In the wake of recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City, it’s clear that we have to coin a new term for our cops, as the current nomenclature we use is totally outdated. We need a name that is more befitting their actual role in society, something that best describes how they function within the rules of society that we set forth. It’s a subtle change, but a change we need nonetheless.
Above the Law Enforcement.
Who knew we had two Constitutions? We have one that applies to every American from redwood forests to the gulf stream waters. It’s a constitution that applies to all men, women and children living on the fruited plane, or backpacking in Yosemite. It’s a document we all come to know and appreciate throughout our schooling, learning a deeper appreciation for its principles and the men who wrote them each time we study it.
And then there’s the Constitution that cops, politicians and the corporations who own both get to follow.
Don’t believe me? Do you not think we have reached a point where cops are above the law again? Tell that to the families of Mike Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. The case of Rice, the 12 year old boy who was summarily executed literally within two seconds of the cops arriving on the scene, also demonstrates cops are not just above the law, they can fuck-up in their careers with impunity because the man who shot him, Timothy Loehmann, was deemed unfit for duty by his previous employer, but remarkably when Loehmann quit following a scathing performance memo, his file was still classified as “eligible for rehire.”
Above the Law Enforcement officers are clearly above all reproach, period.
I suppose that in a country with pop-icons like Robocop, Dirty Harry, Wyatt Earp, and every bald detective on TV ever that it was only a matter of time until most of us stopped caring about Due Process. America is a country founded literally in rebellion, and I think I can speak for a great many of us when I say that we tend to have that rebel spirit to this day. So it would only stand to reason that our cops — the ones who are charged with protecting us under the law — would have a bit of a rebellious streak themselves, but that is a very dangerous idea indeed, and as far too many poor, black people can attest to, it’s a lethal idea to boot.
Thanks to the mythos of the American Rogue Cop, we’re almost preconditioned to not just accept, but outright root for the guy who clearly abuses his authority — albeit under the guise of justice. Are you going to do anything but defend real live cops when they shoot people in the streets, or on a playground? After all, they’re just doing their jobs, man. They’re all heroes, man. They wake up and have a big, fat hero’s breakfast, kiss their beautiful hero wife on her beautiful hero mouth and go off to do their hero work for the day. We couldn’t possibly operate under the guise that cops are capable of mistakes too, right? And even if we let them admit to their mistakes, we should never punish them as we’d be punished for making the same mistakes…because their job is hard.
Of course, if you’re a medical researcher desperately looking for a cure to AIDS or cancer, and you’re constantly worried about your funding being cut out from underneath you, that seems like a pretty hard job to me. You don’t hear a lot about cancer researchers flipping their shit and murdering other people, do you? “But James, cops don’t just have tough jobs, they put their lives on the line every day.” So do firefighters. So do doctors when they’re fighting highly-infectious diseases.
Call me crazy, but giving any profession carte blanche to murder us any time they “feel” scared for their lives doesn’t really sound like something a bunch of level-headed adults would do.
But this is America, man! We respect our cops, man! When a cop chokes out an unarmed suspect, and it’s all caught on video, and the cop still isn’t indicted, can any of us be all that surprised, considering how we just love it in movies and television shows when the renegade cop goes off script? Most of us have been come to just expect that a renegade cop’s most strict punishment is a tongue-lashing from a curmudgeonly station chief and maybe a request to have their badge and gun that will not be taken seriously because that lovable rogue cop was just trying to collar the perp, and who cares if he raped Lady Justice in the process?
No, I’m not actually going to pretend to lecture anyone about Hollywood corrupting us all. I actually happen to think art most often is a reflection of society, so those characters exist in films because they either exist off screen or we desperately want them to. I get it. Sometimes it can get sticky getting caught up into a suspect’s constitutional rights to adequate legal representation and a protection of his presumed innocence. Life is messy and hardly anything is cut and dry. I just don’t think you can really escape the fact that by and large we have made a whole new class of cop in America.
For anyone unsure as to why this is a big deal, I envy you actually. Clearly you haven’t had the misfortune of running into one of these heroes on a bad day. You haven’t been asked to submit to a completely unnecessary sobriety check after showing zero signs of driving impaired after a night where you didn’t have even a sip of alcohol, but the cop doesn’t like your uppity tone so you’re dragged out onto the side of the highway to dance-monkey-dance. You haven’t been physically and mentally intimidated and condescended to in even the most benign interactions, and you clearly have never been taunted, assaulted, shot or choked by a cop who is letting his permission to use deadly force turn into a dependency upon it.
Count your lucky stars that you live in that situation, and don’t make the callous and stupid mistake of presuming that it’s because you’re a law abiding citizen and you’d never do anything to run afoul of one of these Above the Law enforcement officials. What crime was young Tamir committing, exactly, when Loehmann and his partner drew down on him and shot him? Carrying an air rifle when you’re a 12 year old isn’t a crime; it’s a rite of fucking passage in this country.
Thank God cops like Loehmann weren’t around in the 1940’s or every kid with a Red Rider BB gun with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time would have been pushing up daisies. Clearly if you’re poor and black in this country you cannot and should not presume that life works the same for you as it does for anyone else.
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