Breaking the law, breaking the law...

I got a ticket yesterday. I haven't gotten a ticket in ages. Ages.

The rolling stop will always be my bane, but I should be smarter at a four-way stop when the policeman pulls up to my right.

Perception is king, though. The way events played out in front of me were very different than what played out in front of him. Plus the fact that the car in front of me hadn't even cleared the intersection before I "stopped" and pushed on.

Yeah, I was wrong. I know I was.

Roll with it. Ya feel me?

But the next part was the insightful part. I am highly, highly aware of the feeling that we're spiraling into an imminent police state. And, this is me being as objective as possible in light of all of this.

The policeman pulls me over. I pull into a parking lot. He walks up after a moment and he's already wary.

"License, registration, and proof of insurance."

Handed it to him, but I couldn't find proof of insurance.

"Do you have any weapons in the car?"

"No. I don't." I said, feeling weird about the question, but understanding why he asked, "I'm sorry, I can't find the recent insurance card. It is covered, though, I know that."

"Who's car is this?"

"BriAnna McKissen's car. She's my girlfriend."

"Ah. I can look up insurance."

This whole time, it was the wariness that unsettled me. I'm a big guy and, after a couple days of unkempt bearding, I'm sure I didn't look like the kindest, gentlest soul in my ... Salmon colored polo.

I've been in sales, hell, I've also been a Mormon on a mission. I've knocked door to door offering religion, political pamphlets, and ... well, probably just those two things for any considerable amount of time. What I was seeing on this man's face was a person who was selling something that no one wanted to buy.

Now, I want to say, Utah is relatively mild compared to some other locales where cops appear to be just plain ol' bad news. I mean, horrible things are happening. And they keep happening with very little being done about them.

But, taking a step back, again, focusing on the soul crushingness of it all. When all you sell is bad news, you regularly expect the worst reaction possible. Preparedness is a matter of playing through all possible scenarios in your head, watching for clues, being constantly wary.

Why? Because nobody likes bad news. And if bad news becomes worse news?

"Oh, you have a warrant for failure to appear when you did that thing back in the 2010."

So, back to my scenario:

"Is this still your address?"

"No, I recently moved." Which is true, but my old address would still apply since I still own the place.

"OK. One moment."

I'm sitting there, feeling deflated that I did something wrong. As basic as it was, I realized that I was the dumb one in this situation. I broke the law and, not only that, intentionally, in front of a police officer. And, strangely, I had this thought in the back of my head: "You work for me. You protect me. You don't target me for this minor offense!"

Well, that's telling. There's my conceit at play in all of this. I would call it a series of rationalizations.

"I'm going to give you a ticket for not having your address updated. This is the least impacting fine that I can do for you considering that running a stop sign is a moving violation that will also increase your insurance."

I could feel his annoyance with this process as he spoke. Not with me, but basically Fine Bartering in order to let you know that you dodged a bullet. (Ironically.) This is likely the last thing he ever wanted to do when he joined the police force.

But, ya know what I did? I let that, "but how wrong was I?" creep in. Because, like I said earlier, perception is king. But do you really want to bring your perception up against the guy who enforces the rules? Peh. The little voice in my head pops off, "I guess so? Why not?!"

"Was it because I went before the other car cleared the intersection?"

This is where the telling exasperation came in. This is the other aspect of his job that's likely intolerable, the damn know it all who saw things a different way and will debate with you about it.

"You didn't stop. I had the right of way."

"Oh, I swore I stopped before you did. Sorry."

Of course, I'm absolutely harmless. And, after seeing his reaction, I realized that, oh, yeah this is the thing he liked least about his job. People debating the situation, wasting his time, and wasting their time while wasting his time.

I nodded, even if my perception didn't exactly line up with what he said. But, at the same time, did it matter? It was likely moments, barely a second, when all this went down. And, for me, mincing perspective is a losing battle that will likely get that "bartered down" ticket to a full moving violation.

I signed the paper and he said, "Be safe," and moved back to his car.

I pulled away, going over to my ex's house to pick up the kids, actually no, it was to get some bad news about something they had done and then pick them up. I was still within sight of the policeman as I did this.

And, with that perpetual wariness in play, I can imagine that he looked at me and wondered what I was doing. Was I cheating on someone? What was my motivation for being here? Crawling into the mind of a cop is perspective changing, while not necessarily empowering.

Again, I thought about all this bad news, lately. I wondered who would take these jobs?

In some cases, it's like taking a job on an active battlefield. (Remember, perception is everything.) Where you are the good guy and ... unfortunately, you end up looking at all the citizens as the bad guys. Mix in military training, hardware, and tactics.

"Poof! Welcome to the Police state."

But really? Is that true? How are policeman more beholden to "the man" than they are to "the citizenry"? I don't believe that's how it works. However, when both are diametrically opposed, both will feel justified when standing their ground against the other. This kind of conflict stems from both a cultural and a systemic problem.

