Reading this week about the 13 year old in Chicago who has been charged with a felony for throwing a snowball at a police officer and the California university student arrested for not identifying herself, I have become extremely dismayed at the extent to which law enforcement is overstepping their authority. Not only are they acting with ever-increasing levels of brutality and militarism, they are acting as though they are entitled to special, protected status. Gone are the days of your friendly neighborhood police officer that kids knew they could run to in times of trouble. Gone is the “Protect and Serve” ethos. Is it because local politicians and police chiefs have been enamored by the military “toys” they have access to that had previously only been available to SWAT? Or is it the caliber of people now wanting to become police officers? Bullies who want to feel like big shots? Our police forces are now looking like gangs of toughs rather than law enforcement.
My children and I had our own disturbing experience with the Ohio state police while on a cross-country road trip last summer, and I can tell you that my 9 year old son is now terrified of the police. He saw his 17 year old brother threatened and he, his mom, and his brother locked in the back of a police car for over an hour while drug-sniffing dogs and 6 state police officers searched their home on wheels (RV) without any evidence of wrongdoing. Just because “we won’t know what we’ll find until; we look”. After not finding anything, we were sent on our way with the “we’re just doing our jobs” argument. This experience gave my son nightmares for months and an ongoing, deep distrust of the police and of course, my complaint didn’t even get a response from the department.
I’m not sure what we can do about this trend, and I expect it is a symptom of the larger problem, the slow chipping away of our civil liberties, but I hope as more of these stories are heard and as outrage grows, we will see a backlash against the bullies. I am afraid though that this may not happen until we hit some critical mass tipping point where the people have more to fear from police than from criminals.
