Getting It Right
While driving on the highway today, I saw one of those digital signs sharing a message from the Englewood (NJ) Police Department. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it said something akin to:
EPD [Englewood Police Department] supports our fallen brothers. RIP Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos.
It stood out to me because it seemed the very type of formal, official response we’d want to see from a police organization in this situation. Given how much ugliness has been put out there leading up to and in response to these horrific murders, it is reassuring to see that at least one organization seems to have gotten it right. Kudos to the EPD on this move.
The NYPD union is responding in the way they are because they are doing what unions should do which is maximizing their response to gain maximum benefit. The NYPD for the past 15-20 years has pretty much decided that every Mayor is the enemy in terms of being evil management. The NYPD union also urged police officers to protest Giuliani from attending funerals. In 2007, Lynch said that there was no way in hell that the NYPD could support Giuliani’s potential bid for the GOP nomination or for president.
So what we seem to have is a situation where every mayor of NYC is going to be in constant conflict with the NYPD. De Blasio’s problem is that he essentially ran a left-of-center campaign against certain police tactics like stop and frisk and criticized the Garner grand jury decision. He also had a staffer whose partner/lover/husband was an ex-con who tweeted anti-police sentiments. No sane person would ever accuse Giuliani of being soft-on-crime and while he probably battled police unions for benefits and stuff, I doubt Giuliani would criticize the Garner decision.
What this brings to my mind is the constant tension between being an elected official (especially an executive elected official) and being a committed liberal or civil libertarian. People elect mayors to make sure everything runs relatively smoothly and for a place like NYC or SF, this includes making sure people from the suburbs can get in for their jobs or for entertainment and also making things safe and sound for visitors. However being a liberal also requires support for civil liberties and for unionized workers. This tension comes up a lot in public transit strikes for example.
Police Unions have done very well for themselves in terms of pay and benefits but they still need to justify their existence and the next stage seems to be a large amount of autonomy and this means being able to do their jobs, as they please without oversight.Report
I dunno kazzy. This seems like one of those situations where we’re supposed to give folks credit (extra credit!) for hitting a really easy target. But I”m not sure what the purpose of an advertisement like the one you quote is other than to signal solidarity with other cops, as some sorta fraternity that exists outside of the lives and experiences the rest of us live in. What the hell does it mean to “support our fallen brothers”? You can mourn their loss. You can feel pissed about how they died. But support them? Their dead!
Even this message is political at it’s core, one which creates an inside/outside dichotomy, one where you’re either with us or against us. Cops seem to think that anyone who isn’t with them (even to the point of their being able to kill unarmed black men with impunity or – more generally – fuck with people beyond all justifiable reason (SWAT teams? no-knocks? DEAD DOGS!!)) is against em. I say fuck that logic, but it appears that all the spokesmen for cops we’ve heard from embrace it.Report
@stillwater
My assumption is that the cops wanted to say something. And that if you are going to say something publicly and are limited to a medium shorter than a Tweet, this was a good thing to say. Do I think that the EPD should get medals for this sign? No. But would I rather see PDs and cops respond this way than the way most of them seem to? Hell yes.Report
This response to that particular message strikes me as verging on unhinged, or maybe just trying too hard.
The policemen and women of a given PD can speak as one to say they support their fallen brethren. There is less than nothing wrong with that.Report
Nashville’s chief got it right.Report
Linky?Report
I believe this is what @chris is refering to.Report
There’s a coffee shop in Madison at the corner of the street where my best friend grew up and the main drag of our neighborhood that basically transplanted itself from Brooklyn (NY) to there. It’s this one.
As you can see from their page, they had been expressing solidarity with the protest movement against unaccountable police violence. But this week, the chalkboard sign seen in those photos reads (paraphrasing), “Thank you Rafael Ramos. RIP.”
I’m guessing they knew him personally, but that wouldn’t really change anything if that were true. This is getting it right.Report