by Patrick H. Moore
I have not been following the situation in New York City and the current NYPD issues of apparently unnecessary killings by the police and the clearly vindictive killings of police officers in reprisal closely so I am not able to comment with any credibility on what is going on there. I have run two posts on the issue of the current protests in the wake of the shootings. One is yesterday’s post by former NYPD Sgt-Detective John Paolucci and the other is by Robert Emmett Murphy Jr, also of New York City, both of whom are writers I like and respect. I believe these two gentlemen are both sincere and well-meaning, although their respective viewpoints are very different.
I do have a fair amount of personal experience with law enforcement from when I was quite young which I will recount here.
Exhibit I:
When I was 17, I took part in a non-violent protest against the Vietnam War at the Oakland Induction Center in Oakland, California. It was an extremely peaceful affair. We knew we were going to be arrested and we were. We were kept on a bus for about two hours waiting to be booked. Nothing strange about that.
What was strange was the way the Oakland police officers who were guarding us on the bus (we were such darned pacifists that we posed absolutely no threat to anyone) treated us. We were verbally abused for the entire two hours that we sat on the bus. That was 47 years ago and I have no memory of what specifically was said. I can say, however, that such gratuitous abuse, for absolutely no reason, tends to make one lose respect for law enforcement.
Exhibit II:
D.C. Law Enforcement giving Patrick H. Moore the Finger
This happened the summer before my arrest in Washington, D.C. I was 17 years old. I had spent the night at a friend’s house in NW Washington D.C. I walked home on the morning of July 4th (my 17th birthday). My route took me past the White House, where Washington D.C. police officer were mustered in large groups on the corners of every block. I would say there were perhaps 100 police officers present. At that time, I was a standard issue “longhair”, one of several hundred thousand in the U.S. at that time. To my surprise, as I walked by on the other side of the street, dozens of the police officers began to curse me out. They called me every dirty name in the book, c___s_____ this and c___s_____ that. DC law enforcement was clearly very fond of that 
word. I kept walking and did my best to not look at them. This was very scary. I was a 17-year-old middle class white kid without a great deal of “real-life” experience. It was the sort of thing that I would never have believed possible, yet it happened to me.
This is the sort of thing that makes one lose respect for law enforcement.
Exhibit III:
The following summer I was in Beach Haven, New Jersey (“down on the shore”). I had two jobs: I earned $1.25 an hour working in a bakery as a trainee and I had a second job moonlighting in an all-night coffee shop as a all-around helper. One night in the coffee shop I met a very beautiful young woman — undoubtedly the prettiest girl by far I had ever had pay attention to me. Anyway, that morning we got a little “too frisky” on the beach in public and I was arrested, hauled in for questioning. I’ll never forget the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when four police cars came swooping down on me with me due at work in 15 minutes. They can really move fast when the spirit moves them and I knew that I wouldn’t be going to work that day. I say without reservation that the police were entirely within their rights to haul me in. I was undoubtedly guilty of some sort of misdemeanor — disorderly conduct in public or something of the sort.
Since I don’t have a pix of the lovely lass, you’ll have to put up with me…
What happened next was a bit strange… That summer, 1968, there were weed smokers galore there in Beach Haven. I was questioned for most of the day by the Chief of Police and a Detective. They did a regular “good cop”, “bad cop” routine; the Chief was aggressive, the plain-clothes Detective used cajolery and the old soft-sell. Since they had me pegged as a longhair, they wanted me to give them the names of people I knew on the island who were involved with drugs. I knew a few weed smokers but that was it; I’d only been on the island for about 10 days and had spent much of my time working.
The good life in Beach Haven!
Obviously, I wasn’t going to give them the names of the people I knew; I suppose I was too young or too idealistic to be a snitch. Finally, the Chief and the Detective got frustrated. The Detective bowed out for a while and the Chief had me taken to a different room where I was left alone for a while to think about it. Then to my surprise and horror, the Chief and a young patrolman came in. They were livid. Since I wouldn’t respond to milk and honey, they had decided they were going to scare me into giving them the information I was withholding, sparse though it was.
The young patrolman was a nasty-looking dude. I knew he was itching to f___ me up and I believe he would have kicked the shit out me if he’d been given carte blanche to do so.
The Chief and the young officer held out their gloves in a threatening manner and one of them (I believe the Chief) asked me if I’d ever been whipped. I probably mumbled no and hung my head. I was plenty scared but I simply was not going to snitch. They got madder and madder and started jumping up and down and shouting: “Who are they? Who are they?” It got louder and louder and more and more surreal. The shouting probably went on for about 120 seconds, maybe a bit less.
God’s Little Acre
There was a happy ending of sorts (sometimes we need a happy ending). The Chief and the young officer did not lay a hand on me. The fact I was white and reasonably well-spoken may have kept me from getting beaten up. I’ve been lucky more than once.
At some point during the day, the Chief searched my backpack and belongings with great care. Fortunately for me, there was no evidence of any marijuana or marijuana residue. Lucky for me I was only an occasional weed smoker.
I was charged with a misdemeanor (being a disorderly person) and was taken to the Ocean County Jail in Tom’s River. Four days later, I had a hearing in front of a magistrate judge who, given my contrition, gave me time served and had me pay $22 in courts costs. I was a bit surprised at the time because there was no talk whatsoever of me being assigned a public defender. I guess in those days you were on your own when charged with a misdemeanor, unless you had money to hire counsel.
Due to being in the slammer for 4 days, I lost my job and returned to California as soon as I could get there.
To sum up:
It happened right at the red dot!
There is a reason ordinary citizens do not trust the police. Police abuse happens with disheartening regularity. In my job, we interact with police officers regularly and more than once, officers have described to me the manner in which some officers abuse the citizenry just because they can. From what I’ve been told, and this is hearsay, it’s generally aimed at the helpless and vulnerable within our society who cannot protect themselves. In fairness, on many occasions, when stopped by the police (and I was stopped regularly as a young man), I’ve been treated very fairly, and I do not wish to imply that the police are always abusive. They are not. But sometimes they are, as I discovered on three occasions by the time I turned 18.
Solutions:
In my opinion, there are no realistic solutions other than humankind growing a new brain. I have long since given up pacifism as a way to achieve justice and I tell myself I would fight to the death my for loved ones without hesitation, something I hope never happens.
I will conclude with a couple of quotes from Bob Dylan:
“Democracy don’t rule this world/
Better get that through your head/
This world is ruled by violence/
But that’s better left unsaid.”
Unfortunately, the violence is homegrown and is not merely a bad habit endemic to other countries.
“And it’s sundown on the union/
And what’s made in the USA/
Sure was a good idea/
Till greed got in the way.”