A gun. A flashlight. A cop. A young dad. A dark stairway in a project.
An young Asian police officer is instructed to walk the stairs on patrol. The lights are out. There are no cameras. His lens is a flashlight circle, about 4 or 5 feet in diameter. He clutches his gun in as much fear as aggression, maybe more so. A black dadsteps in the circle, and gets killed.
Peering into a small circle of illumination surrounded by darkness clutching a weapon. That is this tragic policeman, and it us as well.
There are obvious remedial tactics – cameras, technology, LIGHTS!, eliminate problem-seeking solo patrols with guns drawn, less incentive to make busts, more latitude to positively ID then bust vs these real-time confrontations for non-violent crimes – but remedies only are required when there is an underlying condition.
Some stories, like the one above, follow the metaphor perfectly. But this approach to law enforcement – a flashlight, and a gun – extend well-beyond that dark stairway in Brooklyn, and tragic evening. Time after time, it seems a guy that might qualify as the perp but isn’t steps into a cop’s flashlight circle, their first resort and primary training is enforcement, and the surrounding darkness drives their actions. Take him down? Jack my arrest levels? Protect myself?
Rarely, unfortunately, is it Apply Discretionary Logic and Compassion.
Our lens into the enforcement problem, and the tools we are equipped with, are similarly limited, and insidious. We have our circle of light, illuminated and bound by our intellectual perceptions, views, prejudices and beliefs. We participate in the ways we are comfortable with. Perhaps without knowing it, we keep the circle small, see clearly what we want to, but leave the rest opaque.
Rarely do we seek fundamental reasons, speak plain truths, or tolerate raw honesty. We modulate, re-state, avoid, or rationalize.
Law enforcement will never be done well by guys with flashlights and guns. But until we uncover the reasons police presence is so omnipresent in those dark stairways, why the residents demand and fight for this presence, and why we continue to treat this wound but never heal it, law enforcement will never be done well by anybody.