Pondering Policing

I haven't made any real commentary on anything here, for a while.
Maybe because there is simply too much to opine on...
Maybe because I have been pulling tangents together a lot, lately.
And explaining how I get from Point A to Point B, in my head, can be exhausting.


Anyway, I saw this video recently.
One of our Green Berets sent to help win the war in Afghanistan.
He went native, won the hearts and minds and was kicked out of the Army.

The bit about him becoming a part of the community is what I want to pick out, for conversations sake.

Separately, I think of the situation in St. Louis today.
A kid killed by a cop, left dead in the street for hours.
The all too familiar sight of militarized police, lined up in riot gear, popping tear gas.
The scenes are us versus them.

Maybe in your town, this isn't the case.  Maybe the police are neighbors and friends.
I grew up around people in law enforcement, they all seemed like genuine, nice folks.
Their culture was maybe a bit insular - and perhaps as the world has gotten more dangerous that is more so the case.
One way or another, I seem to end up talking to an officer a couple times a year and they have all seemed pleasant enough and professional.


Then I think back to riot nights in the Bay area, and there were a lot of them.
I wasn't in the shit, just a schmuck trying to get home on those nights.
Even so, you could feel the separation when the cops walked past.
They were looking out for their own and I was not on that team.

Police in Philly seemed to only get out of their cars to talk to each other, usually in the most distant corner of some abandoned parking lot.
New York spent years upturning community policing with random and racially biased stop-frisk.

The under current seems to be less protect and serve, but rather us versus them.


Anyway, I see connections in these disparate stories.
The police in St. Louis fighting a losing war in their streets.
The Army less than winning in Afghanistan.
Both seem to fall back to institutional thought and reactive force escalation.
Neither addressing the base factor of humanity for stake holders on the ground.




That was a bit all over the place, I suppose.
The video is interesting, if you have a spare moment.