President Obama shakes the hand of Chuck Canterbury, President of the Grand Lodge Fraternal Order of Police at the 32nd Annual National Peace Officers' Memorial Service. (Photo: James Tourtellotte / Flickr)

AKIRA WATTS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

“I’m not against the police; I’m just afraid of them.”

- Alfred Hitchcock

A funny thing happened on Monday: Chuck Canterbury, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, issued a call for federal hate crime laws to be expanded to protect law enforcement officers. I’ll return to this statement shortly – it contains a level of idiocy and entitlement that is seldom seen – but first let’s take a brief walk through some related events of the past few weeks.

To start with, the New York Police Department threw a bit of a temper tantrum. In the wake of the killing of two NYPD officers, head of the city’s Patrolman’s Benevolent Association Patrick Lynch made a number of interesting logical leaps and drew a connection between the officers’ murders and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s rather restrained criticisms of the NYPD. Apparently, de Blasio’s statement about warning his biracial son to take special care in interactions with law enforcement was simply too much for Lynch to bear, and he declared that de Blasio had “blood on his hands.” And this was followed by the spectacle of officers turning their backs on de Blasio at the funerals of the slain policemen, and police cadets booing the mayor when he spoke at their graduation ceremony.

On a somewhat lighter note, the NYPD has taken the additional step of drastically reducing their rate of arrests and ticketing for lower level offenses. It is notable that this action, or rather inaction, has not resulted in widespread looting and chaos, and that New York City has yet to burn to the ground. This might suggest that, if the intent of the slowdown is to demonstrate the indispensability of the police force, a rethinking of strategy might be in order.

Now let’s return to the fascinating statement of Chuck Canterbury, who appears to believe that law enforcement officers deserve to be enshrined as a special and protected class of people. This is, of course, absurd. To imagine that a crime against a police officer constitutes a hate crime in the same way that a crime against an individual due to the color of their skin or sexual identity is ridiculous, for the simple reason that being a police officer is a choice in a way that race or sexuality are very much not. Specious reasoning aside, Canterbury’s statement points at a larger issue, one that looms behind the tensions between the police and the people that have become so much a part of the national conversation of late.

As has been shown the recent grand jury failures to issue indictments in the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and John Crawford, III, officers may commit acts up to and including murder, safe in the knowledge that their badges will serve as a shield from prosecution. Between 2004 and 2011, out of 2718 law enforcement homicides, charges were filed in just 41 cases. And when you examine the cases that actually go to trial, conviction rates for police officers are about half what they are for members of the public. In a very real way, while the police have the responsibility of enforcing the law, they themselves stand above it.

At the same time, recent statements from Lynch and his ilk indicate that not only do the police believe themselves to be above the law; they also believe themselves to be above criticism. That protesters proclaiming that “Black lives matter” or de Blasio warning his son to take care when dealing with the police is somehow deemed the cause of the murder of two officers is a monstrous equation.

And now, as if being above the law and above criticism is not enough, Canterbury wishes to enshrine law enforcement as a special and protected class of people, more important, more valuable than the public they are sworn to protect.

Does that strike anyone else as deeply disturbing?

Don’t get me wrong. I fully understand that being a police officer is a dangerous job (though far less dangerous than being a farmer or a fisherman). And yes, the police are not always well loved by the general public (though nor are DMV workers, debt collectors, or congressmen). Neither of these facts argue for the codification of the police as a special class.

The problem though, is that even without the matter being legally formalized, the police, by their very actions, show that they consider themselves to be special. They consider themselves to be above the law. They consider themselves to be above criticism. If an encounter between a police officer and a member of the general public goes awry, why then it must surely be the fault of the civilian. Where the power of the gun and the weight of the badge should lead to a sense of responsibility, it instead leads to arrogance and entitlement.

Is it any wonder then, though their motto may be “To Protect And Serve,” that the thought of the police fills so many who are allegedly protected and served with dread? When the police feel themselves to be more valuable than the public they serve, when they make that feeling painfully obvious to anyone who is paying attention, why should they inspire anything other than fear?

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Akira Watts failed to graduate with a B.A. in philosophy from Amherst College and now does an assortment of IT related things. He has been writing a literary choose-your-own-adventure work about a yet to be determined topic for the past five years. He lives in Santa Fe, NM with an elderly chow-chow. Contact him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .