A view from a Vancouver cop
Got this via email and was wondering what those with LEO experience think (and others) of this.
This needs to be circulated to everyone in the USA and Canada. It’s long but a must read!
This very interesting, the view of a Vancouver Cop
I served 33 years as a cop. My daughter is a cop. My nephew is a cop. My sister and my niece work in civilian roles in policing. My Son works in private industry that provides training resources to cops. I have hundreds of friends who are cops or worked in civilian supporting roles. They include some of the smartest, most compassionate, knowledgeable, unselfish and bravest people I know. The group includes some of the people I most respect and hold closest to my heart. I could not be prouder of my past profession nor all of these people who commit their lives to community safety and upholding peoples rights!
I am hurt and saddened to see what has stemmed from the horrific incident that occurred in Minneapolis and the resulting death of George Floyd. I am frustrated to hear people accuse police of universally judging and mistreating a community group because of the colour of their skin while completely indifferent to the fact that, in doing so, they are universally stereotyping, judging and condemning police because of their profession.
Let me tell you a bit about what it is to be a cop:
I think that part of the problem is that police are a bit of a mystery to the general public and it is easy to make assumptions and generalizations about people you know little about. We tend to keep to ourselves partly because it is difficult to fit in with the community we serve. In so many ways our lives and problems and challenges don’t relate to yours. Amongst ourselves we are allowed to be “off duty”. Amongst ourselves we can talk to people who understand our very unique lives. It is difficult to explain to a person who hasn’t been there because we live amongst you yet, somehow, we live in completely different worlds.
In my career I have been injured and threatened many times. I have seen violent death far too many times. I have been lied to countless times. I have attended funerals of friends who were murdered doing this job. I have friends who suffered life long debilitating injuries doing this job. I spent my working life defending a city and its people only to watch them twice riot and set about destroying their city and attacking each other. Sometimes I sat with families after I delivered devastating news, and saw their lives unravel before my eyes. Other times I came home and cried alone; like the day I dealt with a child who was raped by her uncle at her 7th birthday sleep over party!
We do this for decades. Wash, rinse repeat. Over time we come to see our world as a dangerous place. We learn to be untrusting. We learn to always be watching for threats. We become different than our neighbours.
I can tell you that cops put on brave faces but we carry around a lot of pain, emotional injury and frustration after decades of seeing the worst of mankind and the resulting carnage and suffering of the innocent and defenseless. Everyone I worked with can name a co-worker who took their own life. I can name a few. Our divorce rate is high. I learned that before I put my jacket in my locker, at end of shift, I had to check the back to make sure that when I had been spat on I could clean that off before putting it away. A wise colleague once said “When this career is done I don’t think it is a question of whether or not we have PTSD; it is only a question of how badly we have it and how well we can manage it?” We are expected to put ourselves in harms way routinely and remain calm and solve whatever problems come our way. Over time this takes a toll. It is part of our culture never to show fear or weakness. Only now are we beginning to seek help when we ourselves need it; but there is still a stigma in our profession about that and most of us do our best to cope with these things on our own.
If your life hasn’t included a routine of similar events, then please take a step back before you judge cops too harshly. Yes we are a little different than you and yes our views and opinions might sound a little harsh and jaded to you but it is one hell of a big leap to decide that that makes us cruel, evil or racist.
I have also been held accountable and disciplined when I made mistakes. That's fair - cops, surgeons and pilots chose professions that can’t afford poor judgement. Everything I did had potential to be judged by my superior officer, co-workers, Professional Standards, the Courts and, of course; the people we serve. My profession was one where I held people accountable and myself, and my co-workers, were also held to a much higher standard of accountability. If you think cops get a free ride on misbehaviour you are mistaken! We are all very aware that when we screw up at work there is a good chance it will be on the evening news so you can bet we do our best not to make mistakes.
None of this is complaining! I knew the rules and risks and what I signed up for. My Department treated me well, trained me properly and compensated me fairly. The experiences I have described are unspectacular by policing standards. Every cop has similar stories and experiences.
Let’s talk about Minneapolis!
What we saw in Minneapolis was horrific and sickening! Decades in policing has taught me that you need to investigate before you draw conclusions but that video is impossible to justify! The video starts with the suspect already in handcuffs and restrained on the ground so this tells us that it does not capture the whole event! Still, there is nothing I can imagine that could have happened beforehand that can justify what follows. I saw what appears to be a veteran officer totally unresponsive to pleas for breath? He is actually being coached by citizens on how to do his job properly and he ignores them! I can’t comprehend how he does not consider that he may be causing positional asphyxiation or that he might have cut off blood supply from the carotid artery to the brain? I can’t comprehend how he is not articulating with co-workers and on-lookers and working toward and co-ordinating a positive outcome? I can’t comprehend how he knows he is being filmed breaking every rule and does it anyhow? Is he that stupid; that racist; that poorly trained or that cruel?
Even if I were to later learn that the officer got his head “slammed” into the concrete during the arrest and sustained a brain injury significant enough that he didn’t realize what he was doing then that would explain his actions but I still would be lost to explain how several cops were on that scene and allowed this to happen? Someone needed to step up and do their duty; even if that meant dragging a fellow officer off of that suspect! Every one of them should have known this was wrong!
