By Joseph K. Loughlin,
Assistant Chief of Police, Ret.
Portland, Maine
“Our profession is hurting. Dallas police officers are hurting. We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city. All I know is that this must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens.”
These are the words of Dallas Police Chief David Brown on July 16, 2016, after five officers were killed and seven wounded by a military veteran whose aim was to kill as many white police officers as possible.
We have reached a critical point in police community relations. Our police officers and the citizens they serve are increasingly polarized, just as our nation is polarized. At times, it feels as if the gulf is too wide to be crossed, yet cross it we must. It is a breach that cannot be healed by one-sided action. The persistent, negative narrative and unfair accusations are taking the heart out of policing and are damaging the very fabric of our society. We are harming ourselves as a nation and a people. Is it possible for us to take pause and consider the humanity of our police officers? Can we take a moment to look at real information beyond the exaggeration, haste, and emotional chaos that takes place instantly over social media? What about the human beings behind the badge? How about getting some facts?
I am a retired assistant chief of police, having served the city of Portland, Maine, for 30 years. I recently wrote a book, Shots Fired, to provide citizens with a glimpse into the police world and, in the worst possible circumstance, the use of deadly force. This book meets head-on the myths, misunderstandings, and misconceptions about the use of deadly force.Through direct and very personal interviews, I take readers inside the minds of officers during officer-involved shootings.
No police officer in his or her right mind wants to kill anyone. This does not excuse bad cops or poor tactics that may lead to horrible mistakes. Most deadly-force situations are surprise attacks that happen in microseconds and in close quarters. Contrary to popular belief, police welcome in-depth investigations of these cases (as difficult as they may be) because the truth does emerge.
As their very real, deeply personal narratives here show, police officers are not robots. They are not commodities. They are not a single, large authoritarian bloc that unfeelingly enforces law and order. Officers are people – they have hearts, souls, families, aspirations, dreams, and struggles just like the rest of us. They are individuals who seek to make a difference.
Unfortunately, the public is indoctrinated by what they see in Hollywood movies and TV shows and on social media, and what they hear on the news. People are quick to judge, make assumptions, or stereotype immediately before they have any relevant facts. Many reporters, powerful politicians, actors, sports figures, and countless others who seem to think they know what happened have frequently jumped to judgment, immediately proclaiming officers as monstrous, gun-slinging racists for shooting “innocent” individuals.
People have very little — if any — realistic information about the realities of police work, never mind deadly force, ballistics, physics, physiology, human abilities, and the protracted investigations and reconstruction of these events. These types of incidents are extremely infrequent in the context of a population of 23+ million people in the U.S. In fact, police officers do everything in their power to avoid using their gun, many times at the cost of their own lives. For folks to say it happens “all the time” and for “no reason” is irresponsible and damages our society and the law enforcement profession. The unseen loom that weaves a civil society together actually begins with our guardians.
There are well over 34,000 arrests that occur every day in this country, along with millions of police contacts. In 99.9% of those arrests, police do not kill individuals. Numerous and extremely violent suspects are taken into custody safely, while many officers are seriously injured because they choose not to use deadly force. Less-lethal means of force and de-escalation techniques are used constantly, and cops save many lives on a daily basis.
“Hands Up! Unarmed! Just Wing Him!” and other media-driven myths
Police are not trained to kill — they are trained to stop. A twisting, turning, moving, running, or violent human being makes it impossible to just shoot someone in the leg and or arm, as many people like to boast. Oftentimes, to do so would be to defy the laws of physics and human abilities. Individuals don’t stand still and present themselves like a stationary target. There is no pithy Hollywood dialog and display of guns before a shooting. Real shootings are dynamic, frightening situations with rapidly evolving circumstances that often defy logic. Powerful drugs, rage, adrenaline, mental illness, and anger often fuel them. Bullets are not magic, and in fact getting hit with one is equivalent to being struck with a major league fastball pitch. Believe it or not, oftentimes a subject will keep running even after being shot multiple times. Real life is grotesque, dirty, and permanent. And the average shooting is over in just three seconds.
