Police brutality is the big new news story. You will see a lot about it in coming days. The press will work it to death. David Brooks' column in today's NYTimes is almost the first non hysterical treatment of the subject I've seen. All should read it. One or two details I'd like to add. We live in a country of 250 million guns, which is madness to begin with. The police shield is not bullet proof. Almost every police intervention, no matter how polite, is a confrontation, and the subject must be presumed to be armed. In the ghettos, as has been said, "you ain't a man, you ain't got a piece." Every cop is on his edge ten or more times every day. Sometimes one or more of them goes over the edge, which is both deplorable and inevitable. Also, however trained a cop may be, he cannot be trained in shootouts. In a shooting situation his hand shakes. he's probably skittering backwards, and most of his bullets miss. This has been statistically proven many times. In addition, perpetrators (the cop word) are almost never stopped by a single bullet except in the movies. John Wayne can do it, cops can't. They are taught that the guy will keep coming and in an instant the cop could be dead. That is, multiple shots do not prove the cop a vicious, deliberate killer. Some of the recent brutality incidents have nothing to do with shootouts, and some seem especially ugly. Such cops deserve the harshest treatment possible. But not all cops are like that. Don't hate them all. Cops remain the only line between you and the jungle--this too has been said often enough. There are 40,000 police departments in the country, far too many. There should be no more than seven or eight, all trained similarly. The selection of candidates is usually not rigorous enough, the training is not good enough, and cops are deplorably led by men who are seeking mostly their own advancement and who never go out in the street with them. Headquarters brass during my short year in the NYPD almost never did. They stayed in their offices. If someone was going to make a mistake and wreck his career, let it be a sergeant. This was considered wisdom, but it's not leadership, and I based a whole novel on it once, the one called "Man With A Gun."
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MORE I still hear songs I cannot sing And covet goods that cannot bring Anything I see more trophies to be won I want them too, but can reach none And am undone I long for new loves never met And more applause than I’ve heard yet And cannot get I travel widely, stop and go In search of what I do not know The status quo These thirsts and more I cannot slake They’re dreams, they vanish when I wake They leave me nothing but an ache I want more for heaven’s sake More, more, more Robert Daley Aug. 24, 2009 |
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