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Bridging the Citizen Police Divide
The red and blue flashing lights reflect off his rear view mirror. He
knows what is coming, one more stop in his already busy day. This is
just one more inconvenience to get in his way. The man: who could be
any one pulls his car to the side of the road, not knowing why he is
being pulled over.
The officer minutes before noticed a red 1985 Honda Civic with a
broken left side tail light driving south on any Portland highway. The
police officer readies her gun not knowing what to expect on this
traffic stop. It's an older car that is not marked as stolen or
criminal in any way by the police database. Of course it could just
not have been reported stolen yet. The car is registered to one, John
Doe Portlander. He's a black male approximately 175 lbs. in weight and
5ft., 11 inches in height he has brown hair and hazel eyes. John also
has no prior criminal record. She can't tell if he is the man driving
the car from her vantage point, as she switches on the red and blue
lights atop her cruiser to pull him over.
He sees her approach his vehicle, wearing her blue uniform the
light's of the highway reflecting off her badge. He might find her
attractive if not for the fact: she is a cop, who can send him to jail
on a whim. Every one knows probable cause is poorly defined in this
country. Every one has heard the stories of racial profiling in every
major police department in the nation. He notices her adjust her gun's
holster as she approaches. He becomes scared at the site of the weapon
that could easily take away his life. He wonders why she would need a
gun to deal with him? He wants to know why she would see him as
criminal?
This situation could happen to any one of us, living in America today
because there is a divide between the police and the average citizen.
The average citizen only interacts with the police when they are
either breaking the law or when they are being accused of breaking the
law. The motto to serve and protect is not the main guiding principle
of police citizen interaction. The average citizen is trained to fear
the police because for the most part they are afraid of being seen as
criminal; this in turn breeds animosity towards the police.
The police often react to the divide by forming their own communities
outside of the communities they work in. These police communities are
made up mostly of officers' families and other cops. They reinforce
the training that the officers have already had in their education.
Any one could be a criminal, or at least any one whom is not already a
cop. This hypothesis may not be true, given Police officers commit
crimes too; but it serves a function. It makes the police feel a
little safer at night. It makes them believe there are other people
they can trust.
Any one can see the police communities in action by simply going to
the local police hang outs, such as certain coffee shops or bars. The
fact that most cities seem to have places where cops feel they can
interact with just other cops simply further supports the idea that
there is a divide.
The divide between the police and citizens should be bridged through
community-initiated-police-outreach-programs, because a need exists
within the community to create more positive police citizen
interactions The solution to the problem is to create an environment
in which members of the community and the police force can interact on
a non-law enforcement level. An environment where they can get to know
each other as people rather then as the overgeneralizations and
labels, they see each other as now. This is the guiding principle
behind the creation of Community-Initiated-Police-Outreach-Programs or
C.I.P.O.P.
C.I.P.O.P. will be initiated by the community. This will make it
different from traditional community policing programs because it will
not be done through the police department. No one who does not want to
be there will be there. The plan is to sell the idea to both the
community and the police as an experiment. If they like the results
and a minimal amount of funding is provided by any of the parties
involved it could continue on as a permanent fixture within the
Portland metro community.
The benefits to the Portland Metro community from such a simple low
cost program could be enormous. First off, if the police knew more
about individual community members they may see them as friends rather
then as potential criminals. Officers would recognize people that came
to the Community-Initiated-Police-Outreach-Programs when on the job
and hopefully feel less alienated from the communities as a whole.
Four seconds is how long it took for Officer Jason Seiry to shoot and
kill James Perez, during a routine traffic stop. Perez was unarmed and
had not committed a crime. Officers Seiry had made a mistake and
killed an innocent man, whom he would never have a chance to know. If
Officer Seiry had known James Perez Before his death he probably would
not have shot him.
Second, Community members would know the officers who are charged to
protect them on a personal level. They would know who to talk to when
they had a problem, and they could choose officers to interact with
whom they felt most comfortable at the events to report a problem.
This may in turn increase the rate at which crimes are reported. It
will also simply give the officers the knowledge that members of the
community will be there if they get in to trouble and cannot call for
back up.
Third, Anther benefit of C.I.P.O.P. would be a decrease in incidents
of police brutality. Officers would be forced to recognize individuals
within the community as people. At protests when the police are
already deindividualised by riot armor and gas masks, they might think
twice about assaulting a random protester to break the ice of an
already tense situation; if they knew the protester from a C.I.P.O.P.
event. The same effect would also take place in reverse on the
protesters towards the police. (Assuming the police use visible name
tags.)
Forth, C.I.P.O.P will be a tool in which to strengthen the community
as a whole. People will have one more venue to get to know one
another. In an urbanized society where the average person does not
even know their neighbors, C.I.P.O.P. will help fill the void. It will
allow people to live side by side as human beings, rather then as
unnamed and unknown creatures that just share a common living space.
Finally, by simply implementing C.I.P.O.P. in the Portland metro area
we will be sending a positive message to both the community at large
and the Portland Police as an institution. If Portlanders can work
together while recovering from numerous instances of police brutality
including the shootings deaths of Kendra James and James Perez, anything
is possible.
Note: C.I.P.O.P. could be far more effective in neighborhoods where
drug use and substance addiction is an issue, if the police stopped
enforcing the laws that make drug use criminal. The police would have
to start treating addicts as people who have a legitimate health
problem. This would create an atmosphere of trust between the
community and the police, and would further the goals of any
C.I.P.O.P program.