I sit at the keyboard with a heavy heart and tired soul. I woke up this morning to yet another shooting by police. Not in Tulsa, but in North Carolina. As more of the facts come in, it appears that the police did recover a gun, not a book, as was reported. The case will be deemed justified, yet the community and I still ache. I really don’t have any details on the Charlotte shooting, other than a black male subject exited his vehicle, he appears to have had a gun in his hand and police shot him almost immediately. The saddest part of the story to me, anyway, is that the police justification for the shooting will be as cut and dry as my description.
An unintended consequence of entering into police culture is a clear and distinct dehumanization that occurs for both the officer, and the individuals they deal with, while performing their primary function of enforcing the law. In order to fully understand the problem, I will have to put a few things into perspective. Compartmentalization becomes either a blessing or a curse, depending on who you want to be. The ability to take your emotions and sometimes logic, and stick em in your back pocket, is a necessary part of the job. You can’t crumble every time you see a dead kid or a veteran drinking himself into the hospital. As a cop, you need to have a box for each emotion and the ability to separate them from your job. This is the first step toward surviving a police career – and the first step in the dehumanization process.
Before I was a cop I was a punk rocker and pot smoker. I was a rebel. But as I got older and disillusioned with the ideals of youth, I rebelled yet again. This time, rebelling against rebelling landed me in a job that forced me to compartmentalize my own personal beliefs. I did it voluntarily and with zeal. I always said I would be that cool cop who never wrote a ticket and didn’t bust anyone for weed. The problem is: it doesn’t matter who you are when you go in. We all came out the same way. Despite my love for marijuana, I quit for more than ten years and made hundreds of pot busts. For what? Did I personally believe in the war on drugs? No. At the time it was a small compromise to make, to have the ability to be a part of something great – because that’s all we ever really want, isn’t it? To be a part of something bigger than ourselves? That’s why we’re Anonymous, isn’t it?
The compartmentalization of personal value is one of the more dehumanizing aspects of police work, mainly for the officer, however, their family will ultimately feel the effects as well. Now, how does one enforce laws that they themselves don’t believe in and feel are morally unjust? This is again, where a dehumanization must occur in order for the officer to sleep at night. or look in the mirror. If you were taking someone to jail for weed, could the officer imagine their child in that place and still feel good about it? I don’t think so. So they just don’t think about it.
The justification comes from this sense of duty to a cause. A cause that, although you may not agree with everything, you believe in the overall mission. Yeah, other cops may go around killing unarmed black people, but in the end, you need us, and accidents do happen. This is a level of compartmentalization of not only emotion, but logic, in order to cling to the belief that the group you belong to is the right one. It is a primal clan-like mentality.
This dehumanization and compartmentalization is most certainly a factor in every police shooting. Do you think that all these cops killing people are bad humans? I’d say no. They’re conditioned by a system that supports this culture. It’s just another cycle. Getting into use of force issues and police mentalities could fill volumes. Yes, many of these cops are Rambo a*sholes who seem intent on killing. But some of them find themselves in a situation where instead of using logic, and working through a situation, their compartmentalization causes them to see situations as black and white. He exited the vehicle. I observed a threat. I neutralized the threat. It’s that simple. Then there is the ever-persistent knowledge that the system will back them after they choose from the slew of pre-scripted defenses. I very much believe that it is this dehumanization on a regular basis that ultimately eats away at officers and causes them to drink, have affairs and many times, commit suicide.
The loss of self in the dehumanization process, I think, can be demonstrated by the recent shootings we’ve had in just the past few months. In that time, we have seen police shooters who are white, black, Hispanic, Asian, both male and female. While many like to think that hiring more African-American or minority cops will solve the problem, they would be what I like to call wrong. This conformity to a system that depends on dehumanization strips you of who you were before. Once you are in, you are one of them. The system depends on it.
It is hard to sum up all that is wrong with the current system of policing, however, I have hope that it will not always be this way. Other civilized nations around the world don’t face the same problems with police that we do. That tells me that there are solutions. Police will claim their mission is to protect life, but they do not embrace life. Rebuilding trust in police begins with replacing old dehumanizing systems with new ones that puts life and people above all else.
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