Don’t buy into the weakness
Nothing has changed over the years. In the 80’s I worked a diverse district outside of the District of Columbia. We had the rich, the poor, and the illegals all in one 30 square mile area. The racial stuff was going on all the time. We fought people every night. I remember tossing a grandmother off my back into a wall while my partner and I arrested her grandson in their apartment. The illegals were always drunk and resisted arrest. It got so bad that a black officer working an all black neighborhood started getting attacked and was constantly calling in Signal 13’s. I was always the backup going to his rescue. Finally, when I had enough of his behavior, I went to the Sgt asking to be moved to the other side of the district. They granted my wish but later reassigned him when he continued to create problems in his area. I eventually took over his beat. I got to know the good people and gained their support in getting rid of the problem makers. One night while making an arrest of a black man, he started to resist. A crowd started to develop and I thought they were going to interfere. To my surprise, one of the black females in the group called out to the man and told him to stop resisting me. The rest of the group echoed the same words. The subject complied and the event ended peacefully. As a white cop in all black neighborhood, I developed a relationship with the seniors and at times would lend them a twenty when they needed it. I always got paid back. They weren’t afraid of me and I would give them a break when they needed it. Most of the apartment complexes had little or no air conditioning so drinking alcohol in public would occur on those hot sticky days. When I would get complaints from non residents about the public drinking behind the local 7-11, I would drive up, roll down the window, greet the men, and ask them to finish their beers and make their way home whenever they could. They weren’t drunk. They were just having a good time in the shade behind a 7-11. Eventually, I was transferred to another district in order to help out with a squad that was lacking certain skill sets that made them look weak in the eyes of the public. The lack of respect became pretty obvious because people were used to weak cops. So the battle to save the westside was on. People fought us and we fought back. Eventually, the younger officers caught on and policing was fun again. I started working a black bar which was the number one selling spot for crack in the county. The narcs couldn’t penetrate them so we in patrol started using tactics that would eventually be known as Criminal Drug Patrol. An all out war went down and we started invading the parking lot every night. I was so hated that one night while making an arrest, a subject with a sawed off shotgun was getting ready to shoot me in the back. I did not realize it at the time. A backup showed up and the man stood down. This murder attempt was revealed later after this subject was arrested following a pursuit where he tossed the shotgun out of his car. During the subsequent interrogation, he admitted to wanting to ice a white cop making an arrest at the bar. He said that he didn’t shoot me because of the backup unit arriving. So where I am going with this? Nothing has changed over the last forty years. We did community policing back before it became a trendy philosophy. Yet at the same time, we came down hard when we had to. Weakness will always result in more people getting hurt. Yes, your leadership has failed you. But you are the one wearing the badge. So police with compassion but be mean when you have too. Don’t let the weak control the narrative. You do.
