“Officer Safety”

The other day, a psychopath lit an apparently homeless woman on fire as she was sleeping inside a New York City subway car. As horrific as that was to see, it was appalling to see no one trying to help the woman as she burned to death as bystanders watched.

Some of these bystanders were cops.

Aren’t cops supposed to “serve and protect“?

Italics added.

Well, not when it puts officer safety at risk.

We hear a lot about that – and the related bleat that being an armed government worker (which is an etymologically honest description) is such a dangerous profession that armed government workers live in fear that they “might not come home” at the end of their shift. This bleat is both poltroonerous and wrong insofar as the facts.

Being an armed government worker isn’t even among the Top Ten Most Dangerous occupations, according to the government’s own data. It is more dangerous, in fact, to be a garbage collector – which is honest work – than it is to be an armed government worker.

Which is another sort of work.

Badge lickers – most of whom are, ironically, people who style themselves opponents of authoritarian government – say that most cops are good cops but that cannot be because it is the job of a cop to threaten good people who’ve caused no harm to anyone with murderous violence if they do not obey “the law.” Any law. Every law. And it is undeniable that there are bad laws. That is to say, unjust laws that are without moral standing.

There are many examples but just one will suffice to make the point.

It is a violation of law to drive a car without wearing a seatbelt. It is a silly law that is also a tyrannical one in that it can result in a confrontation with an armed government worker, whose business it is to enforce the law. A given enforcer can of course choose not to enforce this law – or some other law – perhaps because he is trying to be a good man. But then he is not doing the job he is paid to do and thereby risks being fired if caught not doing it.

So he does it.

It is risible to say that any cop is good because – at best – the most a cop can do is sometimes look the other way. It is impossible for him to enforce only the good – i.e., the righteous laws such as those forbidding rape and murder. He cannot pick and choose and remain a cop. Ergo, he becomes complicit in the bad even if he tries his best to be good. It is unavoidable. It is no wonder alcoholism and suicidal depression run highest among cops.

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