Can Police Practice Love Instead of Intimidation?

Why do some police lack calm or a steady demeanor when encountering “a person of interest”? I’d say it’s because compassion and love haven’t been a concern of the American justice system for a long time, if ever.

There’s no love in Juvenile Justice, where parents of color worry about their children getting sucked into the Pipeline To Prison — and if you don’t know about it, a 2006 complaint against the Winner School System, filed by Lakota parents in South Dakota, is a very good example. 

In that school, Native American children had been treated badly by teachers, coaches and white students. Some children were removed from school by law enforcement, incarcerated without telling their parents. Some of their offenses included pushing in the lunch line and being accused of actions they hadn’t done. Some of their parents waited days before the school told them where their children were, and by then, the children had already been processed into the juvenile justice system and the parents couldn’t get them out.

Judgement, not love, has been America’s guiding principle and it is strange to me that a country that is primarily Christian systematically re-enforces punishment and death rather than love and compassion.

These days, I would expect most people want a change in the way police deal with intense situations. The numbers of death by police has become impossible to ignore. In 2017 and 2020, 457 white people were killed by police. African Americans, who are approximately only 14 percent of Americans saw half as many deaths: 223 in 2017 and slightly higher at 241 in 2020. Half as many deaths in only 14% of the population is also impossible to ignore, especially since George Floyd was martyred in front of the entire nation. 

These horrors have been magnified to the point where even people living in the whitest communities in American cannot ignore this anymore, and Thank God for that, because it has been going on forever. Killing minorities has been a national tradition since the country was founded and has been ignored ever since. Now, America’s police have become the scary bad guys.

Have you ever heard of Death By Police? There are certain states where, when someone wants to die, all they have to do is antagonize a police officer and they are assured a hasty death by gunshot.

In my opinion, fear (or hate, based on fear) of minorities is the basis of much of the problem. White Americans, especially in segregated areas, imagine people of color are angry or dangerous. Perhaps that’s because if anyone had treated their ancestors or their children so meanly or rudely, they too might hate and seek vengeance. 

Perhaps they fear poor people might steal. White fear might mean that deep down, white people know they have done a lot wrong, and if not them specifically, then America in general. They know people of color have a lot to be angry about. 

And yet, I have found in my life that is untrue. People of color I meet are never angry towards me. Instead, I treat everyone with a smile and a handshake and I approach everyone I meet with love. Love thrives easily when there is no fear. 

In the last twenty-five years, I have lived among people who look nothing like me. My life is infinitely better for repeatedly finding my white self in the minority.

I had to overcome fear but I did it with a smile. 

Many years ago, I found myself walking down a city street late at night. I was a young 26 years old and mine was the only white face in sight. It was just me and my expensive Nikon camera. I turned a corner and walked a ways, a little nervous, anxious to reach my car ahead. 

A group of young men, far darker in complexion than myself, approached me and seemed to glare menacingly at me. I did the one thing I knew how to do to protect myself. I lifted my camera to my face, smiled and said, “Hey, you guys! Strike a pose!”  

And they did! They cracked up and made silly smiling faces, and we all laughed and went on our way.

Decades later, I moved into a very diverse community. I decided to smile and greet everyone I encountered. Within weeks, all of my neighbors, including gang-bangers in low riding, bouncing cars, honked, waved and smiled at me as they passed on the street. It was delightful. 

When people have never lived in a diverse situation or find themselves as a minority for the first time, they may be fearful of what they don’t know. All they know is what they have seen on television, even if they believe in equality for all.

My smile experiment continued into California. I moved onto a street where whites and Hispanics ignored each other as if they were invisible. I smiled whenever I strolled and quickly saw the beginnings of upturned mouths of passing neighbors. Before I knew it people were full-on smiling at me when they saw me in the street. Here, however, there was also a language barrier. No one my age spoke English, but the children did.

I hosted a Day of the Dead cookie and hot chocolate party for the kids after the Halloween Parade on Main Street. It was a hit. Before long, I was invited to the Saturday night carne asadas (barbecues) and the children were nonstop visitors in my home. 

There were gang members in that neighborhood. To me, they were just big kids with giant smiles, always polite and respectful to me. When my daughter came to visit, she was terrified when we encountered them on a darkly lit street. I promised her that we were not the enemies, not targets, not the oppressors. These were just neighborhood kids and I was their neighbor. 

One time, I was sitting on my porch and those boys were playing cards at a picnic table in the park across the way. I read my book as they sat in the park for hours, killing time on a hot summer day. A police officer came by and asking the kids if he could search them. They had done nothing wrong but they allowed the police to search them. They handcuffed one boy when they found marijuana, but he produced a medical card for his prescription and they removed the cuffs. 

Another time, I came around the corner on my street and saw the police had lined the boys against the wall of a building and were searching them all. The officers were tense and yelled at me when I asked what was going on. They acted like they were at a crime scene; all edgy, jumpy and snappy. They were yelling. Seriously, they acted as if they could kill someone. 

