Over the past year, the United States has seen a lot of news coverage regarding police brutality throughout the country. I think most of us are shocked by the many extreme cases where we find no excuse for what happened. I am absolutely opposed to police brutality — however, I am also opposed to believing that these situations are strictly one-dimensional. It is important for us to consider the pressures of being a police officer.
Not too long ago, an incident occurred when a police officer in Alabama slammed an innocent elderly man from India to the ground, paralyzing him. Calls from the neighborhood had reported a man with a similar description walking around the neighborhood, looking in people’s garages. When the police confronted Sureshbhai Patel, the language barrier prevented them from communicating with each other. Police officer Eric Parker kept Patel from trying to walk away by holding his arms behind his back. For some reason, he then thought it necessary to take him to the ground. He swept his feet from under him and slammed him down. Patel had no way to brace himself, and it was hitting the ground in this manner that caused partial paralysis. All of this was recorded by the parked police vehicle and made public online. Many were infuriated about the violation of civil rights, racial profiling and more. Parker was fired and charged with excessive force.
Parker’s punishment serves justice, as it should. I was shocked and infuriated when I first read about the incident. My heart went out to the Patel family, and I just could not understand the ignorance behind assuming any ethnic man should be considered a threat. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that officer and how he must have felt horrible about what he did.
I have a friend here in Utah whose fiancé became a police officer a year or two ago. I worked with this friend at the time, and she would tell me about her fiancé’s time in the police academy and his training. The truth is that none of us can truly understand the intensity of being a police officer. They are in constant danger and their daily occupation threatens their life. It is drilled into them over and over to be on their guard and to never let a suspect get the upper hand or else they could endanger other civilians, themselves or the other officers. They are not taught to racially profile, but they are taught to accurately profile for precision and safety. It is easy for the rest of us to objectively see aggressive action as unwarranted and unjust, and in many of these situations, as with Patel, this is true.
However, our perspective does not cover the entire situation. Constantly being on your guard and having it drilled into you to be preemptive and always look for possible dangers changes a person’s perception. They are often consumed by fear and doing everything they can to control that fear and act for the good and safety of others and self.
It is easy to say how situations could have been handled differently and to imagine yourself acting in a more appropriate manner according to your frame of reference. But this trivializes a complex and tense matter: public safety and the individuals acting as protectors and enforcers of that privilege.
As the privileged who do not live in constant threat and danger, we should not be the first to figuratively cast stones at the protectors. We cannot imagine their fear, so we should not project our limited frame of references onto those whose entire lives have been devoted to public safety and peace of mind.