Good Cop, Bad Cop

Recently I've had a case in which the husband of a woman who showed up to the hospital with suspicious injuries works within the criminal justice system.  He's not a police officer, but he is in a position of trust and authority.  The woman wouldn't talk to us, share evidence, or trust us in any significant way.  She told me that she knew we would protect him because he worked with prosecutors, police and judges, and she believed that my fellow officers and I would actually work to help him hurt her and damage her testimony in a pending divorce.  In short, she believed we were all dirty cops, and she had no use for our services.  

I have known a very small handful of bad cops in my time.  Most police officers, however, are extraordinary men and women who live by a code of ethics more precious to us than perhaps anything else save our families.  I’ve never known even one officer who came to work thinking he was going to do bad work and make the world a little worse today.  I’ve never seen a single officer take a bribe, and the one officer I learned had been taking bribes from undocumented immigrants after he terrorized them was caught and convicted and now lives in protective custody in our prison system. 

I’ve seen physical abuse of a suspect by only one officer that occurred after he and I chased a man who had just pulled a knife on a third officer.  It was bad enough that I jumped in between the officer and the suspect and got rewarded with two punches to my own back intended for the bad guy’s head.  That particular police officer is no longer in law enforcement either.   

            I once arrested a cop for strangling his girlfriend.  It was uncomfortable and sad, but he didn't deserve to be in law enforcement any more.  I’d do it again tomorrow if the situation called for it.  Hell yes I’m loyal to my brother officers, but once an officer starts abusing his badge and authority to get away with crimes that could result in injury or death to another human being, all loyalties to him from me are gone. 

            Yes, there is bad policing out there, but it is nowhere near as rampant as one might assume based on how our profession is often portrayed in film and television.  Shows starring an actor portraying a private detective almost couldn’t exist without the premise that the police in the private detective’s town are too incompetent, corrupt or lazy to get the job done themselves, thus forcing the victim to hire someone to solve the crime out of desperation.  How many donut jokes can there be out there?  And folks, let me just clue you in:  raising your arms in mock surrender and announcing, “I didn’t do it,” when a uniformed officer walks by may seem like the funniest, most original jest in the history of comedy, but I assure you that the officer has heard that joke several hundred times and is only smiling so he doesn’t have to punch you in the mouth.  Imagine how you’d feel if you were told the same knock-knock joke several times a day, every day, for twenty years. 

            The point is that Hollywood stereotypes and our culture’s general lack of ease with authority figures leads to a situation in which it is easy and amusing to assume that police officers in any particular city are incompetent and ineffective.  The drawback to this is that this very attitude just widens the chasm between citizens and the people sworn to protect them.  In a real sense, police officers experience a type of bigotry every time they don a uniform or announce their profession.  All of us have been hated, literally hated, simply for the profession we’ve chosen and the clothing we wear.  If you believe that police work is s type of culture, which it is, then it is a simple jump to see that officers are often mocked, despised, pre-judged, and disregarded simply for their participation in that culture.  Substitute a race or a religion for my profession’s culture, and you can see how entirely inappropriate this all is. 

            One of the most significant problems this creates relative to domestic violence is that women who are systematically being beaten down by their partners often find part of the difficulty in seeking help is that they simply don’t feel they can trust police officers to do the job they were hired to do.  For many people trapped in an intimate partner violence nightmare, the thought of reaching out for assistance from a group of professionals trained, equipped and intended to protect them is too big a leap because failure on the part of the police could well mean the death of the victim.  If a victim has grown used to the idea that cops are just a bunch of lazy idiots, how on earth can she trust them with her life or perhaps the lives of her loved ones. 

            One of the objectives in writing these articles is to dispel some of those myths in which officers are portrayed as uncaring or ineffective.  In the last decade there has been a huge push across this nation for police agencies to take domestic violence and stalking more seriously than has ever been the case in the past.  In some cities units specifically assigned to investigate and address abuse in the home are called Homicide Prevention Units, because there is a clear correlation between aggressively using the criminal justice system to combat this type of crime and a lowered homicide rates. 

            Think about that for a minute; police agencies are assigning officers and detectives to uncompromisingly pursue cases involving domestic violence, and the outcome tends to be that the homicide rates in those cities go down.  When you consider that at least fifty percent of all homicides are done by people who know each other and have lived together, this seems to make a lot of sense. 

            We are all used to police agencies reacting to a crime.  An offense gets reported, an investigation ensues, perhaps an arrest is made, and we go on to the next case.  An argument can be made that the suspect can be rehabilitated or “learn his lesson,” but for the most part these actions constitute a slowing mechanism on crime rates with a dash of deterrence thrown in. 

            Something bigger happens when a police agency takes on the responsibility and dedicates manpower to addressing domestic violence crimes.  Every major study in the last twenty years clearly shows a direct link between solid police work and aggressive prosecution (including mandatory jail time in conjunction with batterer’s intervention programs) and decreased homicide rates, decreases in repeat offenses within the same home, lower incidences of officers getting hurt, and increases in the confidence levels the general public has for their police departments.  In essence, while there is still a strong presence of law enforcement, these units also become a crime prevention tool. 

            In my opinion, this is simply good police work and good government.  Governments, and by extension the executive branch as represented by every police officer across this land, have as their most important function the protection of the citizenry.  There is no more important or sacred duty of government than that.  Yes, governments get bogged down in bureaucracy and, in some cases, outright inefficiency, but when it gets right down to the base objective, taking care of the safety and welfare of each other is what it’s all about in a government of and by the people. 

            To that end, it makes sense that when programs that are repeatedly shown to be effective in better ensuring the safety of the community are identified, the resources and support of police chiefs and elected sheriffs fall behind them.  More and more, that is what communities are getting.  I’ve said for years that twenty-first century policing has an opportunity to do a better job for those we serve than at any time in this nation’s history, and programs such as Homicide Prevention Units (or whatever name is given to units assigned to combat domestic violence) can and should be a big part of that.

         As for the woman who could not find it within her to trust us…my message to her is that there are trustworthy and safe options available for the asking.  We’ll be here when you’re ready.