Highlights
The law enforcement profession was immensely criticized for being warriors and not guardians. Then came mass shootings.
Author
Opinion
There has been an ongoing campaign throughout the recent protests and riots regarding the police use of force to change the mindset of cops as warriors. The call was to make them “guardians.”
Concurrently, advocates tried to ban armored vehicles and cops from having high-powered weapons.
Then came a steady stream of school and mass shootings.
Cops As A Paramilitary Unit
When I was a new police officer, I was trained in a paramilitary setting. Why?
When I pulled up to a horrible automobile accident, I was relieved when more experienced officers came to support me. They started barking out orders as to which victim needed immediate attention and who had to wait for additional backup.
Ever participate in the extraction and medical treatment of very badly injured accident victims? There are multiple priorities. You have to deal with the probability that additional accidents were likely to happen unless you staged cones and flares and vehicles to protect those at the scene. You had to take the belligerent and combative drunk driver who created the accident into custody. You have to deal with hysterical friends and relatives who want to crawl into the overturned car to comfort the victims. It’s a massively confusing scene.
The senior officer will start giving commands. From experience, they know who to treat first. They understand the priorities. There’s no room for discussion, lives depend on you doing the right things in the correct order. He tells me (and others) what to do and my response is, “Yes sir.”
There are endless times in policing that require military precision and adherence to a command structure. Doing the job by the book protects the rule of law and civil rights. You don’t want to screw up in front of an experienced officer.
Are We Really Warriors?
No. For the vast majority of their time as cops, they are peacekeepers. Except for those rare times when they and others are at significant risk, they are guardians. The vast majority of police officers are comfortable with that distinction.
But beginning with protests regarding the use of force by law enforcement in 2014, it became an issue that “all” cops were prone to overreacting when data tells us that out of 54 million contacts, the use of force “or” the threat of force involved two percent of contacts per replicated USDOJ surveys of citizens. National polls indicate vast trust in law enforcement. Regardless of the data, cops were told to tone it down; become guardians, not warriors.
Yet if cops don’t immediately rush in and take out a school shooter, the criticism is endless. To do that, you have to be trained and equipped as a warrior.
Mass Shootings
Back in the day, there were about 30 of us from multiple law enforcement agencies descending on a house to serve a warrant for gun-related murder. Each of us had a task to perform. Each understood the rules of engagement. It was all examined and explained beforehand.
But you are sitting in your patrol vehicle one day when the radio barks that there is an active shooter at a school. All you know is that shots have been fired and there are kids injured. You are dispatched to the location.
Arriving you find mass confusion. You have a vague description of the shooter. Shots are being fired. There are multiple law enforcement agencies at the scene. Who’s in charge? Do we set up a perimeter? Do we attack the shooter? Do we negotiate? Do we have the right weapons or an armored vehicle? Is there a possibility we could inadvertently shoot a child or a teacher? How do we know the difference between a teacher or custodian or the shooter based on a very vague description? You’re escorting a ton of students away from the scene but how do you know the shooter isn’t among those escaping?
You’re scared half to death, not out of personal fear, but the challenge of making the right decisions. What solves all of these problems? Experienced officers and command staff taking over and issuing orders.
That requires a para-military stance. That requires coordination. That requires training as a warrior because, for that moment, you are at war.
Training
To deal with the situation above, you need to know how to shoot multiple weapons during extreme conditions. The special weapons team is being assembled miles away but there’s no time to wait. If you have rifles, good. If you have tactical gear or shields or an armored vehicle, even better.
In short, this is war and you must be supremely prepared and trained or the risk of doing more harm than good becomes an issue. Without military-like training and weapons, you don’t succeed. Kids and innocent civilians die.
Without armored vehicles, you can’t observe what’s happening or draw fire or crash through a wall and take the shooter by surprise.
We Demand Cops As Guardians
1. From the National Institute of Justice of the US Department of Justice: “In Plato’s vision of a perfect society — in a republic that honors the core of democracy — the greatest amount of power is given to those called the Guardians. Only those with the most impeccable character are chosen to bear the responsibility of protecting the democracy.”
Beginning in the 1960s, and more recently fueled by post 9-11 fear, American policing has slowly drifted away from Plato’s vision of guardians and Socrates’ view of guardian education as expressed in Plato’s Republic. This view of guardian education is humanistic. It takes shape through criminal justice education that is not only vocational but also stresses ethics, theory and the nature of virtue. As a profession, we have veered away from Sir Robert Peel’s ideal, “the police are the people, and the people are the police,” toward a culture and mindset more like warriors at war with the people we are sworn to protect and serve, National Institute Of Justice.
2. With no prospect for legislative action, the bill’s lead negotiators, Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Karen Bass, have called on Biden to resort to executive orders to ensure that key parts of the Act take effect — among them, a provision that would place strict restrictions on the Pentagon’s 1033 program. Local police forces have acquired at least $1.8 billion worth of excess military equipment through the 1033 program since its inception during the War on Drugs. This influx of combat gear to local communities has contributed to increased police violence and inflated law enforcement budgets. If the executive order is issued as is, its biggest contribution would be its prohibition on the transfer of military vehicles. Banning this class of armament would initiate a country-wide recall, a significant step toward demilitarizing local communities, Responsible Statecraft.
Conclusions
As stated, before the controversies regarding police use of force, cops understood the difference between being guardians and warriors. During decades of policing, this issue never came up. Politicians and the public understood that cops need to be both.
Yes, some officers violated their oaths and committed unethical or illegal acts. It was reprehensible. However, through endless media coverage, all cops were painted as engaged in excessive use of force regardless of replicated data saying otherwise and endless polls stating that law enforcement was (and is) one of the most trusted professions in America.
Now, we have thousands of cops leaving, the highest fear of crime on record, and considerable and growing urban violence.
But as to warriors, let cops screw up during a mass shooting at a school or shopping mall or a synagog and all hell breaks loose. To enter an active shooting with multiple victims based on vague descriptions and hundreds fleeing, you have to have superb training and equipment. You are literally going to war to take out an active shooter.
Cops who are equipped and trained for mass shooters understand that it’s vital to do what’s necessary to save lives and eliminate the threat at 11:00 a.m., but at 2:00 in the afternoon, comfort a mother who can’t find her child.
It takes an extraordinary person to be able to balance both roles. It takes a society that understands and supports both roles.
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