If the Police are Soldiers, Who’s The Enemy?

Last month the Somerville Police Employees Association published an open letter from SPEA President Michael McGrath to Mayor Joe Curtatone protesting the display of a Black Lives Matter banner at City Hall, calling it “demoralizing” and showing support for BLM while “standing silent” regarding “seemingly daily protest assassinations of innocent police officers.” McGrath went on to state that while the SPEA respects “the rights of all American citizens… to protest injustice.” However, McGrath continued, the SPEA objects to a “banner…that paints police officers as the killers of innocent citizens of color when there is no evidence” that Somerville policemen act “in a discriminatory or unlawful way.” This is the latest in a series of misguided gestures by police across the country who consider support of Black Lives Matter, or any criticism of police violence, as an attack on police, or as an expression of indifference to the dangers policemen face.

The murders of Dallas Police Officer Brent Thompson and his four colleagues at a July 21 protest against police brutality are reprehensible, as are the non-fatal shootings of six other officers at the same event. Attacks against policemen anywhere are deplorable and unqualifiedly criminal. But Black Lives Matter is a movement dedicated to calling attention to a specific issue: unjustified police violence against African-Americans. After the July 18 police shooting of Charles Kinsey, an unarmed black man who was lying on the ground with his hands up, or the July 6 fatal shooting of Philando Castile, who might never have been pulled over by police if he had looked less stereotypically black — never mind the deaths of Eric Garner, Alton Sterling and many other African-Americans — the validity and the importance of saying “Black Lives Matter” is unquestionable. And considering that the Dallas police shootings allegedly happened in retaliation for unjustified police shootings of black men, has no one realized that Black Lives Matter might ultimately save the lives of police as well as of civilians?

The Black Lives Matter movement is a critical response to the institutional racism in many police departments. I know not all policemen are racist. And some police departments strive to reduce the use of deadly force and maintain good relations with the communities they serve. But police departments such as those in San Francisco and New York — allegedly two of the most liberal cities in the country — appear to be more common. Last April San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi released transcripts of texts between SFPD officers replete with racist slurs and jokes. 12 minority NYPD officers are suing the department over alleged arrest quotas that disproportionately target blacks and Hispanics.

And individuals detained by police are often treated with an unjustifiable brutality. After shooting Charles Kinsey police flipped him over, handcuffed him, and left him bleeding on the street. He was never arrested. The only reason Kinsey was outside was to persuade his patient, a low-functioning autistic man named Arnaldo Rios-Soto, to return home. Even after learning Rios-Soto was autistic, police handcuffed him as well and kept him in a patrol car for four hours. Last year in Austin during a traffic stop for speeding an African-American school teacher was thrown to the ground and handcuffed by a white officer. She was then forced into the police car where another officer lectured her on the “violent tendencies” of black people.

These problems are compounded by the militarization of US police departments in recent decades. Beginning with the crime wave of the late sixties, police departments used federal block grants to purchase military equipment such as assault rifles and artillery grenade launchers. The acquisition of military equipment by police escalated with the 1997 National Defense Reauthorization Act, which created a program to transfer surplus military equipment to civilian law enforcement agencies. Departments that used to have just patrolmen armed with side arms now have SWAT teams. These equipment and personnel have sometimes been used ways so clearly unjustifiable as to be comical were the consequences not so dire. In 2007 a SWAT team raided a Dallas VFW post to shut down a charity poker game. One player was so terrified she urinated on herself. In 2010 Orlando police raided black and Hispanic-owned barbershops, barging in with guns drawn, often handcuffing employees and forcing them to the floor. 37 people were arrested. The sole charge against 34 of them was barbering without a license.

The militarization of police leads many cops to see themselves as soldiers. And if they see themselves as soldiers, some of them will inevitably see us as the enemy.