"Ya think?", you say, "Well, since you're complaining about it, do you have a solution?"

Well... maybe. Maybe? What do you think about...

CITY MILITIAS!?!

"Is that a good idea at all? A militia? Sounds like hooligans promoting lawlessness! VIGILANTISM!"

The citizenry allowing enforcement of a commonly accepted law is neither lawlessness or vigilantism. It's a community managing its own affairs by their own dictates.

That may sound like a quote, but it's not a quote.

Well, as the Bible says, 'cause we can always turn to the Bible to legitimize things, and I'm paraphrasing a bit here: "Society, police thyself."

(Footnote: "Physician, heal thyself" came from "Cura te ipsum") I love how tiny this font is. I should use this all the time.

Here are the problems that I see in the current system:

• Police are a unified body that seems to relate better to itself than to those it protects.
• Being "the law" can promote an attitude of being "above the law"
• Always dealing with "bad news", very little (visible) community outreach 

These are symptoms of the current enforcement model, but, if you look closely, I can guarantee that these issues are very close to the actual problems.

This is turning epic, mind you. It will be an epic post, and I have no intention of breaking this into two, nope.

So, I'm going to attack these bullets first, then maybe talk about how bad this idea is because we can't expect communities to treat everyone with equality.

Police relate better to each other

Welcome to the Brotherhood

This is why people see police as more of a fraternity. (Begging the pardon of my sister who also works in Law Enforcement.) And, it should be, to a certain extent, because you want to know that the people you work with are dependable.

I'm going to get this terminology wrong, but think military squads, operating closely, watching each other's backs. That trust needs to be there for you to work effectively.

Unfortunately, this behavior can lop over into covering up wrongdoing. Here, we thought it was just the movies, but then we see evidence tampering caught on tape in order to legitimize a shooting. I realize that these are people acting in isolated cases doing stupid things then trying to cover them up. The problem becomes systemic when it happens more than once. In fact, more than hundreds of times in various situations around the nation.


The "Law" protects it's own and, sometimes, regardless of culpability

How about some Hot Justice!
See what I did there?

But really, who puts Justice in a revealing blouse? Srsly.

And, moving on to those same police being acquitted just because they're police. Again, unfortunately, the double standard also becomes systemic as police are not punished as the citizenry would be punished. Their hands are slapped and, some could say, they have even been "empowered" to take violent action against the citizenry that they protect.

I can understand why upstanding police, even judges, don't want guilty police to go to jail. Jails are full of criminals. Just take boiling hot oil, and drop in some water... yeah, that's about the right reaction.

This doesn't legitimize it, by any means, but you see where this problem becomes recursive, leaving the citizenry to wonder what in the hell is going on.

Finally, it's always the bad news first.

I love the Internet. Because I can still find stuff like this!

Is this a media problem? Is this a TV show problem? Ya know, I remember CHIPs with Erik Estrada. I know that because he's got my first name, yup!

(And, no,  I wasn't named after him. Erik the Red, baby! Oh and .. Lamont Cranston, The Shadow!)

Uh, moving on... Consider how the "beat cop" persona has deteriorated in TV in the last 20 years. Now it's all detectives and edgy undercover work. Actually, more recently, it's distrust of the entire system and reliance on gritty vigilantism to overcome both the systemic corruption and unlawful use of force. There are the good cops and the bad cops, quite literally.

Now, regardless of how police are portrayed, when a policeman comes to your door. What's your first thought?

"Are they collecting donations for a local school?"

What about ... oh hey, bad news? Yup, it's likely bad news. I've called police on neighbors. I've never had the police visit me after an incident, they'll usually have dispatch give me a follow-up call. Sometimes our conversation will simply be gathering information after an accident, which was not my fault, I promise.

Unless I call the police, the police aren't there to simply wish me well. Honestly? Why should they? It isn't their job! And we shouldn't expect it to be their job.

Well... that sucks. I remember thinking of the police as kind, friendly men and women who you'd go to in case something really bad happened. Who thinks that now-a-days? God, that's a frightening change in thought.

So, let me get these other thoughts out there:

Part of Law Enforcement's image problem is based on separation from the community

"Uh, maybe they're a bit too happy."

Ever heard of Defensible Space Theory? Thanks to the brilliant and talented BriAnna, I was exposed to this concept during much discussion with her about how the world is going to hell. Again, I'm based in emotion and irrationality. I wear my feels on my sleeves, for the most part. Thankfully, some of that irrationality is balanced out by her stability. (Awww...!)

I'm just going to wholesale steal these points from Wikipedia:

1. Territoriality – the idea that one's home is sacred
2. Natural surveillance – the link between an area's physical characteristics and the residents' ability to see what is happening
3. Image – the capacity of the physical design to impart a sense of security
4. Milieu – other features that may affect security, such as proximity to a police substation or busy commercial area
5. Safe Adjoining Areas - for better security, residents obtain higher ability of surveillance of adjoining area through designing the adjoining area

I'm going to focus on Territoriality and Milieu. (And wholesale ignore the rest.)

