Saturday, December 30, 2017

You get what you pay for...(Repost)

(Originally posted August 2014 - Reposted in light of the tragic SWATTING shooting death of a Civilian in Kansas this week...)

So long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work.
- Soviet communism political joke

Grandtots,

Something just occurred to me as I was writing a comment on a police investigator's blog:


“You would have to be insane to try and wrestle an edged weapon out of the hands of a deranged suspect if you had a deadly force option.”
Mr. Jewell, I’m not expecting a response. I appreciate your efforts to act as an apologist for the police profession – they clearly do more good than harm. The fact that they do so much good is what makes these perceived lapses so difficult to fathom.
With respect to your statement above, I suppose I myself, and a lot of people who might wonder at such tragedies, have to ask: If the deranged suspect was your wife, or son, or daughter, your father, or mother, would it truly be “insane” to expose oneself to risk, significant and perhaps even mortal, in order to secure a peaceful, non-lethal resolution to the situation. If it were your family standing before you, would you resort to the deadly force option?
This is why most of us don’t think that decision insane. It is because we actually see our loved ones on the other end of police officers’ weapons. We have an expectation that, for our sake, the sake of the public that you police officers swear to protect, a public that included Mr. MacIsaac, that you, too would see a citizen first, and a threat second, and act in a manner that sets you apart from the average citizen. We expect that higher standard of police officers. If some deranged person attacked me and I had a gun in my hand, that gun might go off out of fear. But we expect more of police officers. I guess what we all are wondering, sir, is: should we? Should we expect courage from police officers? No one doubts that it would take courage to close distance on someone with a knife or a bat. No one doubts that it would take courage to risk one’s life to try and control an armed attacker when you have the discretion to kill them. But as a police officer yourself, is that an unfair expectation for us citizens to have of those who swear to serve and protect us?

In light of the shooting of Michael Brown, and Michael MacIsaac, and Sammy Yatim by police in the last year, I wanted to do a little digging as to the prevalence of these things in Canada and the U.S.  I also wanted to get a sense of how dangerous it was to be a Toronto Police Officer vs. a cop elsewhere.  In the 180 year history of the TPS the memorial wall has 40 names.  In the 165 year history of the NYPD, 843 officers have been killed in the line.  Obviously New York has a lot more people historically than Toronto, but this can be made to suggest either that being a Toronto cop isn't fraught with daily mortal danger or that, perhaps it is, and Toronto police take extraordinary steps to keep themselves out of harm's way.  New York is averaging 5 lost cops a year; Toronto is averaging one lost cop every four and a half years.

So is Toronto generally safer?  And if so, do our cops make us safer or simply benefit from that safety? A combination of both?  Or is it a third option?  In the pilot episode of the West Wing, a conservative lobbyist asks Jed Bartlet: "Sir, if anyone can buy pornography on any street corner for 5 dollars, isn't that too high a price to pay for freedom of speech?"  The President responds: "No.  But I do think 5 dollars is too high a price to pay for pornography."

Toronto cops don't die that often.  On the surface, this is good. But policing isn't supposed to be a risk free endeavour.  Is there an argument to be made that they are not putting themselves in harm's way to the degree that some of their counterparts do?  And if they aren't, why?

I believe the answer is that we don't pay police officers enough to buy their courage.

I'm a hypocrite.  I'll be the first to tell people to hold themselves to a high standard.  Every day, I have the opportunity to excel at my job.  But I don't because - they don't pay me enough to excel.  They don't pay me enough to go the extra mile.  There is no incentive to do more than I have to.  This isn't just me - this is a human calculation.

Cops are humans, too.  They are uniquely human.  They have to put up with all the rest of us.  They have to get yelled at, and stand in the hot sun.  They have to drive around in cars looking for something to do.  Then, when they find something to do, chances are they are called into a place where there is danger.  If they are lucky the danger will come from an object rather than a person.

The human condition is uncertainty.  Uncertainty is the nature of policing.

We have this vision of police officers, don't we?  Unflappable in the face of danger.  Eager to be in harm's way, rushing into danger, fighting the good fight.  Kind to children, an example to look up to.  Heroic and precise: they can put a bullet in a man's leg at 50 yards, dust him off, apply a tournaquet and call an ambulance for the dude that just tried to kill him.  In other words, we think of policemen the same way we think about Superman.

Then reality hits us like a screen door in the face.  Policemen aren't Superman.  They are you and me.  With a badge and a gun.

Sure some police officers, like some of us, can display acts of conspicuous gallantry and courage in the face of danger.  But statistically, that percentage should be expected to be low.  Courage is not mankind's defining quality.  If I were to say what was it's defining quality I would say - staying alive, through fighting, fleeing or freezing.  But facing fear is not something that I would say we all excel at.  The world isn't the shape that it is today because the majority of humans do things out of love.

