Police and Public: A Two Way Steet That's Closed

It's been over four months since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO shone a light on a part of the American politic that most citizens would rather not face or acknowledge. Race in America is always a sensitive subject, and more importantly, certain to stir deep passions. When an unarmed young black man is shot by police, it is certain to cause great anger within his community, no matter the exact circumstances. When the shooting occurs in a Southern city, when the police of that predominantly black township is predominantly white and when the reaction on all sides seems tone-deaf at best, it would seems inevitable that trouble would follow. In the following months, more young black men were shot by police. More accurately, in the following months the press reported about more young black men who were shot by police. And this week, the next, and equally inevitable chapter was written, when two police were murdered while on duty, gunned down in cold blood by a young black man.

And yet, we have yet to acknowledge the real problems, of which all the violence and angst of these past months is but a symptom. While the New York police may blame the death of their colleagues on the rhetoric of their mayor, a bit of introspection should tell them that the badly disturbed killer was not taking his cues from Bill DiBlasio, especially when he first shot his ex-girlfriend in Baltimore before heading to New York. If anything could destroy the righteous anger of the thousands protesting peacefully, it was this senseless act, and the greatest tragedy in a tale marked by more than its share will be that protesters will now be reluctant to air their legitimate concerns and that the supporters of harsh police action will feel and act vindicated. In weeks past, athletes on the biggest TV stages made a quiet statement with mute gestures as they entered the stadium or a simple T-shirt message.

Perhaps the saddest aspect of this sordid mess has been the response of the police to these protests, or in fact any protests. The St. Louis police demanded that the Rams football team apologize for drawing attention to the fact that Michael Brown was unarmed when shot, as were the victims in so many other similar cases. The police do not understand the frustration and anger in the communities they serve and in turn feel that those protesting their actions do not appreciate the risks they face daily, every moment that they are in uniform. That is essentially the same feeling that has led to a almost juvenile behavior of the New York police, when the mindlessly lash out at the Mayor for his empathy with an unarmed man who died in a police choke hold; they ignored the equal empathy he wished to display when their fellow officers were murdered in cold blood last week, in part because they feel that his earlier criticism denies him the right to condole with them in their loss.

Like a couple in a bad marriage, both the police and the minority communities do not see each others point of view and every act is seen through a prism of distrust. Add in a racial filter and it's all too easy for the two sides to neither hear nor understand each other. In reality, all the anger has obscured an important fact: these deaths are not about race, they are not about a police force out of control, it's most certainly not about the wrong and overeager use of lethal force or prohibited choke holds. Those are all valid concerns, but they are simply symptoms of the actual underlying problems. Not surprisingly, both problems are fairly uniquely American and that in part makes them both harder to recognize and certainly far more difficult to address.

The problem starts with manpower and cost. The US has always struggled with the high cost, and shortage of, manpower and the police forces have been no exception. It's generally left fewer officers on the street than might be ideal, and police departments have always turned to technology to extend their reach with fewer personnel. We've seen police switch from foot patrols to police cruisers; in the last twenty years, most departments have switched from a pair of officers per cruiser to just the one officer in each car. This definitely extends the reach and coverage of units with limited personnel, but it exacerbates  a different problem that I will address below. However, the most obvious effect has been to create a gap between the officers and the neighborhoods they police. A modern police force, reflecting the modern view of policing, should interact with the community. Totalitarian states, echoing the concept from colonial nations of yesteryear, use their police to suppress and control their population and the police serve the ruler, not the people, but in a liberal democracy one would expect the police to live up to the idea that they serve the community. It's a concept that receives plenty of lip service (after all, nearly every department has "To protect and serve" in its motto) but without a real interaction between the groups on either side of the blue line that sentiment rings hollow. The problem goes far beyond just a lack of information on criminal activity; when the police force is insulated from the people there is a lack of empathy in both groups and a real lack of understanding of the issues that the other side faces.

Given the generally enlightened attitudes on race, so far removed from just fifty years ago, I cannot imagine that even a predominantly white police force walking the streets of an inner city populated by black people or Hispanics would be unable to reach out and develop a rapport with the people. But this can happen only if the officers can interact face to face with the people. Human interaction should never be underestimated, and it can transform the way people think about each other and the way they act. Conversely, when police and citizens are separated, there is a dehumanizing aspect - think about rap music referring to police as "pigs" - and when forced into confrontation, it is a lot easier to employ lethal force against someone that isn't really seen as a fellow human being. Once the first step of separation is taken, the gap simply widens. Today, even when one encounters police out of their cruisers, there is a lack of interaction. Given that their paths will rarely cross again, neither  the citizens nor the police make much effort to even greet each other more than perfunctorily. When police do respond to a call for their services, they tend to be professional (in the best sense) but there is a lack of human contact in the meeting; we are but statistics, mere numbers in a spreadsheet rather than people. Again, this is not a failing of the officers at a personal level - when given the chance, police officers have reacted with great warmth and sincerity - but the system in which we live today makes such events few and far between. In the end, the best chance one has to meet a police officer today is when one is a victim. Or, sadly, suspected of wrongdoing. Given the relative time we spend not in either role, it's not surprising that we barely know each other. When the only interaction between the police and people is suspected crimes, as is the case for so many young black men, it is hardly surprising that the only emotion between them is suspicion, fear, resentment and anger.

