theatlantic | in the course of defending the NYPD, the right is now lending
credibility to the notion that harsh but totally nonviolent criticism of
public employees makes one partly responsible if they are attacked by a
lunatic–as well as the idea that public employees who feel disrespected
by elected officials ought to be appeased with an apology. As City Journal takes
well-desserved shots at Sharpton, condemns the rare protestors who
disgustingly chant for dead cops, and publishes plausible defenses of Broken Windows policing,
it would do well to start regarding misbehaving police with as much
concern as it routinely marshals for misbehaving teachers, rather than
proceeding as if cops are the one category of public employees who can
do no wrong, despite ample evidence to the contrary and even as police unions openly intervene to keep the worst cops from being terminated.
A publication with a proud history of urging necessary reforms in New
York City ought to be on the front lines of improving its scandal-prone
police department and protecting the Fourth Amendment rights of
innocents, rather than overlooking all manner of misdeeds so long as
crime rates are low. At the very least, it should stop acting as if
those who do criticize misbehaving police officers are any more
responsible for the extremely rare instances in which they're murdered
than City Journal would be responsible for an assault on a representative from the California Teacher's Association. For good reason, City Journal authors bristle at the propagandistic notion that they are "attacking all teachers." Neither are police reform advocates attacking all officers,
not any more than black and brown men with badges who say racial bias
exists in New York City. NYPD defenders believe that further crime
reductions can only occur if police are afforded a larger degree of
respect. They ought to dedicate some time and energy to reforming the
police department so that it is more respectable.
*Consider the fact that the overwhelming majority
of Stop-and-Frisk encounters involve people who've committed no crime
and are sent on their way without arrest or citation. NYPD defenders are
fond of arguing that every statistic about racial disparities in
arrests and stops are explained by the fact that blacks tend to live in
more dangerous neighborhoods and commit crimes at higher rates. What of
the large majority of blacks who are following the law when police mass
in their neighborhood? Their liberties seem to be regarded as collateral
damage.
In fact, police who mass in the same neighborhood day after day have a
heightened responsibility to make sure that their attempt to catch
criminals and increase order doesn't continually violate the rights of
innocent residents–the NYPD is, after all, obliged to abide by the 4th
Amendment. They make a mockery of "reasonable suspicion" when the people
they purportedly suspect are doing no wrong 8 or 9 times out of ten.
How many times would you need to be stopped and frisked while doing no
wrong to develop resentment of the officers detaining you? NYPD
defenders never assign any responsibility for the rift that results to
police, even though any community of any race subject to Stop and Frisk
would resent it. Imagine how Wall Street bankers would react if
subjected to it for a single week.
