I certainly had an . . . interesting response to my brief post on the grand jury decision on Officer Wilsons killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The support, and the vitriol, I took with equanimity, since none of the posters know me. But, now they will: As a white man, I will never truly appreciate what is like to live in fear that my sons may be arrested, hurt, or killed because of the racial stereotypes, or the pure thuggishness, of a police officer. The closest that I have ever experienced this is to see my eldest son; like all his siblings ethnically a mix of Korean, Irish, and German which has produced a young man who can appear to the ignorant as someone of Arab or south Asian ancestry, get the ‘extra’ treatment from TSA and other airport security types, since he is a journalist for the Wall Street Journal for which he works and travels in places like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Middle East. But fear of his life or limb? Never. Most attorneys in our town have learned to advise our fellow citizens, if you are black, do not carry cash on the interstate highways that run through east Texas. Sheriff Rosco will pull you over, ransack your vehicle on any pretext, and once he finds no contraband, he will seize your cash and tell you that you can come back to the local county court at which he is a revered fixture to seek to retrieve the seized funds. This is not apocryphal, it happens to this day. Like many of you, I have plenty of police officer friends. I listen in uncomfortable silence and stewing anger as I hear tales of their racist buddies who use their power and authority to humiliate, harass, and beat the young men in their ‘beats’ that they never walk, but rather patrol in their armored up cruisers, looking for a weak target. I think of what would happen to my beloved Marine Corps if my fellow Marines used their authority and superior force to pillage homes, violate children, and take a free pass at murder of noncombatants. We would become like unto those to whom we claim a moral superiority in the fight. That is what has happened in the law enforcement culture in the US over the past 30 years. Eleven years ago, I was in the thick of it, in my transition from the military to the US Attorney’s office. I watched the federal law enforcement trainers teach the local police that citizens are the enemy. Shoot first, do not hesitate, under the banner of ‘officer safety’. I will concur that there are many; particular in local, as opposed to federal, law enforcement, who fight against this immoral, or amoral, policing ethic. Wise police officers know how to engage the community personally, engender respect, and truly promote safety. Much as the US military has to constantly re-learn “winning hearts and minds” in counterinsurgency warfare. To tie this with Mr. Corbett’s point about the racism of law enforcement, until police, and we citizens who fund and support them, start treating our fellow citizens with dignity and respect, it will be a battle. It is all fine for us to bemoan and deride the stupidity and, yes, criminality of the arson and other crimes committed in the Ferguson related protests, but I would have long since been tired of the treatment most black young men received in our society. The ‘enhanced’ grand jury process, as done for Officer Wilson, would never have been done for Michael Brown, if he had been charged with homicide. And that is the point, that there is a different justice system still in our country, depending on your economic status, your connection to the power structure, and your race. Semper Fi, Patrick McLain
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 20:46:33 +0000
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