The forgotten challenge of wearing a badge

The men and women of the law enforcement profession are under attack these days, both literally and very much figuratively.

The heat has been turned up most recently on the national stage with a number of headline-worthy incidents.

Most notably was the killing of robbery suspect Michael Brown in August 2014 by former Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson. And most recently, members of the New York Police Department were charged in the death of Eric Garner, who officers were attempting to arrest for selling illegal cigarettes.

Grand juries in both cases failed to find enough evidence to bring each case to trial.

Out of those outcomes came destructive riots in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb. The lawless looting and arson ruined the lives and livelihoods of many innocent business owners.

And maybe more tragically, out of the Garner case came marchers in the streets of New York City chanting, “What do we want, dead cops?” And sure enough, on Dec. 20, Ismaaiyl Brinsley assassinated NYPD officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos as they sat in their patrol car.

There are no words to describe how totally wrong such a deed might be.

Out of these incidents the fires of alleged police brutality have been fanned. But trying to find valid and complete statistics supporting those charges is certainly a challenge.

Reports to the FBI are incomplete. Other figures factor in all citizen deaths at the hands of law enforcement.

Bottom line is any citizen death involving law enforcement is one too many.

The thing that is perhaps too quickly forgotten is the people who wear the badge, and whose bad apples are miniscule, unlike recent rhetoric might suggest.

The late and legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey put the life and struggles of what it is like to be a member of the law enforcement community into a decades-old poem entitled, “What Are Policemen Made Of?”

“A Policeman is a composite of what all men are, mingling of a saint and sinner, dust and deity,” Harvey wrote, reportedly in later years as a tribute to his father, a Tulsa, Okla. policeman who, while off duty, was shot and killed by armed men when Harvey was just 2.

In their many roles, police officers are asked to face and combat societies’ ills. Or as Harvey put it, “The policeman must be a minister, a social worker, a diplomat, a tough guy and a gentleman.”

In other words, “No call is too small” to use the mantra of the Cheney Police Department.

Based on 2014 figures, the CPD received 55,000 calls over the year — about 150 per day — with 45 percent related to Eastern Washington University. Just a miniscule number of those find their way into print in the Cheney Free Press West Plains Police News, and headline-grabbers are easily counted on the fingers of one hand.

We too often forget that behind the badge is a person, not a machine.

A policeman, “Must be first to an accident and infallible with his diagnosis. He must be able to start breathing, stop bleeding, tie splints and, above all, be sure the victim goes home without a limp. Or expect to be sued,” Harvey wrote of the high expectations we place on law enforcement.

They, just like many of us, have families they want to come home to enjoy.

But instead of driving a desk, truck or cash register all day, we ask police to be placed in situations and places where we would never want to be. “A policeman must, from a single strand of hair, be able to describe the crime, the weapon and the criminal — and tell you where the criminal is hiding,” Harvey wrote.

Moving forward, we need to make sure that all police have the proper training, but perhaps just as important, citizens need to know how they, too, should act.

With that understanding in place the chances of having tragic and headline-grabbing outcomes between citizens and police become less likely.