Also, post-shooting trauma is real and tangible. The profound effects these incidents have on the individuals, their careers, organizations, loved ones, and our society is evident in police work. These are life-altering experiences that can be a nightmare, even for the most seasoned officers. All of them wish it had never happened. Many leave police work. Some never want to talk about it again because “they just want to forget about it.” The problem is that they never do.
While the public may see an “unarmed” person as one who is not a threat, officers know better. Human beings are capable of powerful, extremely violent, superhuman quick action, inflicting tremendous physical damage and capable of killing without a weapon. According to the Centers for Disease Control, “unarmed” assailants kill more than 3,000 people every year in the U.S. A review of circumstances surrounding law enforcement deaths revealed that unarmed assailants accounted for 11% of all officers murdered in the line of duty from 2013 to 2015. Officers were beaten to death, or had their guns taken away from them and were killed by their own weapons. Officer Mike Chesna was killed by a criminal who hit him over the head with a rock, then took Chesna’s gun and shot him.
Life can be altered or end very quickly. Experienced police officers understand this very well. There are at least 70,000 assaults on police officers every year, and that is just the number reported to the FBI database or National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Police are assaulted on average at least 40 times a day in this country. There are thousands and thousands of officers that require serious medical attention and are disabled for life every year. Many are disfigured after being been shot, stabbed, slashed, or hit with bricks, bottles, and much more. Just like our veterans, there are many survivors, but you’ll never hear about them in our media.
Why don’t we see videos of our police officers being murdered, shot, maimed, or beaten played over and over on the news or social media? Why don’t we see the thousands of acts of kindness by officers that occur each day? No one seems to believe that either.
Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!
“Hands up! Don’t shoot!” has a variety of potential meanings, explanations, and possible interpretations to an experienced officer. It is a common observation, and every cop knows, that hands up are often a ruse to lure the officer in close before an attack; this ruse is used by criminals frequently.
Police officers work in a world far beyond the realm of normal experiences. They may witness more human horror in one shift then most folks would ever see in a lifetime. They are in physical and emotional peril on multiple levels 24/7. Their perspective and experiences are vastly different from the average citizen’s. Events can go from friendly and benign to life threatening in an instant. I’m not sure people understand or really believe that. Even when shootings are justified, the officers don’t walk away unscathed. They go through debilitating trauma — nightmares, sleep deprivation, constant reliving of the event, and often physical illness. There are multiple protracted and in-depth investigations, constant grilling by various governing agencies, and intense public scrutiny, along with civil suits that last for years. It takes a consuming amount of time and resources to reconstruct these events. The positioning, geography, perspective, and angles; interviewing of witnesses; and forensics and physics of the incident all take time. Just because the media stops covering them doesn’t mean they’re over.
Officers also endure relentless verbal and physical attacks from politicians, the media, radical groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter, and the communities they try to serve and protect. It is debilitating and challenging to stay strong and focused on the job, and to maintain a positive attitude in an environment of constant negative narratives about their profession from folks who have no understanding of police work and its daily sordid reality. Hostility, scrutiny, and suspicion will not make things better for anyone. Scapegoating police is not the answer.
The ongoing pressure from society to have police use non-realistic alternative methods with respect to their equipment, tactics, and deployment of various crime-fighting tools in their daily dealings compounds the stress that officers face. They are weary of situations where the public instantly jumps to the assumption that they did it wrong. They are tired of headlines screaming that there was no knife, no gun, no provocation, and no reason for the shooting, before an investigation has even begun.
The amazing part about most officers is that they ignore the rhetoric, take their lumps (literally) and go back to work with resilience and dedication. They do not ask for sympathetic coverage, but do wish folks would understand their work and their reality, and take the time to get the facts.
In this time of political correctness, trigger words, micro-aggression, safe spaces, and extreme sensitivity, no one seems to even want to understand that police are human beings placed in impossible situations. Where is the sensitivity toward our guardians?
It is time to expand our conversations, take action, and foster better understanding about our officers and the realities they face each day. If we can harness the energy that wants things changed, and turn this critical mass of unrest and crisis toward good, we can make positive change for our communities, police organizations, and nation.
Let’s bring the facts and the human beings forward, into clear focus with real information, and use what we learn for positive change.