This lack of interaction plays no small role in the other major problem plaguing police-civilian relations, and as I mentioned before, this too is a quintessentially American problem: guns. Now admittedly, I am strongly in favor of gun control and naturally any case involving a shooting death will prompt me to urge greater control of firearms. It seems so self-evident to me that an overabundance of guns, coupled with ever less control on who may carry them or where they may be taken, is the greatest reason that police will react with lethal force in any confrontation. In the case of Ferguson, MO, the police officer has testified that Michael Brown lunged towards him, and he reacted instinctively to protect himself. Leaving aside the possibility that his story is not strictly true, the fact is that a police officer would be not unjustified in suspecting that every person he confronts may be armed and willing to shoot back. When police confront a person, they fear him or her, just as much as the person fears them. Just this past weekend, an officer in Flagstaff, AZ was shot dead when he responded to a domestic violence call. When an officer in Cleveland shot and killed twelve year old Tamir Rice, he was responding to a report of an "armed man"; as it turns out that was a kid with a toy (but realistic looking) gun who refused to obey an order. From the kids viewpoint nothing made sense - a police officer (who he was probably conditioned to distrust) order him to drop his gun and lie flat, as though he he some dangerous criminal. For a young kid on the cusp of becoming a teen, refusing an order would seem the most natural thing in the world. For a policeman, lacking any empathy with the boy he's confronting, who may be armed and dangerous, that refusal was enough to trigger his deadly reaction. No one was wrong and no one was right - but a child died because he had a toy gun.

The fact is police face a danger every minute they are on duty. They are alone, stripped of wingmen - costs and manpower shortages have reduced patrol cars to just one officer per vehicle - so many stops involve two and three cruisers converging on a single vehicle before the police approach. If the person stopped turns violent, the police have little chance to protect themselves from the first strike and hence they respond with measures designed to give themselves some protection, but which are humiliating for those on the receiving end. Now when you add in racial tensions, and a lack of empathy between police and civilians, every move by one is viewed through a hateful prism of distrust and even the smallest, most innocent actions are interpreted in the most negative manner possible.

These are not problems that can be solved easily. Having the same number of police per capita as say France, would involve increasing the total number of officers by fifty percent, a cost increase that is beyond unimaginable. Even were that possible, our sprawling suburbs would make foot patrols impossible and even if we had the men to walk the streets, they would find contact rare; in the inner cities, decades of distrust will not vanish overnight even if we could triple or quadruple the number of officers and worse yet would probably lead to an initial feeling of being invaded and occupied. Guns are so deep a part of American culture that removing them from the equation between police and community is not even worth a thought today. Until America awakens to the consequences of universal gun ownership, nothing will happen, and so far the attitude has pure denial. Meanwhile we will continue to send our police for more training and we will write lengthy directives on the correct protocols for employing deadly force. But our police will remain removed from the community around them, suspicion and distrust will continue and increase, and the next confrontation will end as always - in a death, that whether it's that of a child, a young adult or a police officer is just as tragic.

(On a sidenote: for those who think that more guns would reduce crime and killing consider that two armed officers of the NYPD were shot down before they or anyone else could react. Two trained police officers could not save themselves from a less than emotionally stable civilian; what chance then for a bunch of people who have never trained to react to a shooting situation?)


Some interesting links:
Today more and more police wear body armor while on duty -  http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/lpd07.pdf.
A comparison of police manpower levels around the world -     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers

Forgive Me When I Cry (I Have Legal Status, the World is Mine)

Soon after the President announced his executive action on undocumented immigrants, I came across a thoughtful open letter addressed to the President and seeking answers on behalf of the real forgotten class, viz. legal immigrants. Titled "Mr. President, What About Me?", the letter swoops straight to the question that constantly burns in the minds of legal immigrants. The US system seems oftentimes tilted against those who wait patiently in line, forgotten and ignored while those who throng in without following the rules seem to hog all the attention.

