We are not civilians

The death of Tyre Nichols was shocking. I chose not to watch the assault video, as the accounts of others were sufficient. I will not mention race in this column, because obviously race is not the issue. I contend the current problem with policing (not policemen!) is an “us versus them” mentality. Hear me out before firing your missives in my direction, then fire away.

Starting with the 1990 Gulf War and continuing to the present, we have been sending men and women to hostile environments where they could trust no one, and no one we were fighting for wanted liberty. All that either side wanted was to be the one in charge. Our soldiers had to, rightly, view everyone as a potential threat. The kid you befriend with candy today could well blow you up tomorrow. We got into a perpetual war with no clear objective other than killing bad guys. But there is an endless supply of those, so we never left. Today, 10,000 U.S. troops remain in the Middle East.

Those young men and women come back home and are well suited for law enforcement. We know they have a “serve” attitude, we know that fear is not a driving concern for them, and we know they follow the chain of command. Plus, we know they will work for peanuts. Perfect, it seems, for law enforcement. But is it?

We are not at war with fellow Americans. It is not “us versus them.” Our country is not a battlefield. Citizens are not civilians! When I was DA, I would correct any officer, whether in my office, in grand jury, or in a trial, if they ever addressed someone as a civilian. That officer needs to understand that a civilian is a non-combatant in a military setting, thus they, too, are civilians, if that was a proper usage of the word. The colloquial use of civilian by law enforcement is a modern-day abuse of language, created by an “us versus them” approach to “serve and protect.”

If I’m going to war with a gang invading my city, that “us versus them” mentality works. If I’m going to war with a drug cartel, that mentality works. If I’m stopping Tyre Nichols for arguably not maintaining his lane, that mentality fails. Miserably. Horrifically. Fatally, sometimes.

Whether the Memphis officers have served in the military or not is irrelevant. It is the organizational mindset that matters, it is not the individual. Enough former military personnel pervade every law enforcement agency that the mojo is embedded in the department’s DNA, despite no department ever putting “us versus them” in their SOP. “Us versus them” leads to Tyre Nichols’ situations.

Every single one of those Memphis officers would not have acted as they did in a normal police-citizen encounter. Yet some, if not all, were part of a special unit, the Scorpions. The SCORPION unit, “Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods,” was designed to combat high crime activity in Memphis. Notice the word “combat.” We combat crime, don’t we. It’s in our nature to fight against crime. Communities should battle crime. Words like fight, combat, and battle are inextricably linked to war and our daily lives. But when it comes to policing, most of us prefer the “serve and protect” motto.

I’m good with macro-observations, but not with micro-solutions. I am not suggesting that ex-military be prohibited from being law enforcement officers. I’m for liberty, after all. I am suggesting that the executive branch that hires police chiefs, budgets county sheriffs, or determines law enforcement policies should be careful to make sure that the ultimate objective is not to fight a war on our homeland but to serve and protect the citizens.

Three men I’ve come to admire in local law enforcement are Houston County Sheriff Cullen Talton; now U.S. Marshall Steve Lynn; and now Perry PD Chief Alan Everidge. I don’t recall these men ever using the word civilian when talking about the citizens they serve. I don’t recall them creating units that fostered an “us versus them” mentality. I objected to another agency’s use of “We Hunt at Night” stickers on the back of some patrol cars. I don’t know if it is still there, but it is simply the wrong message. “We Serve and Protect” just seems better, doesn’t it?

Kelly Burke, attorney, former district attorney and magistrate judge, writes about the law, rock’n’roll, and politics or anything that strikes him. Contact Kelly at dakellyburke@gmail.com to comment on this article or suggest articles that you’d like to see, and visit his website at www.kellyrburke.com to view prior columns.

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