In a previous post, I touched the special place that the military seems to be given in American society. Now, I’d like to examine law enforcement. People often seem to hold law enforcement officials to a weaker standard than I’d like, and one justification that they use is, “Well, they have such a dangerous job.”
Here’s a case where a cop pulls his gun and puts it in a guy’s face during a traffic stop, saying, “I will blow your fucking head off.” Why? The guy was observed to have a legally-owned-and-transported firearm in his car. Georgia does not require you to notify officers that you have a weapon, and he was not suspected of any crime except for having his license plate light out. If you watch the video and are thinking of defending the cops, you might also like to know that the driver received a (sort-of) apology from the PD. You can read it here.
In response to the video, a commenter writes:
I dont blame him. Its some crazy SOB’s in the backwoods of Georgia. That’s Camden County Georgia. I live in Laurens and in ’98 an officer was killed by a maniac.
It almost makes sense. Police officers voluntarily take on a dangerous job in which they can be killed or injured, so shouldn’t we cut them a little slack? Only if we also apply that standard to other dangerous jobs, I say. So, let’s see. What are the most dangerous jobs in America, and how dangerous is being a cop, really?
Here are the numbers for 2002 (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics; survey of occupations with minimum 30 fatalities and 45,000 workers in 2002, as presented by MSN).
| The 10 most dangerous jobs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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For 2007, law enforcement actually makes the list, at number ten. Above that are (in descending order): Commercial fishers, loggers, pilots and navigators, steel-workers, farmers and ranchers, roofers, power line installers and repairers, truck drivers, and garbage collectors. Fucking garbage collectors die on the job at a higher rate than police officers.
The next time you hear somebody offering special privilege to cops because they have such a dangerous job, ask yourself whether you would give the same privilege to roofers, loggers, and commercial fishers. Ask yourself whether you would give the same privilege to garbage collectors. I’m guessing the answer is no, because I never hear anybody saying, “Sure, that garbage man just punched somebody in the face, but you have to understand, he’s got such a dangerous job!” Then, ask yourself what it is about cops that makes them particularly deserving of that privilege.
Or better yet, tell me, in the comments.
#1 by Issa at May 11th, 2009
One argument that I can imagine is that the other workers are at risk from machinery accidents, while the police are at risk from people. The cop being more physically aggressive with a suspect is the equivalent to a steel-worker being diligent about sending machinery in for routine repair. What if some retail position was very dangerous, say the workers frequently got shot by customers pissed about the return policy. What would be an acceptable reaction from those workers and how does that stack up with what we consider acceptable for cops?
#2 by Joshua Bardwell at May 12th, 2009
That’s an interesting way of thinking about it that I hadn’t considered, but my gut reaction is still resistance to accepting the current state of things. People have rights, while machines don’t. An industrial worker can do what he or she wants to a machine with only personal safety at risk. But when a police officer protects his or her own safety, that must be balanced out with the safety and rights of the suspects he or she is dealing with.
I don’t think that the retail worker analogy is valid. Consider convenience store clerks in bad neighborhoods, who are, in fact, shot at regularly by customers. They have bulletproof glass enclosures. Done. But cops are expected to leave their protective enclosure and chase down the people who could do them harm, so they don’t have that luxury. So cops are definitely in a special situation. I just wish that when they took steps to protect themselves, they did so with more consideration for the safety and rights of the citizens that they deal with.