How Much Power Does Police Need To Do Their Jobs

“The police must do every­thing they can to keep us safe”.

How many times have you heard this statement ?
Too often.
People say this with­out giv­ing a sin­gle thought to the con­se­quences of what it means to give police unfet­tered power.

Police Agencies and their offi­cers are wary and dis­trust­ful of over­sight and trans­paren­cy. Police fun­da­men­tal­ly believe they take risks so they deserve some lee-way. And they are giv­en much lee-way. But how much do they need? Does that mean they can­not and should not be held account­able for anything?

They believe many crit­ics are ardent anti-law-enforce­ment, anti-police anarchist.
True some are, there are many for whom cops can do noth­ing right.
Those are bal­anced out by those for whom cops can do no wrong.
Having left law-enforce­ment 24 years ago I am more sen­si­tized to some of the con­cerns cit­i­zens have and how they per­ceive law-enforcement.
It also brings into sharp­er focus how peo­ple are treat­ed, not just by law-enforce­ment offi­cers, but by the larg­er crim­i­nal jus­tice system.

Police offi­cers close ranks when out­siders ques­tion what they do. Nowhere is this more bla­tant than in the World’s largest Police Agency, the NYPD.

The NYPD has five Unions rep­re­sent­ing offi­cers at vary­ing ranks with­ing the struc­ture. The Patrolman’s Benevolent Association (NYPD-PBA being the largest rep­re­sent­ing approx­i­mate­ly 35,000 cops under the rank of Sergeant. At the head of the Union is Patrick Lynch.
Lynch is a loud-mouth rab­ble rous­ing self pro­mot­er who absolute­ly rel­ish­es the idea of hear­ing him­self talk. Ed Mullins is a sergeant, he heads the SBA the Union which advo­cates for sergeants. Recently Mullins referred to the Mayor as a nincompoop.
There’s respect for you!

Oversight and trans­paren­cy are good for police. It qui­ets crit­ics and pro­tects the lives of Officers. Yet cops are the first to resist over­sight and transparency. 
When cit­i­zens are unhap­py and believe there are cov­er-ups bad things hap­pen to police.
Immediately fol­low­ing the das­tard­ly and rep­re­hen­si­ble deci­sion by the Staten Island grand jury in the Eric Garner case, four cops were shot, two fatally.
Is that the kind of envi­ron­ment NYPD cops want to work in? How about vot­ing loud-mouthed right wing moron Lynch out and watch peo­ple coa­lesce around you? How about kick­ing Ed Mullins out, show respect to all cit­i­zens then watch peo­ple show you respect?

Respect? Where is the respect for the fam­i­lies who want­ed the Mayor to attend the funer­al of their loved ones? Where is the respect for the Mayor him­self? Where is their respect for their boss the Commissioner? Where is their respect for the city?
There is none !
The point is that the NYPD and it’s unions want the Mayor to agree with them killing peo­ple with­out account­abil­i­ty. They want to have every­one in their cor­ner so when they cir­cle the wag­ons there is no daylight.
How dare this Mayor, the father of a black son, tell his son to be cau­tious around police? Why would he do that? Police only unlaw­ful­ly and rou­tine­ly kill black men?
When they do no mat­ter the evi­dence there is no con­se­quence . So whats he talk­ing about ? This has gone on for hun­dreds of years, it’s noth­ing new, where does he get off not sid­ing with us?

The prob­lem with the NYPD as with any police agency is that there is a fail­ure of lead­er­ship. For the most part Rank and file cops are used as rev­enue agents and when it suits loud mouthed self-serv­ing idiots like Lynch and Mullins’ pur­pose, they are used for Political purposes.
When NYPD cops whine about not get­ting respect, whine about not get­ting sup­port, like cry-babies, they are actu­al­ly say­ing they are not sub­ject to civil­ian author­i­ty. The recent and ongo­ing dis­play of arro­gance and disrespect com­ing from mem­bers of the NYPD are not only the actions of cops who believe they are above the laws. It is a soft coup-de-ta to the duly con­sti­tut­ed author­i­ty vest­ed in the city’s Mayor,who hap­pened to cam­paign on Police reform.

The Police Union through it’s grand-stander-in-chief Patrick Lynch, swore that a 94% drop in tick­ets and sub­poe­nas issued does not rep­re­sent a work slow-down by cops unhap­py with the Mayor. They are incensed with the Mayor for allow­ing cit­i­zens to protest the unlaw­ful killing of Eric Garner by Daniel Pantaleo a Staten Island cop.

Even though Patrick Lynch and Ed Mullins lied that there was no work stop­page, he issued instruc­tions for cops to go back to doing their jobs to about 50% of their capacity.
His instruc­tions are do your job , just don’t be too zeal­ous. This we are told came as the chief of depart­ment threat­ens to crack down on cops , as he responds to pres­sure from com­mis­sion­er Bratton.

Crime con­tin­ues to drop with the absence of stop and frisk, or what is ref­er­eed to as the bro­ken win­dows pol­i­cy in new York City. Coupled with the 94% drop in low lev­el arrests and the issuance of sum­mons­es and sub­poe­nas, it proves that the City’s minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties are bear­ing the brunt of over-polic­ing , result­ing in extreme and undue fines and penal­ties. Many of the City’s pub­lic Defenders who watched a pre­cip­i­tous drop-off in the num­ber of peo­ple dragged before the courts, have stat­ed that New Yorkers are being brought before the courts on trumped up charges.

As it is in Ferguson Missouri, in cities and towns all across America, it is in New York City, Police are being used as rev­enue Agents.
Those who would give up their rights in pur­suit of secu­ri­ty end up with nei­ther. [Benjamin Franklin]

The more pow­er police gets is the more they crave. What they need is not more pow­er but more over­sight. We have already giv­en up too much of our rights and we still haven’t seen the secu­ri­ty we crave, At what point do we real­ize we have wound our­selves into a cocoon from which we may nev­er be able to extri­cate ourselves?
If the way America’s cops are behav­ing is a good met­ric by which we may mea­sure whether we have gone too far, we have already gone too far.