One thing that people adore about the latest spat of truly lovable non-powered vigilantes on the big and small screens—Green Arrow, Daredevil (c'mon, don't fight me on this), and Batman—is that they love their respective cities, feel a sense of responsibility for it, and want to protect it at all costs, even if it costs them their very soul ... well, not quite their souls, but really really close.

Conversely, police don't always live in the places they patrol. I dare say, they likely don't want anything to do with the places they patrol. They can walk away from the trouble. But, conversely, that attachment to the community is why a hometown Sheriff is a loveable character while the generic beat cop is ... uh, generic?

This segues neatly into Milieu, which I had to look up because, yeah, I know the concept, but not the actual definition, which is simply "your social environment".

Remember this guy? Whatever happened to him?

If you know that the loyal crime dog McGruff is really in the house next door, then you know you can safely go to that house if you ever had a problem. In reality, we stopped being able to trust ... anyone. I have heard the phrase "we tend to keep to ourselves". This may be more and more of a problem due to commuting families not living in proximity of each other, but also, social groups becoming less and less physical and more and more ... Internet-based.

Personal investment in community allows for a balanced approach to Mercy and Severity

"The balance of righteousness and truth."

This is usually called "Letter of the Law" versus "Spirit of the Law" but that was back from my days of dabbling with the Kabbalah and The Tree of Life.

Uh oh, so, where did I go?

The Letter of the Law does not take into account the individual and their situation, motivation, and/or ignorance. The law is the law and all should be bound by it. Any flexibility in the law is weakness in the law. In fact, there are times that if I'm breaking the law, I better be punished for it. If I'm driving 15 MPH faster than the speed limit, even if I'm just going with the flow of traffic, I, and everyone else, should be immediately ticketed.

See? Even me saying all that feels terrifying. But really, what good is a posted speed if you could simply be using it to cherry pick offenders? (I'm not saying that that happens all the time. But I'm sure it does happen. And, again, I'm sure that traffic violations are one of the least fun things for a policeman to enforce.)

One annoying thing about having flexibility in laws, is that you have to "crack down" by making situational laws to "protect" fringe cases. This overreach gets more and more dramatic to the point of where things ended up in Demolition Man and Denis Leary's character gave us some quotable lines like:

"I want high cholesterol. I want to eat bacon, and butter, and buckets of cheese, OK?"

Simply said, the laws built to protect ourselves from ourselves are classic over-reach. Laws created to protect us from each other are within reason. In those cases, the Letter of the Law becomes acceptable, because you can only break them by crossing that moral boundary that we should all have an inherent sense of.

That's too reductive, but the gravity of the concept should tug a little bell in your mind. At any point in time, I could be breaking three laws. How... and why do I not know this?

Now on to the Spirit of the Law which is, in essence, what my police officer did for me. He weighed my past and my compliance and provided a reasonably palatable result. He doesn't really know me, but he could see that I'm not overtly a bad person. I have no record. Just being both distracted and stupid in a relatively harmless situation.

"To forgive is divine!"

Having a policeman involved in the community allows for a personal touch that could both intercede or vouch for those he associates with. I realize that there's more to the story, here. Budgets being whittled down to nothing and this level of interaction is impossible and ... improbable.

But one thing I could compare this to is the community volunteers at Fire Stations while I did a "stint" in New Jersey. Some were crazy, some were awesome... all of them had a love for the job and a love for the community. They took it very seriously. Now, I wouldn't go out and give everyone guns, but I would give them all the tools that it would take to keep their community safe.

This is where I think that Militia's may be a bit far ranging, but a group of concerned citizens that bond together to protect their community with some oversight. Not a lot, just some.

Deputize the Community!

Buddy Woody says, "Yer mah faaavorite deputy! Use with discretion."

Well? Why not? Put out a call for volunteers and get a voluntary community that meets regularly with officers. It's a lot of extra work for some people, and you'll likely get some crazies in the mix, but it doesn't mean that it couldn't be a long term solution for both involving citizenry in the community, but also softening the US vs. THEM mentality that pervades the current social commentary.

In smaller communities, this should be easy—a no brainer. In more diverse communities, you have to make sure to pick from all walks of life and treat them as equals in this partnership. Holy geez, wouldn't that be a strange turnabout?

Didn't I say epic?

I'll say that I respect the job even if I don't always respect the people who do it. It's cliche to say "one bad apple spoils the rest", but it's appropriate that a series of bad actors have tainted public opinion to the point that we need some positive or, yes, there will be something akin to civil war. The more distrust, the more likely there will be escalation on both sides.

So, let's ... try to avoid that. OK?