Given that many only read the headline of my article, “I Am Running for Mayor”, and hundreds believed the title, let me say these first three paragraphs are not real.
By Jim Mauro
THUNDER BAY – It has not been a great couple of months. My last visit with my physician resulted in extensive tests, multiple appointments and waiting while people had to review results. Most of the doctors had no clue what they were doing.
During renovations in our rental unit, we were forced to hire an engineer. The guy made me add two additional beams, a support post and it cost me several thousand dollars extra for work that wasn’t needed. It was obvious the guy was no genius.
And our flight in March was terrible. The flight was delayed because the pilot wanted to make sure that a light in the cockpit concerning water was not a safety risk. Turn the thing off. And he decided to de-ice the plane even though there was no snow on the ground. We missed our connection, the staff in Toronto did not have a clue and we lost two days of our holiday. And the flight itself. If there was any turbulence in the sky, this pilot went right to it. The guy should be a barista at Starbucks.
We have reached the dark age of incompetence for pretty much everyone in the workplace. What? The doctor, engineer and pilot likely knew more about what was going on then I did. Interesting concept. Can we explore that idea a little?
I used these “stories” to ask a question: were these comments different in tone and accusation than those faced daily by police officers? Because it seems everyone, everywhere has an opinion on policing.
It takes several years before officers feel capable of dealing with most situations. Not hours, days, or weeks, or by watching television cop shows. But the experts in our society, all know how it should be done.
When the law society investigates a lawyer, it is lawyers who conduct the review. Same with doctors and other professions. What exactly does a member of the public bring to the table besides an opinion? What does Mr. Smith know about an operation gone wrong. Should Mr. Smith get to decide that Dr. Jones screwed up. It seems that way when police are involved.
It is the police that have civilians review these issues. This nonsense, and that is what it is, total nonsense, has been brought forward in our quest to be politically expedient and under the incorrect application of the “cops will cover up for cops” belief. Using civilians appeases the public and prevents the attention from focusing on many others for their role in a negative police interaction.
Now before the usual far left social media crazies lose their collective mind, let me say this. Police oversight is a good thing. Accountability is a good thing. Ensuring that police conducted themselves properly is a good thing. See, I am on your side, but it is the implementation of this where you completely lose me and, in my view, most police officers. Let’s put a pin in that point for another day.
Here locally, the police service responds to more than 50,000 calls for service in a year. In Canada, the number is in the millions, while in North America it is in the tens of millions. Do we hear that overwhelmingly police handle calls at a success rate that likely matches or exceeds most professions. No.
Do people speak routinely as to the bravery that is so often exhibited by officers who routinely face situations that are volatile. Again, no. What we get instead is the vitriol thrown their way because something did not go exactly as people FEEL it should. News flash, I don’t care how you feel. The only issue is, did the officer act appropriately given the KNOWN information and the immediate circumstances?
Are there cops who react poorly. For sure. Are there cops who committed crimes, for sure. Do they represent the overwhelming body of law enforcement, no. They are in the extreme minority. Yet this profession has been painted in a negative light for the last three decades.
Even locally, we keep hearing about the reviews that have taken place and how the police service has not implemented all the changes recommended. Were they mandated by law to implement them all? How many of these recommendations provide more resources to emergency response in this city? I will guess very few.
Officers today are stressed, overworked, and under resourced. Sometimes it is management that causes some of this strain by a bloated upper echelon, or the feel-good policy of public relations. For example, you spend an extra four hundred thousand in a police budget that fills two brand new roles but does nothing to improve safety in the city. Well,,,,, I am sure that would never happen locally.
But the criminals know that on the street, a good night is 12-14 officers on the road. A normal night is ten and sometimes less. It would be nice if our local media asked a question about staffing when covering a police story and demanded a real answer.
