The Cops and The Daddy: A Meeting of Minds and Hearts

"What is Community Policing?
Community policing is many things to many people. It is a problem-solving partnership between the police and the community that is incorporated throughout a police department's culture and operations. Community officers and neighbors become jointly responsible not just to catch criminals but to help wipe away the community decay that fosters crime. It is the belief that neighbors know their community best, just as beat officers know their beats best, and that the neighbors and officers must work together to share solutions."
--New Haven police brochure

Listen up. While on vacation, The Daddy had dinner with a group of cops. They invited a brutha to dinner to thank him for the work he had done as Manager of Security of a large public housing complex called The Minneapolis Housing Authority.

Of course we discussed The Prez's press conference in which he said the Cambridge police department acted "stupidly" by arresting a world-renown scholar, after he (the scholar, Dr. Gates) had shown a police officer his ID indicating that he was not a burglar but a guy in his own home. But the discussion quickly turned into broader frames of references, namely black community-law enforcement relations.

They said that not only the black community but the city at large has no idea of the stress that cops go through in a day's work. One gave domestic violence was an example and several chimed in. They said each domestic violence call can be dangerous, Each situation is different. Each situation is unpredictable. The guy who just slapped his wife around could be holding up in the house with a gun in his hand just waiting for a knock on the door. On the other hand, he could already be gone. He said cops, knowing the potential danger, have to be ready. They said that, in these situations, cops don't have time to diplomatic and friendly to neighbors. It's all business.

They said the same is true when they stop a car, especially at night. You just don't know what will transpire, especially in violent neighborhoods. They have to be ready, including being ready to fire their gun.

They also talked about how being a cop is a thankless job and how this is true in the suburbs as well as in the inner-cities. They said that, since police have to operate under a smaller budgets, they have fewer cops on patrol to assist residents and few investigators. So basically, cops don't deal with, say, drugs in a neighborhood, unless those neighbors yell and scream at the head of the police precinct or elected to do something about it.

Another perspective

The Daddy said that, from the black community's point of view, all they see is an occasional cop rolling past them usually with people in it who don't look like them, who don't live in their neighborhood, and who are scowling at them like they want to stop the car, pull out a gun, handcuff them, and kick their ass. All they see are cops showing up long AFTER someone has been robbed or killed, long AFTER a home has been broken into, looking disinterested and unmotivated to find out who did it.

On weekends, all they see is the occasional blinking of lights where cops are either searching for thugs or have killed a neighbor, thug or not. They see and hear cops being very aggressive, yelling at people to get face down on the ground or calling people names. In other words, they see cops more as a kind of gestapo militia than their protectors.

The Daddy said the community needs to see cops get out of their patrol cars, walk the streets, visit the businesses. They need to see cops speaking to them in a respectful manner, calling them by their first names. They need to listen to people complain about their backaches and rheumatism, because, after that, they'll tell them where the most recent drug house is and the new neighbors with a lot of cars pulling up front and driving around to the back. In other words, they need community policing, not police containment.

A meeting of minds and hearts

And what did The Daddy say community policing for!!! As soon as he said it, all the cops around the table began to smile and tell stories. They said that, when they were growing up, they saw community policing all the time. Cops walked a beat, stopped and chatted with them and rubbed their heads. Several cops said that, in the neighborhood in St. Paul, where they grew up, cops always stopped and talked with business owners. Another said his dad, who was a cop, practiced community policing before the term was invented.

The Daddy told them how, when he was late for school, cops would either walk him to school or ride him in there in their squad car. They would squeeze his ear real hard and promise to arrest him next time he was late. And they weren't hearing a brutha's lame excuse that he was late because he had a lot of sisters, and they wouldn't let him into the bathroom. "So get up earlier! Don't let me see you late tomorrow!" He admitted that he hated their asses at the time but understands the wisdom of their behavior and community policing now.

In addition to community policing, The Daddy and the officers agreed that both black communities and the police need to find ways of getting to better know one another. One said, "If the community really knew the stress involved in their work, they would be less inclined to think negatively of them or let their kids call them names." The Daddy said that, regardless of funding levels, cops need to find a better way of working with black communities. Deep down, they need each other.

Do you think relations between black communities and law enforcement can be improved?
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Reference:

1. The Politics of Community Policing: Rearranging the Power to Punish by William Lyones
2. Spirit of Community: The Reinvention of American Society by Amitai Etzioni