In the latest Libertarian Enterprise, L. Neil Smith discusses some of the ways the police have changed over the last few decades:
… being a police officer isn’t really all that dangerous — check the statistics, yourself. Being a fireman is more dangerous. Being a miner is more dangerous. Being a deep-sea salvage diver is hell of a lot more dangerous. Nor are these particularly dangerous times. When I was a young reserve officer in the wild and wooly early 1970s, more cops were injured or killed in California alone than in the entire nation now. That fact sparked many changes in policy, including choice of weapons, from revolver to semiautomatic, the design of holsters, and the angle at which the car should be parked during a routine traffic stop.
All that was in the 60s, and, for a while, the police did acquire a more human face. But then, something went wrong. Several things went really wrong, and it left us stuck in the mess we’re in today.
To begin with there were police unions and lawyers who rode along with them like pilot fish. RICO allowed them to loot the countryside freely. There is nothing in a free society that we could have done, or can, directly, about this. But it has come to mean that no officer will ever have to face the music for whatever criminal act he may have committed, unless he has political enemies somewhere inside the structure.
Second, there were matters of accoutrement. Mace and revolver speed-loaders were the big news of my time, rapidly followed by CS gas and semiautomatic pistols, mostly Glocks in .40 caliber, while four-shot pump shotguns evolved into eight-shooters on the dashboard. Wooden nightsticks became nylon PR-24s and engendered a whole new martial art. Finally there was Kevlar body armor, and the Taser. Ammunition changed, as well. The Blue Knight’s equippage was nearly complete.
All the while, the courts were depriving ordinary citizens of more and more rights and protections until the attacks on 9/11 swept what was left from the board. The police could now go anywhere, do anything — including locking people up on suspicion — without punishment for it.
At the same time, the cops have gone insane, shooting people’s dogs, smashing in, beating up, and murdering innocent individuals, including little old ladies, and their pet kittens without even having to apologize about it. I’d cite some typical examples, but they happen every day and you can find them all too easily for yourself. You can’t blame people for hating the police, they have good reason. I’ve deliberately avoided learning much about Ferguson — what little information I have would indicate that the cop behaved properly — but you can’t blame the public, The police have brought this on themselves.
