Police Work

I don't want to weigh in on whether recent police shootings of unarmed black men were racially motivated except to say if racism is involved I don't see it. I don't really know and except for the officers involved I doubt that anyone else does either. I believe however that calls for less policing are a mistake. I walk for exercise, usually on a pathway that runs along either side of a creek through my neighborhood. I consider it safe and my wife Lynne walks too, usually alone. We sometimes walk at night. We often see policemen (and women) and we find their presence reassuring. We do lock the doors and set an alarm when we leave the house but that, and locking car doors when driving, are the only precautions we find necessary. But several times recently I have visited the VA Hospital in South Dallas, just north of Loop 12 between I-45 and I-35E, not far from the zoo. That is a different neighborhood. Homes and businesses along that part of Loop 12 mostly have iron bars on the windows and I would be uncomfortable if I had car trouble there at night. If I lived there I would want to see a policeman at least as often as I do now. Many in that community do too. I know because several years ago they organized and lobbied the City Council for more police. They got them and saw a significant drop in crime over the next few years. More police do translate to less crime. Periodically they go back to resist budget cuts, so far successfully. New York City has always been a special place for Lynne and me because we met there on a blind date fifty two years ago. We were really sad to see the evident deterioration in mid-town Manhattan during the 1980s. We couldn't walk along 7th Avenue without being accosted, sometimes in an attempt to bait me by catcalling Lynne. The cleanup under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg was real and heartening and not just in the tourist areas. Violent crime dropped all over the city, especially in the most blighted areas. Protesters not-withstanding I doubt most New Yorkers want a return to the bad old days of thirty years ago in a misguided attempt to address perceived racism by cutting back on police. The drop was directly attributable to sophisticated new policing techniques pioneered by Commissioners Ray Kelly and Bill Bratton. Those techniques are now under fire because they focus efforts on high crime areas and those areas tend to be predominantly black. Protesters are demanding Bratton's removal and they may get it. If they do it will be a sad day, and not just for New York. New York is a success story and a model for how to make our cities safer, more pleasant places to live. We should be careful about ill considered changes in the criminal courts too. Our grand and petite jury systems aren't perfect but the due process clause in our constitution protects us all from the demands of mobs as well as prosecutorial overreach. That is a good thing. I don't think we're in much danger of undermining due process in the courts though. The Supreme Court will see to that. Police work is another matter. Rightly or wrongly a large segment of our society believes that the police response to disproportionate crime rates in predominantly black communities is racist in nature. If the result is new policies with police turning a blind eye those communities will become more lawless and dangerous. As always, those who will suffer most are those who live there.