Tag: police training

Predatory Authority and the American Culture of Violence

January 31, 2023

The trajectory of police violence against mostly young Black and Brown men has taken many turns. It finds expression in diverse situations. However, we cannot fully understand it without looking beyond the immediate murderous actions of particular officers in the heat of the moment. The violence of authority runs much deeper than that. Predatory Authority … More Predatory Authority and the American Culture of Violence

Taser, Gun, and Character: What You Cannot Train

April 21, 2021

I am tired of all the convenient talk of “more training” and other improvements in the formal management of police practices, as if they were a mere problem of technical engineering. They are not. The most important quality of police officers is not the skills they take from the academy to the precinct. It is … More Taser, Gun, and Character: What You Cannot Train

Adolescent Cop Mentality

April 16, 2015

The flow of video evidence of police tendencies to use violence as the primary tool of their trade steadily increases. Some write this off as an artifact of technology or as individual incidents not representing the whole of law enforcement. But as I look at all those citizens’ smart-phone videos taken largely because they happened … More Adolescent Cop Mentality

Ending Police Brutality: It’s Not That Simple

December 8, 2014

The smart phone videos of cops harassing or beating unarmed Black males have exploded on social media. Newspaper articles discuss the various difficulties involved in prosecuting police for excessive force, murder, etc. Video pundits left and right proclaim or admit that something is just not right. They acknowledge that Black parents have to train their … More Ending Police Brutality: It’s Not That Simple

The Incredible Darkness of Being…a Cop: Warrior or Peacemaker in a Dangerous World. Part III

April 13, 2014

Note: A condensed version of Part III of this series was published in the Santa Fe New Mexican, Sunday, April 13, 2014. It is hard to imagine, after watching the police video footage of the shooting to death of a mentally ill homeless man, James Boyd, by Albuquerque police on March 16, 2014, how that … More The Incredible Darkness of Being…a Cop: Warrior or Peacemaker in a Dangerous World. Part III

The Incredible Darkness of Being…a Cop: Warrior or Peacemaker in a Dangerous World. Part II

April 11, 2014

We Americans have a strange schizoid view of public service. A dedicated Santa Fe school teacher finally quit recently, because he had a family to support and he could make much more clerking at Trader Joe’s with better and cheaper health insurance, working much fewer hours and not having to take his work home every … More The Incredible Darkness of Being…a Cop: Warrior or Peacemaker in a Dangerous World. Part II