In a society based on law and order, the role of police is very specific. If someone has disobeyed a law, we give to police the authority to stop the person and issue a ticket naming the violation that has occurred.

The remainder of our system of law and order is in the hands of the courts, the lawyers, and the judges. The person who has violated the law goes to court and either accepts the police interpretation of the violation or fights it. The judge is the person to whom we have given the authority to determine what punishment, if any, the violation should receive.

We do not give the police the authority to determine that someone deserves severe punishment for disrespecting an officer, such as putting them in handcuffs and arresting them, such as throwing someone on the ground and kicking their kidneys if they mouth off.We do not give police the authority to intimidate someone who has disobeyed a traffic law by surrounding them with heavily armed forces and detaining them for as long as they see fit. We do not give police the authority to extinguish the life of someone by keeping a knee on their neck until they die. We do not give police the authority to execute someone in a hail of bullets because they did not respond to a police command.

Punishments are not part of policing. When police mete out punishments, they violate the system of law and order that communities ask them to uphold. People distrust and disrespect police departments that accept or encourage punishment as part of a police officer’s role. Punishments belong in the realm of the court system, not in the hands of the police. If we want to reform our police departments, or help our police departments feel confident that the community is behind them and the role they play in a keeping law and order, we need to engage our police departments in a discussion on how to rebuild respect for police officers.

If the law being violated is a criminal offense – burglary, theft, arson, murder, assault, and so on – we give to police the authority to arrest the person. This is the only place where handcuffs belong. By making an arrest, the police are taking away our freedom. Because we are a free society, the police must follow several procedures to protect our rights.

Police are not allowed to use excessive force. Police are not allowed to treat someone with cruelty. Police are given the authority to use the least amount of force necessary to protect themselves and to bring someone into custody (FindLaw.com).

Police officers do not have the authority to arrest someone or put them in handcuffs because they are rude, or because they think the person might have stolen something, or because the person is in the vicinity and looks suspicious to them, or because the person has an arrest record, or because they are tired of citizens protesting, or because they are confident that their department will back them if they behave like Gestapo.

If someone with that temperament is assigned to a community, it spells trouble and protests. If someone with that temperament is assigned to be a school officer, it spells trauma for boys and girls who do not behave the way authoritarians believe they should behave: children as young as 6 put in handcuffs and taken to the police station, teenaged girls thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and arrested. All because an officer decided to punish a child for defying authority, or for acting out emotions too complicated for a child to talk about.

In order to arrest someone, the police need to have some evidence (probable cause) that the person has committed or intends to commit a crime (FindLaw.com). For example, a teenager walking into the middle of a peaceful protest with an assault rifle strapped across his chest is ample probable cause to stop the person for questioning. A father with three children in the back seat who tries to get into his car is not providing probable cause for a shot in the back at close range by an officer who grabs him by the shirt to pull him out of the car. If we have hired police who can’t tell the difference between those two, we need to have discussions with our local police forces about hiring and training practices.

The current protests about the murder of George Floyd and the shooting that paralyzed Jacob Blake and all of the other death and bodily harm caused by police forces against Black people have this theme in common. They are about police using the uniform to justify punishment as they see fit – with discrimination and with impunity. Protestors are saying to police forces nationwide, “No more executions! No more executioners on our police forces!”

Police and their supporters want more respect for the uniform. Respect comes from consistently, to a person, doing the job the community hires them to do, so the community has to be clear about what that job is. Some people will still mouth off and challenge authority. Some people will still say that disrespect or disregard for an officer’s command is the problem. That is no reason for murdering or maiming people.

Punishing people for civil or criminal violations is NOT part of policing. Failure to obey police is NOT a license to kill the person, especially in a society so racially charged that BIPOC are terrified that encounters with the police mean instant death.

Protestors are asking us all to look at these questions of policing versus punishment, to consider what reforms are needed so that BIPOC brothers and sisters aren’t living in terror. We want to get ourselves back to a society of law and order by reexamining the role of police in our communities.

 

*I’d like to thank Tonda Rush for her Facebook post of 8/29/2020, regarding the intertwined issues of respect for police officers and the role of the judiciary, which was the inspiration for this piece.