Every cop I have heard from is outraged because our eyes tell us we have witnessed a cold blooded murder and the suspect was wearing our uniform! He broke the law, he broke policy and he broke our own code of honour. From our point of view the handcuffs were on the wrong man. If you want to demand justice for this fine but you will have to get in line behind us. In fact, we probably demand more repercussions than you! There should be an inquiry into what kind of training those officers have been provided and the currency of that Departments policies and procedures. That officer had a plethora of safe restraint techniques available to him yet the one he chose should have been prohibited many years ago because we learned many years ago that neck restraint can kill people! If they can’t demonstrate that there were safeguards in place to prevent this from happening: then their Leadership needs to be held accountable too! I would also like to know how well funded that Department is? Politicians often don’t get that you can’t “cheap out” on policing because this is what happens when you aren’t providing the best training, equipment and personnel you can get. If the politicians considered this an acceptable risk then some of them need to be looking for new jobs too! If they thought they were saving some dollars just wait and see what George Floyd’s death is going to cost, has already cost, and consider what inadequate funding cost George Floyd!
So what is happening now?
Yes we have various organized groups telling us that there is a systemic problem in the US where police treat the black community with racism and excessive force. This frustration and anger is undoubtably shared by many minority groups. Don’t let these groups mislead you when they send the message that the police caused all this! That viewpoint is simplistic. Yes the horrible police incident was the “flashpoint” that ignited this; but what is happening right now isn’t about a wrongful death. What is happening right now is about decades of frustration and anger and poverty and lack of hope and it is much bigger than a policing issue!
A few decades ago Martin Luther King fought for Black rights and an end to segregation. He is regarded as an American hero for what he did to end legal segregation yet in the “blink of an eye” it has simply transformed into economic segregation.
The United States is likely the wealthiest country in the world. Despite that, it is a country with an unacknowledged but identifiable class system. Calling itself the “Land of Equal Opportunity” is simply a self told lie. A kid born in Palm Beach has much better opportunity than a kid born in a Detroit ghetto. The US has had racial tension for more than 200 years and have failed to use one of the best educational systems in the world to change that! Where too has the Church been in organizing an effective catalyst for change? Governments allow a great deal of the population to live with inadequate housing, food, healthcare, social “safety nets” and education. “Damned rights” there is a lot of anger when so much of the population has no access to the first few “building blocks” of a productive life! This is about a broken societal infrastructure that means that if you are born black and in poverty then you are almost certainly going to spend your life in poverty and die in poverty. This is about resentment and anger that each side has for the other, and because there is a parallel between which camp you are in and what your skin colour is, that creates racism in both directions. This is a disease and many symptoms come with it! Crime, health issues, substance abuse, hunger, anger, racism and hatred are a few.
Rather than accepting the enormous complexity and cost of addressing this disease; society turns to the police and asked them to fix this. The problem is that the police can’t fix or cure the disease on their own. They can only try to address some of the symptoms that fall within the policing mandate. The police are in a “no win” scenario and it is predetermined that they will fail. I am not saying that there are not problems to fix in policing but I am saying that the root of the problem lies in higher levels of governance, support infrastructure and societal support and accepted behaviours. Just because the police can’t fix it does not mean that they caused it! The police need partners enabled, and funded, to provide an integrated approach to solving the greater social issues.
This morning I opened Facebook and saw a post showing the faces of 24 black people who have died during encounters with police. I agree that each is a tragedy regardless of whether or not the death was lawfully justified. Statistics collected since 1980 show that, on average, 85 police officers are killed in the “Line of Duty” every year in the US. Over those 40 years that is 3400 police officers lost and how many families broken? How many of those deaths are related to racial tensions? This is not police against the black community nor the black community against the police. This is the police and the black community caught together in the same larger problem that is taking lives from both communities and those who could do something to fix that - either fail to understand how or choose not to act on it.
So what do we do?
At the very least stop blaming the cops for the fact that they alone can’t fix poverty, racism and inequality!
If you want to peacefully protest that is fine and absolutely your right to do so, but at least direct your protest at the people who can actually fix this and haven’t. Better still - put some thought into finding solutions and being part of it.
Make this problem an election issue!
Please don’t post messages that further incite the violence that is occurring right now! Lives are being lost and ruined every night and if you are posting, sharing or liking that hate propaganda then some of this carnage is on you and some of the blood is on your hands.
If you are listening to someone telling you what to do now and their ideas speak of violence rather than dialogue, active listening and directed, positive and immediate action then you are probably listening to someone who is part of the problem.
Americans are amazing people and when they come together with their incredible “Get ‘er done!” attitude there is no nation in the world more capable of tremendous achievement! I hope America finds the determination to fix this! It will make life much better for minorities, it will make life much better for cops and it will make life better for all of us! Giving “hope” and opportunity to all Americans is where you start if you truly want to “Make America Great Again”.
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Originally Posted by 98src
