Whose side are you on?

Folks,

Dean, a few weeks ago, asked a very good question: “Whose side are you on?” regarding
videocamming oneself in an encounter with police for self-protection. The idea for a product one could buy that allowed one to videotape their encounters with police perhaps would make
a good item to develop and sell, perhaps worldwide.

Just so happens the following weekend I took a road trip to San Francisco with a retired police
detective, and with both of us gifted with ADD/ADHD we spoke constantly for 12 hours
straight driving time (each way) with neither getting a word in edgewise. We will call this
retired officer “B.”

AS to citizens with an attitude, B’s view was “how things go depends on how the officer
handles it.” It is always a small group of the same officers who get into the fights and
problems.

Fresh out of the academy, B’s first Field Training Officer (FTO) stopped on Alki (a popular
drive in Seattle) and showed him a brief case with marijuana, cocaine and heroin in it. “I plant
this on @$$#*)@&” the training officer said.

His second FTO parked outside a lesbian bar where patrons (matrons?) parked across
abandoned railroad tracks. Technically that is a parking violation, so the FTO wrote up all the
gals, just to make life a wee bit more miserable.

B had been in the Navy 8 years, some in Viet Nam, so he already knew there can be good
guys and bad guys in any service. He just resolved to be one of the good guys.

B started as a young cop in the late 60’s during the student riots and the black militancy
movement. For his part the riots were more shoving matches, so he never felt the need to
keep whacking when a student fell down. When he pulled over Aaron Dixon, the head of the
Black Panthers in Seattle, for illegal lane change, B got a full ration of attitude from several
Blacks in the car. His rule was “never escalate,” so he ignored their taunts, gave Aaron a
caution, as he would anyone else, and let him go.

One of the ongoing complaints Blacks had in the ‘60’s was cops would always handcuff
Blacks after an arrest, and rarely handcuff whites. It was up to the arresting officer whether
to handcuff or not. My friend spotted a Black with a felony warrant sitting in a jack-in-the-
box restaurant and went in and arrested him, in spite of the felon being surrounded by his
friends. The felon hesitated, stood, and presented his wrists for shackling. B said, “Sir, will
that be necessary?” The felon said “no!” and they walked out to the squad car and drove
down town for booking.

(The imbeciles who write police procedures rules decided instread of handcuffing fewer
Blacks, the solution would be to handcuff everyone, behind the back, on every arrest. Now
they handcuff old ladies, suspects dying from gunshot wounds, and even handcuff people
who are NOT under arrest!)

Another time some fellow in a martial arts outfit had several cops at bay with some fearsome
looking moves. The cops were ready to assault him when B approached, bowed deeply martial
arts style, and repectfully requested the ninja nutjob to accompany him downtown. The
fellow complied when shown a little respect.

Once when responding to a call in a flophouse a tenant drew a 357 magnum revolver from
under his blankets and pointed it in B’s face, as B’s partner dropped back to draw his weapon
and fire... B had already grabbed the gun by the cylinder, so the nut could not fire the
uncocked gun. Turns out the fellow had stomach cancer and wanted to commit “suicide by
cop,” but B would not oblige.

Most cops are like this: calm, level-headed, competent without an axe to grind, wanting to
see things turn out OK for everyone involved.

That’s not to say he never had to get physical. He recounted one time he and his partner had
to drag a very thoroughly beaten prisoner out of the back of the squadcar when a uniformed
lieutenant happened by, looking over the scene with a scowl. Without any question the
lieutenant said “Good work, men...” and walked on. That was rare. But it did teach him that a
cop with a beaten prisoner is given unquestioned credibility.

On the other hand, one of the best friends he made on the force (opposites attract), a famous
officer, was notorious for aggressiveness. They met and became fast friends during riot-
control baton training during which the fellow severed his baby finger clean off, and kept on training.
This officer was regularly in the papers for his over-the-top incidents. He was taken off street
patrol and put on Harbor Patrol after he brought in a hitchhiker beaten to a pulp. “Hitchhiker
resisted a ticket...”

B’s motivation for being a cop is probably fairly typical: to serve and protect. He enjoyed
stepping in and defending the defenseless and hustling the dangerous off the streets.

There had always been fairly light anti-drug abuse laws, but with Nixon there came the “war
on drugs.” B volunteered. To make a long story short, over time, you name wrong cops can
do, B got around to it, short of murder.

In fact, it was an offer to B for a contract killing that caused him to finally retire. Seattle cops
as murderers is not unheard of, about 1972 one had murdered a snitch in an alley off Pine
Street unaware the snitch had wired himself. Somehow News5 got the tape and led the 11
oclock news with it.

