By Kevin D. Williamson
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Officer Pedro Alexander of the Youngsville, La., police
department likes publicity, so allow me to give him a little right here: He
ought to be fired, along with a few of his colleagues and supervisors.
Officer Alexander is one of the many policemen around the
country who, having decided that the daily ritual humiliations Americans endure
at the hands of their government (at the airport, at the motor-vehicles office,
getting a passport renewed) should be even more extensive — and, by God,
jollier! — are going around conducting illegal police stops as part of a
Christmas-themed public-relations campaign. Our friends at Reason have been following these shenanigans for a while, and they
are widespread, perpetrated by police from Louisiana to Pennsylvania to
Oklahoma.
What happens is this: Police cruisers pull up behind some
unsuspecting citizen who is minding his own business and following the law. The
police put on their flashing lights and pull over the unsuspecting citizen who
is minding his own business and following the law. Then, they videotape the
subsequent encounter between the police and the unsuspecting citizen who is
minding his own business and following the law, who breathes a sigh of relief
when police say: “Congratulations! You weren’t doing anything wrong! Merry
Christmas!” And then sometimes the police give that unsuspecting citizen who is
minding his own business and following the law a Red Lobster gift certificate.
Some of these videos are hilarious. But do you know why they are hilarious? Because that
unsuspecting citizen who is minding his own business and following the law is terrified.
That’s part of the mechanics of humor, which works by
subverting our expectations (as in a pun or a double-entendre) and by providing
a channel for the spasmodic relief of tension. And if you want to create
tension, conducting a police stop — illegally — is a great way to do that.
Police officers are armed agents of the state who enjoy a wide license when it
comes to performing acts of violence on citizens, which is why traffic stops
and other police encounters are so stressful even for those who have done
nothing wrong.
What is particularly maddening about this is that we are
constantly reminded by our occasionally sanctimonious and self-regarding
friends in law enforcement that traffic stops are extraordinarily dangerous for
police, who are therefore justified in treating them as though each
broken-taillight encounter were potentially a standoff with Billy the Kid.
Here’s our friend Jack Dunphy, a California police official and regular
contributor in these pages:
The traffic stop . . . presents
some of the greatest dangers a police officer can encounter. Bear in mind that
the officer who pulls you over for a minor traffic violation has no idea that
you are ordinarily a law-abiding citizen who happens to be in a hurry to get
somewhere.
Unless, of course, he does know for a fact that you are an unsuspecting
citizen who is minding his own business and following the law and has targeted
you for that very reason. Maybe we should take police claims of the fraught
nature of traffic stops with a grain of salt or three: They don’t seem to
believe their own bull***t, so why should we?
We should give some brief consideration to the legal and
practical questions here: These are illegal
stops, but they could very well uncover (other) illegal activity: If Officer
Friendly ends up pulling over Jack the Ripper and discovers a severed head in
the passenger seat of his minivan, that’s still an illegal stop, which taints
evidence uncovered by it — a fact that will occur to Jack’s lawyer. And instead
of pulling over to the side of the road to whimper and call you “Sir,” that
nice young lady might instead lead you on a high-speed chase and drive her
Volvo into a school bus.
But what is particularly galling here is the unspoken set
of political assumptions behind all this, i.e., that we citizens exist at the
sufferance of the state and for the use and amusement of its agents.
It is occasionally necessary to remind the people we
employ to do necessary violence on our behalf that they are servants and not
masters. Police officers are servants, like gardeners and housekeepers, and
they work for us. They are handsomely paid and splendidly pensioned, treated
with great courtesy and extended an extraordinary (sometimes excessive) degree
of respect. But they are not entitled to waste our time, to interfere with us,
or to use us as props in their public-relations campaigns. We are subjects, not
objects.
The proper “reward” for following the rules of the road
and for not being a thief or a homicidal maniac is not a ho-ho-ho humorous
holiday encounter with the police and a candy cane. It is being left alone.
Police officers conducting illegal traffic stops should
face consequences. The senior police officials who conceive of these programs
and sign off on them should lose their jobs. And we, as citizens, should
attempt to rekindle enough self-respect that we insist on being treated by our
police officers with at least the same degree of respect and consideration we
demand from the people who cut our grass or sell us lattes.
They work for us, and we should treat them accordingly.
And that means telling Officer Pedro Alexander of Youngsville, La., to mind his
own business and do his damned job.
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