On reflection, though, I realized that the author had made several mistakes, likely in ignorance. It does reflect on the Byzantine immigration laws that even reasonably intelligent persons have little chance of navigating the system without retaining specialized counsel. But one must remember that the American system, most notably its tax laws, treat citizens with the same lack of empathy or reasonableness. The opacity of the immigration system aside, Ms. Godinho has really far fewer complaints than she realizes. She bemoans the ten years spent in the US without reaching the end of the road on citizenship. But for a Portuguese citizen like her, the lines are typically far shorter. Of course, i do not know under which category she applied, but employment based categories tend to be current for everyone except applicants from China, India, Mexico and the Philippines. In other words, she would normally qualify for a permanent residency visa soon after applying. If the process has dragged out longer, it is undoubtedly an indictment of the system's complexity but it would seem that the complexity rather that the actual law has stymied her.

She also mentions the familiar complain that non-permanent immigrants have to periodically visit US consulates outside the territorial borders to obtain a visa stamp. But her use of the term "self-deport" is misleading, even unnecessarily inflammatory. While an undoubted hassle, the requirement is not really that onerous, and till recently, there was an option to obtain the necessary stamp in Washington D.C. rather than travel out the country. That option, like many other conveniences, was swept aside after the terror attacks on the Twin Towers in 2011. However, it is still not necessary to travel outside the US to get the stamp. Rather it is necessary to get one's visa stamp only if one has traveled outside and wishes to return. I have sometimes gone several years without an updated stamp, and get that addressed only when I'm next traveling internationally.

She also mentions the burden on being tied to the employer who initially sponsored her residency visa application. But if she feels so constrained, it maybe out of a misunderstanding of the rules. Not only does she have the option of concurrently remaining on a work visa which can be transferred from one employer to the next, but after clearing all the checks she may apply for a temporary document that would release her from her dependence on an employer.

To be sure, the points I've addressed are still a burden of some magnitude, and I, like any other legal immigrant would welcome any action that eased my path to permanent residency and lifted the Damocles sword of deportation. But that is perhaps the most important point to address in her appeal. The President has actually taken some steps to ease the path for legal immigrants as well. This was a far less publicized aspect of his action, since legal immigrants do not stir emotions in the same way as those who are less welcome, but it exists and we may well see some positive developments in the days ahead. Even if those presidential actions do not yield benefits for me personally, I would be no worse off than I was before, and in reality still better off than those who were granted this so called amnesty.

The fact is, and this is where I strongly disagree with Ms. Godinho, we legal immigrants have always been much better off than those who  are undocumented. We face hassles and irritation in our daily life while seeking the American Dream; those who hike across the southern border face physical hardships and dangers we could scarcely imagine. While we come here to pursue the life we dream of, the undocumented visitors have only the most backbreaking and menial jobs open to them. That magic page in our passport that grants us leave to live here also opens doors to us that remain firmly shut in the face of those lacking it. My wages are regulated against unfair depression, while undocumented residents must work for a pittance and have no recourse. Once it is proved that my skills are unavailable from any US citizen, my employer is required to pay me according to the worth so proved and I can seek a better market for my skills if I'm unhappy with my remuneration; an undocumented worker has no such freedom and all too often they fall victim to unscrupulous employers.

But above and beyond mere dross, my legal status empowers me in a way that an undocumented resident could only dream of having. I can live in any residential community I desire, while they are forced into inferior quarters where landlords ask no questions. They could certainly never hope to own a house, since no bank would be able to extend them credit. More importantly, I am protected by US law and its enforcement services, while the undocumented must skulk in the shadows and avoid all contact with the police, even when they are the victims. That is the cruelest aspect of their life, for the people sworn to protect and heal them are enemies to be avoided on account of the dark secret they bear. When my home was burglarized or when my car was rear-ended, I had not a moment's qualms in calling the police for assistance. Imagine however a life in which even serious injury must be borne in silence, for it is impossible for an undocumented resident to seek aid without risking all they have struggled to achieve. The children of legal visitors are automatically citizens of this country; though the children of undocumented residents enjoy the same status, they are sometimes unable to avail of their rights without endangering the residency of their parents.

My confidence stems from that little slip of paper that bestows upon me the right to live freely here, albeit for a limited time. But in that time, I enjoy all the freedom and rights of my American neighbors, save the right to flip burgers at McDonald's (or other menial low-wage tasks) or waste my vote in a highly partisan political experience. I live, secure in the knowledge that I am on a path of permanent residency here, long and meaningless as it may seem; my undocumented counterparts know that they may never enjoy full status, not even if they live their entire lives here. I may live here, with dignity. That respect may never come to those in the shadows and that, in short, is why I fully support the President's action and do not feel that I have been forgotten. True, I may have been forgotten, but it is because the trials I face in my path are mere irritations and discomforts and barely worth mentioning, while the millions of undocumented residents daily live in fear and hardship. This executive action, while merely a start, at least bestows upon them some security in life and permits them to stand tall and live with the respect and dignity that should be the right of any man or woman, more especially those who live in the USA, no matter how they got here.