You cannot expect officers to continue to do more with less, be trained so that every interaction goes perfectly and not expect that the stress of these demands makes negative outcomes more likely. The constant refrain of more mental health training for officers is absurd given that “experts” have years of training, not a couple of days. If there is a negative outcome involving a person having a mental health crisis, look to the governments who are not properly funding the necessary supports instead of looking to “hang” the officer for attempting to deal with the situation.
So often when people are not found quickly enough, or crimes not solved, we simply blame the police. They are the fall guy for the problem. And social media has only made this criticism worse. Why are police dealing with these issues? It is because no one else will and when they are volatile, no one else can.
The social media crowd routinely takes snippets of video and expresses their outrage. News stations play them repeatedly, often ignoring the videos rarely show the entire story or what the cop was told when dispatched to the call.
In Minneapolis, two tragedies took place involving ICE agents. The initial and recognize this word “LIMITED” video footage was used to support the narrative from law enforcement. But additional video called into question the conduct of ICE agents. So why does that not happen in the moment when police are involved? We judge the officer on the first video out there and everyone rushes to provide their opinion.
Cell phone videos have assisted in uncovering actions that were deeply problematic or even criminal by a minority of officers, but what society does and what social media allows is for that video to become an indictment of everyone else. I know officers that cringe when they see some of the actions of other officers but again, those incidents do not represent the majority of interactions.
Police recruitment is down across North America. Our local police service is so desperate for people that they send cadets down to police college before their final background checks are completed. People are not rushing to join the police service and while I have said this before, I predicted this would happen 25 years ago and everyone laughed. But it is the reality.
I view the city as more dangerous, the guns and violence worse and the number of officers dealing with this increase, reduced. At the same time, we have a public that is willing to throw officers under the bus at the first opportunity when things do not go as planned. Blaming the cops is cover for bad government policy.
I asked this question 26 years ago publicly, and I will ask it again. Your child has been taken by someone who is driving away. Do you want that officer to chase the suspect, knowing that your child could be killed in a crash, or another child or family could be killed because of the chase. And what if someone else is killed but your child is saved. Are you supportive of the criminal investigation into the actions of the officer? The politicians are certainly fine with that, I am not.
I suggested 27 years ago that if the public did not want police to engage in a high-speed chase, just outlaw it. One law, simple, easy, problem solved. But then negative outcomes become the fault of the law, not the officer obeying it. Leaving it up to the officer provides someone to blame if things do not go perfectly. And this feeds into the societal narrative of everyone feeling they have the right and knowledge to engage, criticize, condemn and demand the officer be fired.
When dealing with someone having a mental health crisis and it turns violent, or when drug addicts get hurt resisting arrest, the officer is blamed. People will raise many cases where officers, especially in the US were found to have acted poorly or criminally. I can find you many cases where the actions of the individual led to the outcome, but you never hear that side of the story.
And for my former far left friends, you cannot even discuss the George Floyd incident or any incident involving an Indigenous person without being accused of either being racist, or just not understanding what took place. They are the experts, not the people who did the job. A discussion not to defend but to have an honest debate about the instant narrative that takes place in cases such as this. But in today’s world having a real discussion is impossible when condemnation is the go-to method for the social media critics of police. Again, I am not defending the majority of actions in the case of Mr. Floyd, but a real discussion would be nice.
Everyone everywhere has an opinion on policing. Everyone knows exactly what should be done in every situation. But until you are alone at 2am with one suspect or even two, and your backup is 2-5 minutes away, you don’t have a clue how you would respond when you see something shiny in a person’s hand. And news flash, most police training does not prepare you for that kind of scenario.
So the next time you feel that urge to comment on policing, can I ask that you pause for a second and ask yourself what gives you the expertise or the knowledge to know what the officer knew and what should have been done. Every time an officer hesitates because of this nonsense, they or a member of the public is more at risk.
Your criticism is no different than thinking you know more than the doctor, the pilot or the engineer. Unless you are or were an officer, perhaps your opinion is best left unsaid or unwritten. Maybe officers should start demanding people be fired from their jobs on social media or called out publicly on social media for bad service. After all, what is good for the goose. Just a thought.
