NYPD Blames Arrest Slowdown on Morale, Not Being Liked: ‘Cops Have Feelings, Too’

It's a catch-22. Hire guys who can fight, and you get meat heads with more balls than brains; walking egos accustomed to getting their way through intimidation. Don't go that route, and you get the kind of cop who has to shoot an unarmed man because the relative physical prowess between them makes the suspect's fists a lethal weapon. Either way, when the decision goes wrong, somebody will make sure there are no consequences.

Just about every decision one can make in effort to improve law enforcement results in some kind of drawback because it's not a simple thing to choose candidates and prepare them for their job. Train cordial officers who maintain polite humility, and they're more at risk on the bad side of town. Train no-nonsense officers who maintain total control and use overwhelming force, and accidents victimize gentle people who were never a threat.

I've said it for years now, though the details have only gradually taken shape. There are only three things that can be done to improve our society's arrangement where law enforcement is concerned.

Accountability. Sensibility. Justice.

We need to know what our officers do on the job. Every member of law enforcement in the nation serving beneath the federal echelon must wear body cameras, and dash cams need to be secured so that footage can't just conveniently vanish anymore. The fact that I even have to type that highlights just how much work regulatory authorities don't bother doing.

Laws need to be revised so that people are not locked up over victimless crimes against all common sense, physical reality, and the will of the members of our society. Making excuses to fill the jails devastates families, therefore communities, and that only breeds fear. That's the kind of thing that leads to hate.

On a similar note, laws such as civil asset forfeiture need to be revised to better protect the innocent. As the law stands, it only serves to breed fear and suspicion of police.

Officers need to be held to a higher standard of justice, which means that even if they can't be subject to UCMJ due to some posse comitatus technicality, they should have their own version of the same thing. Independent prosecutors should try officers, and not their buddy at the DA's office. Independent investigators should build the cases on them, and not their buddies at the precinct or substation.

The fact that I have to type that just makes me wonder how many old school members of the mob were given a badge and a choice to turn over a new leaf. It's the same business in some places. Intimidation, shakedown, beat down, cover up. There are places with good cops who don't deserve the kind of rep New York style mafioso police give them.

Until those three steps are taken, I fear that things will only get worse. I'm not saying this to side with law enforcement nor to side with people who don't like the police. I'm trying to think about what best protects everybody, civilian and law enforcement alike. I've turned this topic over in my head for years, and as year by year the friction between civilians and law enforcement gets even worse, those three things are still all I have thought of. I think there will always be room to criticize the police, for the reasons I opened with, but that doesn't mean there's outright nothing that can be done to better protect everybody -- including them.

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