TANGLED UP IN BLUE

A young, left-leaning law professor from a very liberal family decides to become a cop. Where’s that gonna go? Why, into the  2021 book “Tangled Up In Blue: Policing the American City” by Rosa Brooks.

When her mom learns her daughter is signing up as a reserve police officer with DC Metro, she is horrified: …”her memories of being tear-gassed by police at 1960s anti-war marches remained fresh. ‘The police are the enemy,’ she informed me. “They are not on our side.’”

Following left-wing script, she hates guns but somehow manages to qualify with her issued Glock 17, “But when I got home from each patrol shift, the first thing I’d do was take my gun out of its holster and put it away in its locked metal box. And each time the heavy lid snapped closed, I’d feel a small wave of relief. It was like slamming the lid on a dangerous viper.”

I’ll give her this: she at least tries to understand the Job, and in many ways succeeds. She writes, “Activists critical of policing complain, with some justification, that police effectively become occupying forces in poor urban neighborhoods…But over-policing is driven in part by the law of supply and demand – police go where people ask them to go.”

Toward the end of the book Brooks writes, “…in both older and more recent studies, police officers tend to rate the opportunity to help people as t he single largest factor in choosing their job; pay, power and authority are near the bottom of the list.” She adds, “The vast majority of the police officers I met in my time with MPD were decent, well-intentioned men and women.”

Professor Brooks and I have opposing views on many things related to criminal justice, but we are in agreement on that last quote.