Sunday, January 02, 2011

Up Until ...

Up until 1985, it was completely legal for an officer to shoot a suspect merely for running away.  Going clear back to English Common Law, running from authority was evidence of wrong doing, and sufficient evidence to justify deadly force.

I didn't live through the sea-change brought about by Tennessee v. Garner.  I started in 1991 and by then it was merely common sense: You don't shoot a fleeing suspect in the back just because he is fleeing.  Not unless you have damn good reason to believe that he will kill someone else if you don't shoot.

(My favorite example, BTW, is the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" where a drunk Jimmy Stewart wrecks his car and then runs from the officer and the officer takes a pot shot.  For some reason no one even blinks when they see that in such a sweet family film.)

"Mississippi Burning" is one of my favorite movies because it works on so many levels.  It is about justice and injustice and changes in national perception and mood.  It is about understanding the culture around you, whether ally or enemy.  It is about getting the job done when the stakes are high enough... (and a side thought here, re-watching it the other night: the tactics that broke the case, in the movie, are the same tactics -though cruder and more vicious- than the worst of the tactics America has been accused of in hunting terrorists.  To some eyes, one application is heroic, the other a despicable abuse of power.  Do you see them as different?  Which one heroic, which despicable?  Or the same, as I do... and if you see them the same are both heroic, both wrong or something else?)

To the main point- it occurred to me that many of the injustices that spawned the civil rights movement were perfectly legal.  In many states force, including deadly force, was legal if an officer met any resistance.  When that is the background, there aren't a lot of rules.

Times have changed.  Officers work under case law and precedent and generally quite detailed policy.  Before 1985, was "Judicious Use of Force" even an academy subject?  Now it is the one thing that never gets cut in annual refresher training, no matter how tight the budget.  It is something officers spend many hours on, and most (I believe) have it down cold.

When there is an officer-involved shooting, the usual suspects come out of the woodwork to decry the incident and scream for more training and demand justice... Hmmm.  The part that gets me is this even happens in things that look like good, even sterling shoots.  It occurred to me today that outside of Law Enforcement, how many activists and civilians have even heard of Tennessee v. Garner?  How many, especially of the big name activists, are just doing a schtick that they perfected in their glory days of the 60s and 70s?

I don't expect them to know the difference between a good shoot and a bad one or to be up on the arcane nuances of force law.  If they are going to make a career out of squeaking about it, sure, I'd prefer if they knew what they were talking about... but that's a lot to ask.

This has been on my mind lately.  I wrote a book a year ago, a Citizen's Guide to Police Use of Force.  It will be perceived and maybe attacked as an apologist for the system, but that's not really the intent.  The intent is that when these debates come up, regular citizens will have an easy-to-read reference that details the standards that police are held to and why, as well as the practicalities of actually applying standards in chaotic situations.

I was reluctant to offer Citizen's Guide.  I really think that the people who need it most are incapable of setting their prejudices aside and so it would be meaningless.  Also, parts of it are pretty personal.  Tiff is the one who added enough weight to the balance to get the book to a publisher.  The publisher wants it.

What I would really like is to have one of the 'usual suspects' write the foreword.  Someone who reflexively agitates against the police whenever something happens.  Someone with an anti-establishment following.  But also someone who can read past preconceptions and see this for what it is: A piece of an ongoing debate.  A side that is almost never represented by anyone who just knows the 'why' and lays it out there.  

Anyone have access to an open-minded demagogue?

11 comments:

David Kafri said...

I think "an open-minded demagogue" is a contradiction in terms...

But you might try someone like Michael Moor. If the maker of Bowling for Columbine wrote your forward, that would do alot for the debate.

Anonymous said...

Ha! That dumb scene in Its a Wonderful Life bugs me every time. Its movie message cheating... directors do that all the time to set the tempo or move the plot. I suppose the directors could try harder, but then they couldn't pat themselves on the back and call it art ...could they?

Anonymous said...

Sorry... that was not anonymous, just me.

-Billy G.

Anonymous said...

Alexander Cockburn might do it. Google 'Cockburn + fingerprints': smart, cynical about a useful police procedure, fact-based.

He's certainly got a left-wing following, but the beni oui oui's are kind of used to him going off the reservation.

Scott P said...

A former president of the ACLU perhaps? Give me a few days I will ask around.

Tiff said...

*beam*

Richard Rousey said...

Daniel Fanning from IVAW, or Alex Jones might be a solid option for a forward.

Anonymous said...

Radley Balko, writes for Reason magazine and has a blog called The Agitator. He's a libertarian so not a typical lefty, but he does a lot of journalism on police corruption and abuse of power.

Jim said...

I think you're right: the people who most need to read and understand the reality of police use of force won't read the book, and even if they do, they'll be arguing against it the whole way through rather than understanding what is said -- whether or not they agree with the conclusions.

Too many people have too much fantasy about real violence today. This is good and bad. It's good that we don't have violence in the daily experience of people like we may once have. It's bad in that people with power and authority (from the lowest petit jury or online blogger to the President himself) shape their expectations and make decisions based on a fantasy world.

Michael said...

Haven't seen "Mississippi burning", will have to rent it. Recently saw a Taiwanese movie about young gangsters coming of age called "Monga", where the violence seemed exceptionally realistic, passionate and chaotic. Not bloody, but real. Apparently, in one of the DVD extras, the director describes how they used real gangsters as extras, and in the massive brawl scene, when he yelled, "cut!", nobody stopped fighting. The gangster "extras" had got too excited and they were fighting for real. "Monga", despite some flaws, was (mostly) an accurate portrayal of the way certain kinds of people live. It's worth watching, and for films coming out of Taiwan that's exceedingly rare.

Justthisguy said...

Anonymous at 8:13 beat me to it. Radley Balko is the man you want. He blogs at http://www.theagitator.com

He seems to like, and approve of, honest cops, and abhors, and complains about, the bad 'uns.