The analysis below was written before news broke that — as I’d suspected but not yet confirmed — the officer in this incident hesitated to act because he was more concerned with the legal fallout of a deadly-force encounter than surviving the encounter itself. I encourage you to read my column on deadly hesitation. You cannot be summoned to appear in court if you do not survive the encounter. When force is necessary to ensure your safety or the safety of others, please, use it.
What Happened: On August 7 in Birmingham (Ala.), a plain-clothes detective investigating a rash of burglaries stopped an SUV driven by man with a long criminal history, including charges for assault, robbery, attempted murder, breaking and entering, receiving stolen property, and disorderly conduct.
The detective called for backup. He instructed the subject to remain in his vehicle, but said subject refused to comply with lawful commands. He attacked and overtook the detective, disarmed him, and viciously beat him with his department-issued service pistol.
Bystanders snapped pictures and posted them to the Internet. What happened next — and what happens from here forward — requires our attention.
Why it’s Significant: The vile anti-cop fervor spewed in the comments on the pictures that were posted to social media has cops across this country outraged — and justifiably so — but this event can be something more than a magnet for our collective frustration. It can be a clarion call for those who serve — and those who support our LEOs — to redouble our efforts to remain strong.
The incident in Birmingham is a reminder that a segment of the population will never support the police. They will always post ugly comments about you on social media. Some will be ferried continually in and out of “the system” and they will always hate you, so you have to remain vigilant, watch your six, and cover each other.
They are the felons and the frequent fliers.
But they are vastly outnumbered by the Americans who have the highest esteem for our law enforcement officers. Although the mainstream media won’t report on the silent but steadfast support most citizens have for cops (good news is not good for revenues), we know that those people do exist.
For instance, the Staten Island Yankees — a minor-league affiliate of the New York Yankees — held their “Blue Lives Matter Day” on August 9th.
While the onlooker in Birmingham made the choice to watch (and mock) a brutal assault on a cop, a citizen in Oklahoma City recently did the opposite. When a suspect took Officer Adam Eller’s baton and started beating him with it, a legally armed witness ran to the confrontation, pointed his handgun at the suspect, and told him he’d get shot if he didn’t stop his assault on the cop.
There are countless examples of citizens supporting police if you’re looking in the right places, such as the National Police Wives Association and Supporting LEOs on Facebook.
Top Takeaways: Birmingham Police Sergeant Heath Boackle told a local reporter that “the boots-on-the-ground officers across this country are at war, and if we do not have the help of citizens and local governments to stand behind us, we’ll never win.”
He’s absolutely right. But, everyone in law enforcement must “work the middle” and foment support among those who are generally ambivalent. It’s on all of us to enable those who do value our police to be more vocal. It’s on us to hear our critics’ shouts but not let their hate defeat us. We can start by doing the following:
1. Identify your advocates in the community and engage with them. Perhaps it’s a local pastor or an influential business person who simply needs to know they’re empowered to speak positively on your behalf. Brainstorm ways you can work together to put on pro-police events in your area.
2. Engage with your critics, too. Listen to their arguments, and in the event you can dispassionately do something to alter their opinions, by all means give it a try.
3. During every contact at which there is a child present, do your business, ensure that the scene is safe and secure, and then take a couple of extra minutes to have a positive interaction with that child. You may not see the return on your investment, but the cop who follows in your footsteps might.
What’s Next: Cops know that there are some things they can control, and there are myriad things they can’t.
A cop can’t control a person’s decision to forgo the taxi and risk the drive home from the bar, but they can control what happens to that person at the DUI stop.
A cop can’t control a subject’s decision to resist arrest or attempt to flee, but they can control what the appropriate use-of-force response — based on what they know to be objectively reasonable under the totality of the circumstances — should be in that scenario.
Those decisions are made at the officer’s discretion — with purpose and intent. Let’s treat our response to this recent display of anti-cop zealotry the same way.
The righteous path is almost always the toughest one.
The easy path for all of those involved in the profession of law enforcement would be to “go negative,” but that would be playing right into the hands of that vocal minority who hate police so much.
Further Reading:
Answering the question: “How would a world without police look?”
How Cuomo’s order to increase civilian oversight could backfire badly
