In Defense of the Defenders

As National Police Week comes to a close, it is important to take stock of the current narrative about police officers and the subsequent push for reform within the institution.

In the current climate, it’s apparent that our defenders now need defending. The completely irrational way we analyze and talk about law enforcement and their actions needs to be reset.

The media has castigated police officers with a disdain reserved for few professions with maybe the exception of politicians. The effects of this can be seen in society at large especially among young people. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Self-fulfilling prophecy: an individual’s expectations about another person or entity eventually result in the other person or entity acting in ways that confirm the expectations

Encyclopedia Britannica

Convicted criminals receive more favorable coverage than the police. The police are not the enemy. This should go without saying but these days it appears that what used to be regarded as common sense must be said or it is missed.

Here a few reminders.

There is something to be said for the man/woman that is in the arena.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt (“The Man in the Arena”)

Until you are in a life and death situation, you don’t know the physiological and psychological constraints officers deal with on a given shift.

The job requires a rare combination of a Type A personality with a great deal of self-control

Officers are routinely dealing with individuals in the worst moment of their life when they are under the influence of drugs/alcohol or trying to evade apprehension

(I never get the interviews with the suspect’s family or friends after these incidents. Understandably, they will be biased. They are grappling with the loss of a loved one. The police were dealing with their loved ones at their worst not when they were cute and cuddly babies as they are remembered by those who knew them.)

The pressure to make the right call in a split second while also dealing with a rapidly changing situation, incomplete information, department procedures, various state and federal laws and belligerent bystanders all without losing one’s cool is a daunting task under the best of circumstances.

The additional stress of knowing any confrontation can lead to complete loss of privacy, severed family ties, instigate mob violence, lead 24/7 news coverage, disavowal by their department/politicians, trial in the court of public opinion, loss of job and benefits, imprisonment or death.

It’s a wonder anyone goes into the profession at all.

To be clear, high stakes don’t mean officers are given a pass and that they shouldn’t be held accountable. Accountability is actually a major part of the solution. Law enforcement leadership can’t let the struggle to hire quality people and meet diversity targets lead to the retention of incompetent officers when their behavior clearly illustrates they should be fired.

All I ask is that the general public be skeptical of media coverage of officer-involved incidents, use critical thinking skills and be slower to pass judgment on events they were not present at, do not have complete information about, don’t know applicable protocols and laws to, and saw 20 seconds of bystander video of.

The pendulum has swung from believing the officer is right and honest in every situation (not true) to the notion that they definitely acted with evil intentions in every situation involving a minority (also not true).

In the same way African Americans don’t want to be mistreated because of perceptions about their black skin, police officers don’t want to be unfairly demonized because they have chosen to wear a blue uniform.