With all the talk about supporting police, or condemning what police have done, thought I would add a perspective from someone who has had guns pointed at his head by police officers.
I'll start with a balancing statement: While growing up in my parents house in West Seattle, a cop was our next door neighbor. When Barb and I bought our first house, on a short dead end street also in West Seattle, our next door neighbor was a cop. When we bought our second house, that one in Ashland, our neighbor was a cop. A cousin married a cop. As did my niece.
That's five cops total, in case you lost track already, who were neighbors, friends and relatives.
I've been stopped for speeding eight times during my life. Five times the cops let me go with only a warning. Five. More often than I deserved. In every instance I had been clocked going more than 20 miles per hour over the speed limit. That's not even speeding when you are driving that fast. It's brazenly flaunting the law with a who-gives-a-shit, up-you-and-yours attitude.
Amazingly, the three cops who cited me also cut me some slack and wrote tickets for only 12 to 14 MPH over. All were very polite and professional as they did their duty. In fact they were so polite, I couldn't stop myself from reflexively saying "Thank you" each time they handed me a ticket. And each time I would gaze in the rear view mirror as the cop climbed back into his cruiser, thinking "Why the hell did I just thank a cop for giving me a ticket? Are you that dense a dumb fucker?"
I've been surrounded by police for much of my life. I know there are a ton of good cops around. I met them and their cop buddies in our homes, at parties, and in neighborhoods I blasted through at excessive speeds.
o
I have also experienced cops from a different perspective. I have been stopped five times by police for reasons that had nothing to do with my driving habits. Shit, how many in total have I been stopped throughout my life? You figure it out. I lost track.
Was stopped three times while walking, twice while driving. And I don't mean, I was pulled over by a cop. I was intercepted from multiple angles by four or five cops in their patrols cars, working in unison to apprehend me.
In two instances they had their guns pulled while crouching behind their patrol car doors. I wish I could tell you where on my body they were aiming, but you don't really think about that kind of shit when multiple guys with badges have guns pointed at you. Well, I wasn't prepared to think about it, at least. Maybe it would be different for you.
"Put your hands up!", says one cop.
"Get out of the car!", yells another.
I reach for the door handle to get out.
"Keep your hands up!", a cop repeats.
"Get out of the car! Now!", says the other.
With an obvious tinge of frustration, I ask a question which seems reasonable, "How the hell am I supposed to do both at the same time?"
I receive no answer. What was abundantly clear is the cops expect me to be spread eagle with my hands on the car roof, in a hurry. All those people who say you just need to follow an officers orders and you won't have a problem? Obviously they have never been in that situation. Believe me, such assurances are not top-of-mind when guns are being aimed at you. I don't care how innocent you are, the idea of blind compliance simply doesn't occur to you at that moment.
I have been stopped three times in similar fashion while walking down a sidewalk, though the officers rested their hands on their guns rather than drawing them.
"What's your name?"
Okay, a series of hard knocks means I've become a veteran of police stops. For good or bad, my belief in our Bill of Rights boiled to the fore. These cocksuckers stopping me for no good reason sure as hell aren't going to intimidate me into forgetting my constitutional rights. I hope.
"Let me see your ID."
"No. Why did you stop me?"
"What are you doing?"
"Why did you stop me?"
Where are you going?"
"Why did you stop me?"
Who are you meeting with?"
"Why did you stop me?"
"I said, show me your ID!"
"No. Not until you tell me why you stopped me."
Our conversation deteriorates from that point. Shall I need say, the situation becomes rather terse?
I feel compelled to mention at this point that you absolutely haven't lived until you have been questioned and frisked by a group of cops. Okay, I know this is old news to many of my minority friends, but to my white brethren who have lived a very prissy life, there is nothing quite like being center ring in a circus of five cop cars blocking traffic on a busy street, getting frisked while people driving by are gawking through their car windows gauging how nasty a criminal you must be because, well, you're surrounded by a bunch of cops and we all know what that means. It's an experience that you'll never forget. I highly suggest trying it at least once. Though I know from prior experience that being pulled over at least three times would offer a far better lens through which to view your experiences. The first couple times will likely be disorienting, so it will take going through the process a few times before you can fully appreciate the show.
By now you are probably wondering why I was pulled over and questioned so many times. It's a reasonable and salient question. In every instance it was a case of mistaken identity. Every damned time.
The first occasion was because a twenty-something white guy with brown hair, driving a white sedan, robbed a 7-Eleven a couple miles from where I was driving. That was the extent of the description which lead to my being shoved against a car door and frisked by a Seattle cop. Ironically, a separate group of cops who had caught the robber announced the capture on their radio while I was being frisked. Four cops disappeared instantly. The fifth, who had been frisking me, quickly walked away without comment.
By then I had gathered my composure and was no longer utterly befuddled by what was happening. I had morphed to frustrated. Plus, facing only one cop voluntarily retreating because I meant nothing to him also helped me regain confidence. "Hey! What the hell is going on?"
He brusquely told me what had happened, the suspects description, then drove off. No apology. No nothing. You remember the police motto, "To Protect and To Serve"? On that day I lost some of my faith in that motto. Wouldn't be the last bit lost, though.
While working in car sales I sold a car to the Medford Chief of Detectives. He's a hell of a nice guy, who seemed to enjoy me, too. We struck up a conversation when I saw him in a store a few years later. We spent a moment catching up on our lives. After a while, I couldn't resist asking, "I've been stopped a few times recently by your office buddies. Always in the same area of town, and nobody will tell me why. It's getting kind of old. Have an idea why this is happening?" He paused. "Yea, you fit the description, really closely, of a drug dealer we've been trying to catch. Give me your license and plate numbers. They won't bother you again." We were both laughing about the absurdity of my being stopped so often. Which I imagine for him was an old hat story that goes with the job. I just felt lucky that by selling a detective a car, I had made a friend who with a few words would soon make my increasingly frequent encounters with the police stop.
o
Black lives matter. No, you dumb shit. All lives matter. I can't believe anybody would argue, much less attempt to win, an argument for either point of view. Both statements are true at face value, and after a period of reflection.
Gone missing in the raging contest of catchy tweetable phrases, however, are the nuances that lie between. Human lives are involved, which means that self-declarations that one point of view is good, therefore the other point of view is bad, are inherently headed towards inadequate conclusions. And unfortunately, there are always some who are wiling to twist like a snake in effort to prove that a binary conclusion can be found. It's so much tidier that way.
Every time a black man gets shot, out come the warriors for each camp. When the furor of the latest death recedes, inevitably, the warriors move on to savage the next victim while family and friends of the black man whose life was taken not just by the police, but by the warriors, are left to figuring out how to move on.