Some say it is just a matter of firing bad apples. Short of murder, no cops gets fired, unless
unloved by the brass. Officers who step out of line get an “attaboy” and nobody has to say
anything directly to get “the job done.” When some prominent citizen has been raided twice
and no drugs show up, the judge says “last time” to a warrant, the brass says “last time” to
the cops, and the cops understand, “this time find drugs.” And they do. As the officers
invade, one anonymous officer throws a felonious amount of dope in a closet and moves on.
Another officer discovers it, the arrest is made. The defense lawyers polygraph the officer
who discovered the dope, and the officer truly swears he did not plant the dope. Conviction
guaranteed.

Problem was, after years in undercover narcotics and intelligence, B found himself tempted
by an offer for a contract killing, and decided enough was enough. He was offered Harbor
Patrol too, but he was afraid the first time he came across a yacht with coke, he’d be back in
trouble.

The people who manage police forces have all studied Max Weber, and all accept the
definition of government an entity within a certain geographic boundary with a monopoly on
violence. The bottom line is violence, the last resort is violence, and the police wield it. B
just did not want to cross that line so far as murder.

There are alternatives to Weberian ethics, such as the last resort being a jury, or other
premises, but let’s deal with what we have.

We have a system of good cops, yet it generates bad cops, and a system that has a hard time
recruiting good cops. The powers that be like having bad cops on the force, for special jobs.
The bad cops distort the whole profession.

Some people see a cop tasering someone and say...”I’ll never be a cop..that is sadistic...” Of
course some people see a cop tasering someone and says...”I wanna do that!” It is a
downward spiral.

Cops are of course used as political pawns, enforcing whatever campaign du jour the political
class cooks up. At the same time while enforcing laws cops are short-manned as politicians
feather-bed with yet another gardener in the parks departments but leaving police staffing
undermanned. If something bad happens and people demand “more police!” then they can
raise more new taxes for those, too.

The police officer was invented bout 150 years ago, spread to USA about 100 years ago, and
undergoes “reform” about every 20 years, because it just does not work out. Most law
enforcement, property protection and peacekeeping in USA is in private hands anyway, to
mover to 100% private would cause no disruption.

Back to the question "Whose side am I on?" I am the side of the police who are put in an impossible bind, and
consumers who do not get their money’s worth. Police are in a system that suffers from an
internal contradiction: taxpayers are obliged to pay, but the police are not obliged to serve.
The Supreme Court has ruled so.

There is a useful detour in this argument: while our discussion was flowing on this topic a
few weeks ago, and in regards to other discussions of private vs. govt provision of goods and
services, people have emailed me to encourage me to promote Congressman Ron Paul for
President, for surely he is a good man who will make a difference. I agree, his philosophy is
Jeffersonian free market/small government, and no doubt with him as president we’d see
good government trickle down to local police departments who would fire any and all bad
apples, sound money so police pensions were secure, less government campaigns distorting
the economic landscape and we’d have bad cops fired, and better and more good cops
working.

But this misses the point. Ron Paul is a politician. He believes some government is
good. The undeniable fact is every good and service government might provide is better
provided by private business. Private business is superior to even good government. So to
settle for “good government” is to settle for less tham optimum distribution of material
goods and services among humankind. My argument is we can do better than the “good
enough” of good government.

So the question is “whose side am I on?” My friend who committed crimes as a police officer,
a system that led a good cop into perdition? The government that deployed and destroyed
him pursuing political ends? A police sargeant who threatens a kid with false arrest because
the cop does not have the maturity to ignore some snotty teen, and thus makes good cops
look bad? The good, straight cops whose pensions are empty? Cops who are at risk
because their back-up is a sub-par hire, or worse yet, there is no back-up because there is
money for a gardener but not for a cop? Their problems all go back to the same source:
government interference in what ought to be privately contracted.

When I say “let’s turn all police work over to private enterprise” I am coming up with a
solution to the problem, a solution that would bring us more better cheaper faster in
protection of persons and property. Soon enough the material benefit of security in persons
and property would be available to then poorest among us, as surely as everyone has a cell
phone today. It is not an alternative universe to the one we have, because most of our
security is now in private hands, and we can resume having it all there again. Dealing with
security would be like dealing with Home Depot or Saks 5th Avenue, not the government.
(Indeed, a most excellent San Francisco cop I know quit and moved up to Head of Security for the entire
Home Depot Corp.) The best people working as police now would be working in these
private biz as police. People in security business would be properly deployed and
compensated if they were in the free market, not in the obviously failed experiment of having
some police work handled by government. Isn’t the one who wants to get rid of the job of
“police officer’ the one on the side of the cops?

John

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