To Serve and To Protect

Fans of classic sports cars are likely familiar with the OG cross-country car race movie, The Gumball Rally, and its iconic duel between a Cobra and a Ferrari Daytona. My favorite scene from the movie was the Cobra blowing the doors off the Ferrari as they exited the LA river.

Fans of the movie itself may remember the list of also-rans, one that nicely captured a spectrum of performance from that era. Camaro, Porsche, Kawasaki, Rolls Royce, Mercedes... and of course the Jaguar that never got out of the garage.

There was also a Corvette that broke in half before getting out of Manhattan and a van that met a similar early fate.

The car I haven't mentioned yet was a Dodge Polara 440 police car driven by two LA cops. Their plan was to swap decals at every state line so they could run with lights spinning and not be pulled over for speeding.

It was a plan that put them on the verge of victory... until they came upon a motorist in need in a Los Angeles traffic jam.

One partner turned to the other and reminded him, "To serve and to protect." They pulled over and helped the citizen.

I was reminded of that phrase as I read the horrific Tyre Nichols story. Mr Nichols was beaten bloody by five Memphis police officers during a traffic stop, allegedly for reckless driving. He died three days later from his injuries. The five cops have been fired and indicted for murder and kidnapping.

While they should get their day in court - something they denied Mr. Nichols - the evidence against them is quite damning at this point, and barring some major new information, I'll have no patience for any cop-apologia connected to this event.

That the five cops were black is likely why we haven't seen nationwide rioting in the wake of the video release, though the anti-police and defund activists are certainly going to make much hay.

What behooves us all is to remember that every cop is an individual, and not just some faceless, homogenized automaton spit out by a photocopier. They should be considered as individuals and treated as individuals. Among police officers, as is true among every other large population, there will be good people, bad people, great people, and terrible people.

The terrible make the biggest headlines, of course, and not only because newspapers are businesses that run under the mantra, "if it bleeds, it leads." Becoming a police officer, putting on the uniform and pinning on the badge, imparts a higher level of behavioral responsibility to go along with the power and authority. This is why cops who do bad things should be treated more harshly than civilians, and why I have argued, repeatedly, about working to break those "blue walls of silence" that protect the worst at the reputation (and safety) of good cops.

And it should be much, much easier to fire bad cops. Derek Chauvin should not have stayed in uniform long enough to kill George Floyd.

As Peter Parker's uncle noted, "with great power comes great responsibility." Appended to that should be "great accountability." Accepting the cop's job conveys an obligation to serve and to protect, and when one "loses it" or whatever euphemism can be applied to going horribly wrong, the punishment should be harsher. Conversely, the cops who do their job and do it well should not be tarred by the mere commonality of job with bad actors.

Identity politics has precipitated a society-wide de-personalization. We are, increasingly, viewed by our outer markers, whether they be the color of our skin or the clothes on our backs. If those clothes are police blue, some grant reflexive admiration while others assign reflexive distrust. Neither is proper. Everyone should start out at a neutral baseline, as in "you are an individual whom I will judge only after observing your behavior."

Something about "content of his character" comes to mind. A shame that MLK would be cancelled today.

---

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy The Roots of Liberty, please subscribe (if you have already, thank you!), please hit that “like” button to let me know, please share any article you like wherever you roam the Internet, and  please recommend the blog to your friends.

If you really like The Roots of Liberty and want to help keep it rolling, please consider becoming a paying subscriber here at Substack, or at a lighter level as contributor to the blog via Patreon.

Thank you, again, for your support!

Peter