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This Actually Isn’t Good Police/​community Relations

12002824_10204945833425221_401427015886358774_nYesterday I par­tic­i­pat­ed in a dis­cus­sion on a viral video of two police offi­cers danc­ing while in uni­form much to the delight and what­ev­er oth­er emo­tion mem­bers of the atten­dant crowd felt .
As a for­mer mem­ber of the JCF and a staunch sup­port­er of Police Officers and the rule of law I voiced my dis­ap­proval with the par­tic­u­lar video.
Most of my friends polite­ly and respect­ful­ly dis­agreed with my stance on the video voic­ing their opin­ions on why they thought it was prob­a­bly a good thing.
Other mem­bers have gone to great lengths to post videos of oth­er police offi­cers danc­ing from depart­ments around the world as if a con­flu­ence of wrongs make a decid­ed right, but I digress.
A cou­ple of years ago mem­bers of the NYPD engaged in an episode of what we Jamaicans refer to as (dag­ger­ing) at a Caribbean day parade while in uni­form. This cre­at­ed a huge firestorm of neg­a­tive com­ments prompt­ing a response from the Police Commissioner who said though he is for Community Interaction he would have pre­ferred that it had­n’t happened.

September 5, 2011 in New York City. These officers were spared discipline not commended for good community relations... police
September 5, 2011 in New York City.
These offi­cers were spared dis­ci­pline not com­mend­ed for good com­mu­ni­ty relations…

As I said in my final com­ment on that thread, I am respect­ful of the right of my for­mer col­leagues to dis­sent. I also under­stand their desire to see a re-con­nec­tion between police and pub­lic. This can­not be it.
However each pos­i­tive action has a neg­a­tive reaction .
Lets remem­ber it was the action of mem­bers of the same depart­ment which neg­a­tive­ly dis­tort­ed the views of the pub­lic against the police.
For the record, if an offi­cer danc­ing like a clown with cap in hand in the dirt con­sti­tutes good com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions then the bat­tle has been long lost.
Of course the police should seek new ways to inter­act with the pub­lic , the police does that well through deliv­ery of food, police youth clubs, , stop­ping by to shoot a few hoops with kids , jump­ing rope are always with­in the sphere of good rela­tions while at the same time main­tain­ing the dig­ni­ty and deco­rum that is crit­i­cal for law enforce­ment to have the author­i­ty to ful­fil it’s purpose.
I under­stand also that there will be mem­bers who vehe­ment­ly dis­agree despite the most rea­soned and nuanced artic­u­la­tion, I am okay with that , shoot we could­n’t even get some cops to stay away from work for two days in order to dri­ve home demands for bet­ter wage and work­ing con­di­tions. Many saw going back to work dur­ing indus­tri­al actions as a way to gain favors with those whose salaries were scaled differently.
Officers sit­ting on bar stools in uni­form with long guns drink­ing alco­hol, offi­cers in dance with guns salut­ing , offi­cers abus­ing cit­i­zens were wrong then. Officers mak­ing a mock­ery of their office is wrong now.
No amount of sup­port­ing videos can change that.
It does not have to be beat­ing and shoot­ing or danc­ing being DJ’s demand­ing mon­ey and cooning .
There is a lot of room between those two polar opposites.

There is noth­ing wrong with police offi­cers inter­act­ing pos­i­tive­ly in the com­mu­ni­ties they serve, that is a giv­en. I under­stand how dif­fi­cult it is for many of us to let go of a point once we have latched onto it. We refuse to do so because it ends the ran­cor were we to rec­og­nize that the per­son you are debat­ing already con­ced­ed the point to you and has moved on to con­se­quences inher­ent in the sub­ject matter.
As the Police seek to find new ways to recon­nect with the pub­lic it is impor­tant that it does not throw out the baby with the bath-water. Disrespectful atti­tudes and com­ments does noth­ing to ele­vate the debate. Noticeably many of those who agree with lose behav­ior seemed to have joined the depart­ment in the late nineties and even later.
That goes to the heart of the prob­lem it is not a part of the solution.
It was par­tic­u­lar­ly their crim­i­nal acts and oth­er acts of non­con­for­mi­ty to norms and prop­er police pro­to­cols why the Police depart­ment is reviled and hat­ed today.
Ironically many of these younger mem­bers now see clown­ing on the job as a solu­tion to the prob­lem they cre­at­ed . I respect­ful­ly beg to differ .…

2 thoughts on “This Actually Isn’t Good Police/​community Relations”

  1. It is always refresh­ing to read your com­ments about cur­rent events, espe­cial­ly in the field of “law enforce­ment” which both of us love with every fibers of our body. To date, I can count on my hands the police offi­cers or for­mer police offi­cers whose integri­ty, ethics, love for the job that we gave our all to, but because of the lack­eys, polit­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed, lazi­est, and thiev­ing police offi­cers we see in our days, being pro­mot­ed and then the good police offi­cers are mar­gin­al­ized, maligned mal­treat­ed by these scoundrels.
    As you have right­ly said, not because oth­er police depart­ments around the world are doing it, makes it right! Their cul­tures, cul­tur­al rel­a­tivism, and sup­port they get from their cit­i­zens are in a total dif­fer­ent sphere from Jamaica. Jamaicans on a whole are “indis­ci­pline, hav­ing lit­tle or no respect for law and order, or police on a whole, dis­hon­est, lack­ing ethics, morals, human decen­cy, and most of all truthfulness.”
    The rea­son why we are see­ing all of these behav­iors unfold­ing before our very eyes is a tes­ta­ment that the police force is just an agency that is above the secu­ri­ty guard com­pa­nies in Jamaica. The cur­rent lead­er­ship of the police force has destroyed that pres­tige, emi­nence, and rep­u­ta­tion of the police force. If we to go to one of the places we used to work and observe the behav­ior of these police offi­cers, it would be “for­eign” to us!
    In my opin­ion the decline, dete­ri­o­ra­tion, degen­er­a­tion, and decay of the police force have a lot of con­tribut­ing fac­tors and it is a tes­ta­ment, attes­ta­tion and evi­dence that the “diver­si­fied police force” in Jamaica, is not pro­duc­ing or mold­ing bet­ter police offi­cers, but are in fact cre­at­ing more crim­i­nals from with­in the department.
    Imagine, see­ing police offi­cers in their num­ber one uni­form danc­ing, and dee­jay­ing at dances in Jamaica, to the delight, amuse and please great­ly to the peo­ple in the halls or con­fines of these dances. In addi­tion, when you post your dis­sent, sur­pris­ing ex-mem­bers and cur­rent mem­bers of the Jamaican Constabulary Force get upset and want to attack your posi­tion for stand­ing for moral­i­ty, and decen­cy in our soci­ety. As a peo­ple, we are los­ing the nar­ra­tive with these mis­cre­ants of our soci­ety because it seems like they out­num­bered us, but the best way to counter rhetoric is through pro­pa­gan­da, and that is what the author­i­ties have!
    Finally, if our mem­bers do not respect them­selves how do they expect the com­mu­ni­ty to respect them? I have seen a lot of police offi­cers over the years, try to the delight of these peo­ple whose moral com­pass are absent, and their con­sciences are long dead. Try to be a part of their com­mu­ni­ties and tried to be one of them, and even­tu­al­ly the same peo­ple who used to be their cheer­lead­ers, rejoice when men with­in the same com­mu­ni­ties killed them. It is best for the police to dis­play that lev­el of respect, esteem, regard, high opin­ion, admi­ra­tion, rev­er­ence, of them­selves and let the peo­ple show them the respect they deserves. When the police offi­cers are stoop­ing to such lows, deca­dent, depraved, self-indul­gent behav­ior to score points, or found favor with these peo­ple, they are going about it in a wrong way! The in return these police offi­cers expect the same immoral, uneth­i­cal peo­ple to show them the respect, love, revere them. When the police offi­cers in their uni­forms have pub­licly, dis­play­ing this type of unbe­com­ing behav­ior, pub­licly and in return expect the pub­lic to be respect­ful; they have the wrong con­cept of how they should be com­mand­ing and gar­ner­ing respect from the cit­i­zens of these com­mu­ni­ties because it will not work. And in return they get the sur­prise that the respect they expect­ed it is nonex­is­tent, absent ; and the peo­ple show them lit­tle or no respect, they can­not blame the soci­ety on a whole because that is the image and accept­able behav­ior that they have put out in the pub­lic domain and its return­ing to sender. Not every­thing that oth­er depart­ments around the world are doing should be read­i­ly accept­able to mem­bers of the Jamaican Constabulary Force, because each country’s cul­tur­al rel­a­tivism and ethos dif­fers from oth­ers, espe­cial­ly a third world coun­try where the peo­ple a very indis­ci­pline, crim­i­nal mind­ed, crim­i­nal sup­port­ers, enablers, bene­fac­tors of crimes and ene­mies for law and order. Not because oth­ers are doing make it right. It is not who is right, but what is right!

  2. Thank you Chris.
    Incredibly some peo­ple are blind­ed despite fac­tu­al precedent.
    You do not empow­er the poor by tak­ing from the rich and giv­ing to the poor.
    You do not make the blind see by goug­ing out the eyes of those who can see.
    You do not make a pig a chris­t­ian by dress­ing it and plac­ing it in a church , you sim­ply turn the church into a pig pen.
    You do not low­er stan­dards to con­nect You main­tain and improve stan­dards and encour­age oth­ers to join you there.
    These truths are not always read­i­ly understood.…

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