A young man in his late 20s left his home across the street holding the hand of his four-year-old son, and the police called him to stand against the wall with the teens to be searched. The officer was very stern with the boys, even though, as it turned out, nothing had actually happened. A neighbor had complained that the boys were wearing black t-shirts and she feared violence was about to burst out.

A few nights later, I saw all those boys sitting in the park and I printed out instructions from the American Civil Liberties Union website about how to deal with the police when stopped and questioned. 

One instruction said to ask the officer if they were under arrest and if not, were they free to go. One large teen looked at me in earnest and said, “But Miss. You don’t understand, they pull us out of the car and slam us to the ground before we can say anything.”

My heart was pretty broken by that.

Listen, I know those boys weren’t always innocent, but did the police officers help them with constant unnecessary nitpicking, needless searches, humiliating a young man in front of his tiny son? Did it ever build relationship with them? No. For sure it did not. It seemed to me the police believed instilling fear was a positive goal. My heart was pretty broken by that, too. 

A few years later, the police addressed a community meeting saying they wanted to install cameras because there had been an increase in crime on the street. We neighbors knew it was virtually always committed by outsiders. Almost everyone had been effected but no one on that street would rob anyone else. There was just too much love between neighbors who shared everything, anyway.

The police said the cameras were forthcoming, like it or not, and neighbors asked why the only time the police visited the street was to drive through slowly with flashing lights, as if to intimidate everyone. One woman asked the police to stop their Arrest Training Program of sirens, loudspeakers, and bull horns so close to our homes. She said everytime she heard them it was traumatizing, and it went on for hours. Everytime they did it, she feared for her children. People asked, “Why don’t the police come around and get to know the neighborhood? Why did they seem to want to scare everyone?”

The Chief of Police replied, “We’ll come around more but there may be more arrests if we do.”

That summed up the problem, right there. The neighbors knew they were being targeted by outside criminals but the police assumed the neighborhood was riddled with crime because it was poor and of color. That was their evidence.

One time, after a Trump rally in town, a car came through our streets and shot up the neighborhood. I ducked as the car passed my house but I had seen the fire from the bullets leaving the gun. Another time, at about 2 am, I stood in dark of my living room and saw two women case the neighborhood for bikes, tools, even my flower pots. I let them know I was watching and they got in their car and drove away.

If the police are only looking for the worst, they will find it or imagine they did, or worse, they will create it. If people assume the best about others, if they do not approach people with unnecessary power struggles, judgement or fear, they would find it much easier to diffuse the situation.

After that community meeting, a couple of officers began to come around and join the carne asadas, and they even brought gifts for the kids (which went slightly overboard). The overall feeling between community members and those officers saw a big change for the better. They were welcomed into the community and one of those officers made a beeline for our community when there was a problem, while the rest of the police force ignored it. He had started to care about the people he had begun to know.

Years ago, relations improved in Montana when police officers of different races were partnered together. Depending on each other, getting to know their stories, home lives, senses of humor, maybe even sharing home cooked specialties, caused a feeling of humanity and respect, even a touch of love for each other. 

Love in Practice supports well being. Fear, ignorance, misunderstandings, simple lack of friendship, can result in a tension overload. If a young man in a car is resisting arrest: Officers! Take a break and step back. Assess the situation, listen to the person in the car, and CALM DOWN. Tell the person — and believe it yourself — there is no reason to get all upset because right now, every televised police encounter seems to be a life or death situation. That is scary for all involved!!!

Very recently, I encountered a black woman who believed I was threatening her freedom due to circumstances caused by someone I knew. She attacked me with a hammer, chasing me down the stairs when I had come to visit her to try to clear the air.

A few days later, I saw something I thought her children would like, and as a peace offering, I brought it to her house. She came outside when I called upstairs, “I thought your kids would like this.”

She came down and looked in my eyes. Her shoulders relaxed. She looked me in the eye and apologized for the hammer incident. I knew it must have been hard for her to do, and I offered her a pandemic-style air hug. The next time she saw me and my friend who had incited her rage, she told us she wanted to get along, that she loved us and we told her we loved her, too. 

I knew she had to have suffered horribly in her life to have acted that way, and I forgave her. I didn’t give up. I came back with an open heart and we all lived happily ever after.

Drug addicts, drunks, gangs and criminals, I know I am safe with them all. I accept them and I don’t fear them, and I love them for the hardship of their journeys. I offer them a lack of judgement and compassion. You may think change by a smile is simplistic, but I challenge you to smile at your crankiest neighbor and watch the changes begin. It never fails me.

Police: What ever happened to the police trained in talking someone off of a bridge? Aren’t there time tested actions to reduce stress? In every case, treating people with Love and Respect under all situations is a place to begin and if you don’t know how, just smile the next time you pull someone over so they aren’t fearing for their life. It’s a start. 

Our justice system needs serious training in PRACTICING LOVE. Keep Calm and Love Your Neighbors. 

Christina Rose