How to view the honest graft of cops on details? It’s graft; plain and simple. It’s a protection racket. No service is provided. Cops are paid a bump by companies which are strong armed into hiring them to stand around scratching their crotches doing nothing. This morning was a great example: Near South Station a bunch of steam company execs were standing on the SIDEWALK. A single cop was standing with the group, though slightly apart and so clearly not part fo the group, looking pretty clueless. What was his purpose on the sidewalk? To protect the steam company employees against a marauding steam genie? Or to direct traffic that ran up onto the sidewalk? Neither of course – it was merely another incident of honest graft.
No real service is provided. Supposedly the service provided is protection. When a cop is protecting utility workers at the intersection of two minor streets then the only protection provided is the kind found on The Sopranos. A detail is graft. An opportunity for cops to receive extra cash – by providing the service of standing around looking stupid.
When a cop accepts a detail he or she is mirroring the same actions of thugs who extort protection. Result is that a cop on a detail is too often nothing more than a hood hiding behind a blue uniform. There may be some details where the authority of a police uniform is necessary. But most of the time details are the greedy abuse of the uniforms that are given to actually protect.
So why the ambivalence? Because cops are important. Most cops provide real, vital, important service to the larger society. Behind the uniform are human beings who daily face dangerous unknowns, who are called to go from stern authority to compassionate helper at a moment. A cop is called in a time of need, when help from authority is needed. It’s inevitably a moment of vulnerability. What is amazing is how often the cops who respond are genuinely present with a spirit of both compassion and service. When I have needed help from police I have always encountered a genuine concern and desire to help.
So I am ambivalent when I see one cop greedily sucking at some public purse. I know that even that particular cop could very well be a person who on the next day might be saving a person’s life. Yet at that moment they are just another mouth sucking at a public tit.
