No, not an order to clear the area. Not an order to shoot into a crowd of peaceful protesters. Not even an order to beat and arrest a reporter. But NYPD Lt. Robert Cattani of the Midtown South Precinct had one regret.
“The conditions prior to theie decision to take a knee were very difficult as we were put center stage with the entire crowd chanting,” he wrote.
“I know I made the wrong decision. We didn’t know how the protesters would have reacted if we didn’t and were attempting to reduce any extra violence.”
Cattani was one of those white shirts who got down on knee to show solidarity with protesters. These were the pics that people gushed over on social media, in juxtaposition to images of militarized cops firing at crowds or pushing an old man to the ground. These were supposed to be the good cops, the more empathetic cops. Why couldn’t all cops be like Cattani?
…the cop in me wants to kick my own ass.
…horrible decision to give into a crowd of protesters’ demands.
While Cattani’s kneeling might have warmed the cold, cold hearts of the outraged, it froze the cold, cold hearts of the other outraged, his fellow cops. So he did the apologia and tried to weasel his way out.
“The conditions prior to the decision to take a knee were very difficult as we were put center stage with the entire crowd chanting,” he wrote.
“I know I made the wrong decision. We didn’t know how the protesters would have reacted if we didn’t and were attempting to reduce any extra violence.”
He was too weak, too easily influenced, to ignore the chants of the crowd?
“I thought maybe that one protester/rioter who saw it would later think twice about fighting or hurting a cop,” Cattani wrote.
“I was wrong. At least that [sic] what I told myself when we made that bad decision. I know that it was wrong and something I will be shamed and humiliated about for the rest of my life.”
It was a performance to calm the crowd to protect other cops? There are a lot of performances being played lately, by people of all views. What made Cattani kneel is unknown, but that he decided to walk it back is what matters. Cops, the people he commands and relies upon to do his job and make it home for dinner, were outraged at his action. In their view, he capitulated to the mob, he disgraced his shield by not standing with his brothers. He crossed the thin blue line.
In the past few weeks, reaction to the murder of George Floyd could have cause cops, as a group and a culture, to have an epiphany. On the one hand, they could realize that a significant percentage of the public had enough with their commands, their use of force, their belief that they are a “them” against “us.” Cops exist because we want them to exist, we need them to exist, but that only goes so far.
When cops are perceived to be as nasty and brutish as those they were supposed to protect us against, they not only lose the public’s support, but reach a point where some are ready to go without them. Or at least, to reimagine them, whatever that ends up meaning.
As someone told me the other day, the Overton Window on cops has been dragged so far left that “defund police” has not only become acceptable discourse, but may actually happen. It was a critical observation, as this would have been a crazy notion a mere year ago, yet here we are, not only talking about it, but watching as it seems to be happening.
The other path is the one cops have historically taken, circling the wagons, union leaders screaming banalities into microphones about how they’re being treated like “thugs.” Cops can demand respect all they want, but respect has to be earned, a lesson for the unduly passionate as well. But at the moment, whatever good will cops have amassed over the years has been burned, squandered in a hail of tear gas, rubber bullets and images of cops taking down people doing nothing more than exercising their constitutional rights.
We see these images and are furious. They see these images and think only of how it’s the protesters own fault; if they don’t want to be shot, then do as they command. But what about the match that lit the flame that started the conflagration?
“We all know that a- -hole in Minneapolis was wrong,” Cattani wrote.
“Yet we don’t concede for other officers’ mistakes. I do not place blame on anyone other than myself for not standing my ground.”
For some cops, the dots don’t connect. What Derek Chauvin, “that asshole,” did in Minneapolis wasn’t markedly different than what any cop might do any day to any perp. That it ended in the death of George Floyd changed the outcome, but didn’t change what any cop might have done. A knee in the neck or back, body prone, chest to the ground, can be seen in a hundred videos, a thousand. Cops being absolutely callous toward people, citizens, their fellow human beings, refusing to talk to them like human beings, routinely calling them “motherfuckers” for no particular reason.
How did cops lose their humanity when they put on their shield? There are many theories and many reasons, but that’s for philosophers and academics to ponder. I know too many cops personally, some close friends, to buy into the simplistic cartoon character image of all cops as evil bastards. But because I know cops, I know that something changes when you put on your uniform and believe that no one gets to challenge your power.
Was Cattani too weak not to kneel or too weak not to tell his outraged brothers to get their heads out of their collective butts is unknown. but if you think you can circle the wagons and present the options as capitulate to your orders or suffer the consequences, you may have pushed people to the point where they’re ready to shut you down.
Cattani may be too weak to stand up to his fellow cops, but that doesn’t mean the public is weak enough to let you continue treat us like the enemy. You want respect? Earn it. You want dominance? Take a knee.
No comments:
Post a Comment