So if police are us, and we are mostly panicky wusses, how can we incentivize police to feel compelled to err on the side of courage?  To risk a little more on behalf of the citizens they swear to protect?  To think about the ramifications of their actions to society for half a second before they think about the personal jeopardy to themselves?

The same way we seem to incentivize everything in our world.  Cash-money.

People are quick to say that for $100,000 a year, we deserve better cops.  Sorry, but this is what we are paying for.  This is what you get from $100,000 a year cops.  You want better cops, tougher cops, braver cops - we need to pay cops more.  Because they obviously don't feel like their cheating society out of anything.  We pay them to deal with unpleasant, unsavory people.  Serve warrants.  Arrest suspects. Drive around and deter crime. Clean up and catalog the mess that comes from heinous violence.

But do we pay them enough to be brave?  To deliberately go into mortal harm?  To err on the side of risking their own lives?  Simple question:  how much would somebody have to pay you in order to do that, to run INTO gunfire?

I know my answer: $500,000.

For $500,000 a year, I'd be willing to risk my ass.  For $500,000, I'd feel bad if someone called me a coward and said I was overpaid.  If I was expected to be brave, for $500,000 a year, I'd be brave.  Everyone has their number.  But I'm pretty sure that at $100,000/yr levels, most people, including cops, would say, even if only in the back of their minds: psssht, they don't pay me enough for this shit.  They don't pay me enough to feel bad for this guy coming at me with a knife.  They don't pay me enough to risk my ass.  They want the world to be safe.  Well I'm part of the world, I want to be safe too.  Law says if I'm spooked I can shoot, and that's what I'm going to do.

I think that would be the analysis for a lot of sane people, if they were cops.  But we have this expectation of more from them, for reasons I don't entirely comprehend.  They aren't Superman.  They aren't Spartans trained from birth.

Mr. Jewell's response:

James G Jewell
As hard as this is going to be for you to hear the answer is definitely yes, it is to much for you to ask.
No one should have the expectation a Police Officer would unnecessarily risk their lives by using less force than is required for a situation that requires deadly force. Your suggestion makes absolutely no sense and has nothing to do with courage.
Universally accepted Police use of force protocols dictate Police Officers are legally authorized to use a level of force higher than the level of force used against them. That standard has been upheld in our Courts and is the law of the land.
Your suggested approach would drastically increase Law Enforcement deaths and dramatically increase danger to the public.
I understand where you’re coming from but I’m afraid you are way out of touch with reality.
Police Officer’s have to protect themselves so they are able to protect the public.
You clearly see things differently.

Clearly.  Clearly I'm out of touch with reality to suggest that cops be brave.  I couldn't have written a more a propos response than the one coming out of the mind of this 26 year vet.

I notice he didn't answer my question as to deadly force with respect to a loved one.  But honestly, I didn't expect him to.  We all understand that contradiction, to objectify someone when we're afraid and reduce them to simple euphemisms: threat, target, assailant.  Not person.  They can't be a person in that moment, the same way my brother is a person, or a friend is a person.

He took what I was saying as a suggestion of cowardice.  But that wasn't my intention at all.  I was really wondering if he'd wax philosophical about whether a police officer is paid enough to behave the way the public expects them to.  Whether, in the thick of things, there is an calculation that weighs public good  against personal risk to the officer.  To Mr. Jewell it couldn't clearer: the greatest public good IS the safety of the officer.  There is no greater priority.  Because there is no greater priority, anything that puts a cop at risk warrants deadly force. Public faith in the police, protecting the mental ill - all those things are secondary to the safety of police officers. 

I've been wondering for a while about the legality of ordering someone - a senior police officer to a junior police officer - into harm's way.  How do the courts reconcile a person's right to not get themselves killed with a police officer's duty to serve and protect?  If I'm a cop and it's looking a little too hairy for me in there, do I actually have an obligation to run into near certain death?

It's something to think about.  But maybe the problem really doesn't lie with police, maybe it lies with us. Maybe there is no amount of money you could pay someone to expect them to be Superman.  When Officer John came to our school in Grade 1, he couldn't be more proud to say that he'd never fired his gun.  As little kids, we thought how nice and safe we all were.

But as adults, maybe we should ask ourselves: if this cop has never fired his weapon, why should I think that he will know the difference between when exactly he has to and when he doesn't?  How would you know, if you were a cop?  

I'm not sure that I would know.  I'm pretty sure cops don't know.
- Grandpa



0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home