream about that another day, in another way. 

Anyone who has regular dealings on the outsider end of the police business are aware of all of these things.  Imagine your neighborhood has a constant police presence, so all these behaviors are a daily hassle, and a sense of endangerment is directly attached .  How would you think of police? Even if race is/was not a factor (here's hoping), do the protests in Ferguson, MO, make more sense?

How are police or supporters of police officers confused about this?  I'll tell you how: there is a sense of community and additional privilege of which they may not really be aware.  Think about where you work. You get perks and probably have an understanding with your fellows that you generally look out for each other on some level. If not, try being friendlier to your coworkers.

You probably have the inside track on whatever industry you're in, with some easy access to the cream of the crop or your product/service.  Unless you've made enemies, your co-workers will generally hip you to crap coming your way, and you, knowing your business, should have the inside scoop on how to avoid the problem.  Now imagine your business is law enforcement and that you consider yourselves "brothers in arms."

"But Crow Drinker," you say, "aren't police officers supposed to be above that kind of nepotism?  Isn't that kind of crap illegal?"   To this, I chuckle out a resounding "probably," but these are still people. People are deeply flawed, often on a personal power trip, and often break the rules, even if their job is to enforce the rules.   It doesn't make it right, but it is so.

How do we fix this mess?  There are a number of ideas we can explore but they all boil down to three basic behaviors:

1. Police must be accountable for their actions.  If you are in the business of being allowed to kill and brutalize, every action taken leading to the those acts must be recorded and be available to the general public, without subpoena.   GLOMAR should not ever be allowed in domestic law enforcement.
2. Police must respect the rights of citizens with the same respect they wish (not are) to be afforded.  This means they must stop trying to dominate every situation and intimidate in the name of "controlling the situation."
   
   
   
   
   Take this guy, for instance.  He is present, he is actively scanning for suspicious activity, but he is calm and he is not attempting to exert himself on everyone.  If there is an actual evident reason to be aggressive (like actual, visible  probable cause), then they must do what is necessary to complete their job.
3. Police must actively do some visible, positive good for the general public.  Budget some money to HELP people, not just punish them, and make sure they see it.  Do it in the neighborhoods that you patrol the most.  Give them a reason to trust. Currently, the badge only brings fear. One thing we can learn from nature alone is that scared things fight or run.  Isn't that the opposite of what law enforcement wants the public to do?

Maybe these things are not practical, but they make sense to me.   Maybe I'm the one who hasn't given this much thought.  This glass of Crow is tasty.

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.

Robin Williams is Dead. Who is going to pick up the crown?

 

 

In case you've been under a boulder at the bottom of the sea, Robin Williams is dead.  There are enough perfectly good (and maybe even valid) discussions on mental illness and depression, so I have no comment there.  I will let the better prepared and more knowledgeable on the subject wax on end.

 

The question I have is "who is next?"  I don't mean who will donk themselves off after bearing what feels like the weight of several worlds crushing any sense of esteem they may carry, but, instead, who will pick up the torch, dawn the crown, and become the next truly beloved comedian who is willing to make an absolute fool of themselves while link to the hearts and minds of us and our children?

I have no idea, myself.  I don't see any of his caliber, nor any with his power or presence who don't seem like they cranked out right before hitting the stage.  I have an idea that just blinked on, as I write this, but I am a little sickened by the idea.

Could Jimmy Fallon grow into the kind of man who could be as beloved?  He has the skills but he doesn't have the warmth or that endearing quality Williams carried like a goofy favorite uncle.  Could he grow into that kind of man? 

Let me know what you think.