THE PROS AND CONS OF KICKING BUTT!

THE PROS AND CONS OF KICKING BUTT!

(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Community Policing Topics)

(David Mangan, Drury University, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Being a peace officer in the United States today is a dicey situation at best, with all sorts of implied standards that can be, at times, almost impossible to follow.  I can’t imagine a young person wanting to become a cop for any reason in today’s world; it would be an illogical choice, at least to my way of thinking. To open one’s self up to the scrutiny that accompanies the job and the amount of negative attitude towards an authority figure that a cop is…..would be too much to take, at least for me.

 

With that said, I’m glad that there are some younger people that swallow the rhetoric that city, county and state policing agencies throw out there in an attempt to recruit potential officers. I’m sure that 99% of those people who apply to the respective policing offices have nothing but the purest of intentions, I’ll bet that they would almost in unison say that they wanted to (protect and to serve.)

 

I’ve been around for a while, and although I’ve had little dealings with law enforcement, I do sense an air of authority, and almost arrogance that these people omit. It puts me in mind of a condescending grade school principle…..is there any wonder that, that attitude might piss a few people off whenever they have to deal with a cop.

 

The Milwaukee City Police Department has a long history of abusing their authority and the use of force during the course their daily jobs. One thing that somehow almost always gets lost in translation is the fact that cops are not teachers. Yet almost without exception cops want to lecture a person whenever they are pulled over for anything.

 

Write the ticket and let me be on my way, I personally do not need a lesson in how to drive, or how I observe the speed limit…..I really don’t feel that the regular beat cop is qualified. However if you voice that opinion you’d be opening yourself up for all kinds of retaliatory crap, so the best part of valor is to keep your mouth shut!

 

IT’S THE WAY COPS WRITE THEIR REPORTS

In Milwaukee, since January 1, 2013, reports of use of force by officers have more than doubled…..as a result of new guidelines that have gone into effect. During the same time period in 2012 there were 225 reports of force compared with 538 this year. In this case statistics do not lie; they in fact highlight a trend that is problematic for the department.

 

From the death of Derek Williams in the back of a squad car to inappropriate strip searches, to battering a drunk driver who was lying face down in a park to hitting a drunk women in the face because she was argumentative, Milwaukee cops seem to have covered most of the bases when it comes to the use of unnecessary force.

 

Training, on the job experience and stiffer rules and regulations for how police officers report their daily log work entries can do nothing but help to ferret out the bad cops that exist. However at the end of the day, between the blue wall of silence and an almost complete lack of officers reporting their the bad actor brothers, cleaning up a faulty police department is an almost impossible job to complete.

 

I’ve seen firsthand some of the ridiculous orders that cops figure is okay to issue simply because they are the man. Without exception these kinds of cops had to have come from a childhood of bullying, or being bullied, or have suffered from some sort of childhood trauma.

 

Cops are cynics, everybody to them is guilty until they prove themselves innocent, what a horrible way to approach life, and cops are almost as bad as prosecutors. There are a vast number of injuries that occur during the course of a business day that cops meat out to us citizens, some warranted, and some not.

 

How police officers report on themselves through filling out daily work sheets leads one to believe that cops need oversight. To me, here is the first red flag, why would this work-sheet system be necessary if cops simply did their jobs in the prescribed manner in which it was to be done? Why would cops continually be brought up on misconduct charges and allegations of the use of force against citizens.

 

I guess we’ll be needing a scorecard to keep track of the good cops and the bad cops, and to understand the causes of police brutality will require an interdisciplinary approach. The criminal justice system, police professionals and the psychology professional need to work together to identify these possible causes and their prevention and law treatment. There seems to be a total lack of coordination between the justice system and police organizations.

 

CAN YOU SAY (OUT OF CONTROL)

Police brutality and excessive force happens in every level of law enforcement, under every kind of condition, and includes every police officer. The cop who turns a blind eye to those fellow officers who shine up, or light up a potential perpetrator is as guilty as the offending officer.

 

We are a country made up of laws; these laws protect us from one another, from crime, and from ourselves. We need to be vigilant on how our officials dispense these laws upon us, we need to understand that almost everybody is capable of poor judgment.

 

However the habitual bad actor needs to be rooted out, and severely dealt with, there can be no exception. Unless we are aware of our police force, unless we hold them to exactly the same standards as we hold ourselves, we will deserve what we get…..an out of control police force.

 

We do not need another police state rearing its ugly head up and suppressing people, treating them without dignity and respect. Being a peace officer in the 21^st century is an awesome responsibility, one that isn’t for everybody…..and here, in the recruitment process, we do need to hold the applicant to a higher standard!

HAVE A NICE DAY!