Tangled Up in Blue

by Rosa Brooks

  Q. The city’s emergency shelter for women who are victims of domestic violence is called:

  My Brother’s House

  My Sister’s Place

  The Abusers’ Place

  The White House

  We learned to write police reports. At first, I was scolded for offering too much dialogue and detail. “This isn’t War and Peace,” the instructor admonished. “The more you write, the more likely you are to say something that gets you into trouble. Less is more.” Initially, I also failed to master the passive voice. With practice, however, I developed what I considered a not-insignificant talent for the language of police bureaucratese:

  On the above-listed date and time, the aforementioned officers were dispatched to the listed location to investigate a report of a robbery. Arriving on scene, officers were informed by Complainant that his wallet had been stolen by a person unknown to him, but described by Complainant as a male of dark complexion but unknown height and build, wearing jeans and a dark-colored hoodie. Complainant stated to officers that his wallet was grabbed by Suspect from his jacket pocket, after which Suspect fled on foot in an eastward direction. The area was canvassed by officers but Suspect was not located.

  We progressed through the new curriculum, covering, in rapid succession, topics ranging from ethics to the nature of the Metropolitan Police Department’s command structure and rules concerning the wearing of uniforms. “Ironing a recruit BDU uniform is something a recruit officer must know. . . . A recruit’s uniform is required to be neatly pressed each day they report to work. Additionally, the presence of being able to have sharp creases [sic] is a key detail of a professional appearance.”

  Further:

  Brilliantly shined boots are a hallmark of police uniforms. They indicate devotion to duty and attention to the smallest detail. Each polished boot represents hours of patient work. During your time at the academy you are required to maintain boots that are polished to a luster on the toe and heel. “Polished to a luster” means the toe and heel are shined so that they will reflect light. In the most exceptional cases boots can be shined so that a person’s reflection may be seen in the finish.

  This was accompanied by instructions on boot polishing. (“The basic steps are: Create a workspace. Prepare the boot. Apply the base coat. Apply the polish coat. Shine. Finish.”) Brass polishing received similar attention:

  When preparing to wear the new brass buckle of either the garrison belt or the Sam Browne, it must be shined to a luster. When new the buckle will have a clear coating that protects the finish during shipping. Recruits are required to remove this protective finish by placing the belt buckle in boiling water for a minimum of 10 minutes. Be careful after the buckle is boiled. It must be allowed to cool to room temperature before it is touched.

  The ethics lesson was slightly less detailed than the guidance on the proper wearing of uniforms. After a brief foray into “sources of ethical standards,” we were advised that “Making good ethical decisions requires a trained sensitivity to ethical issues and a practiced method for exploring the ethical aspects of a decision and weighing the considerations that should impact our choice of a course of action. Having a method for ethical decision making is absolutely essential. When practiced regularly, the method becomes so familiar that we work through it automatically without consulting the specific steps.”

  The method, as detailed in the PowerPoint slides displayed on the screen, was simple:

  Make a Decision and Test it.

  Considering all these approaches, which option best addresses the situation?

  If I told someone I respect—or told a television audience [think CNN]—which option I have chosen, what would they say?

  Act and Reflect:

  How can my decision be implemented with the greatest care and attention to the concerns of all stakeholders?

  How did my decision turn out and what have I learned from this specific situation?

  The instructor summed it up: “Basically, don’t do shit that will look bad on the news. Because if you do, you are roadkill.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “No,” he said, “I’m not kidding. You do something stupid, do not think for one moment that the department is going to stand by you. You make the department look bad, you will be hung out to dry.”

  We learned about prohibited weapons (machine guns, blackjacks, sandbags, slungshots, sand clubs, knuckles, and sawed-off shotguns) and were provided with instruction on the proper use of leg irons and flex cuffs. We studied lists of Schedule I Controlled Substances, were instructed on the appearances and odors of various drugs, and memorized “the nine MPD forms that allow sworn members to properly process and safeguard property.” There was the Property Bag, the Property Tag, the Property Record, the Property Continuation Report, the Property Released on Scene form, the Property Release form, the Property Ownership/Classification card, the Property Receipt, and the Property Book. The Property Book, however:

  [Is] not a form but an actual book located in each station. Officers are required to input information regarding any and all property taken into the custody of the department onto a page of the Property Book (PD82). This should be all of the same information from the Property Bag, or Property Tag. The Property Book Page and Book Number should then be recorded onto the Property Bag and Property Tag. The left side of the property book [sic] is for the recording officer when the officer comes into possession of the property. The right side of the property book [sic] is for station personnel and is used when returning property to the owner. Any corrections made to the Property Book must be made in red ink.

  The Real Lesson

  Situational awareness is vitally important. It is not unheard of for officers to receive a call for a seemingly innocuous incident, and because of the nature of the call let down their guard, only to discover too late the call was a set-up for an ambush in which they are injured or killed.

  —Metropolitan Police Academy Recruit Instructional Aid, “Basic Investigative Incident Reports”

  The chief lesson learned at the academy was this: Anyone can kill you at any time.

  This topic wasn’t listed on the formal lesson plan, but it was implicit in the stories the instructors told and the videos the recruits obsessively watched both in class and during break time. Week after week, we watched footage of cops getting attacked, injured, or killed. The world, it seemed, was a dangerous place for police officers; they were perpetually being stabbed, shot, punched, kicked, run over, drowned, poisoned by fentanyl, and bitten by savage dogs.

  The instructors referred to these as “officer safety” videos. When we had breaks, or “got ahead of the curriculum” and had nothing else to do, which happened a lot, we huddled around iPads and laptops and watched more videos. Like kids bonding over their favorite YouTube clips, recruits sat around in the lunchroom and swapped suggestions of cops-in-trouble videos to watch.

  “Oh, shit, man, you gotta see this one—this one guy, in Oklahoma or someplace, he gets, like, electrocuted. He goes to help this girl when a tree falls on her car, and there’s, like, a downed power line, and he just gets . . . fried. Yeah, just google ‘cop electrocuted,’ it should come up. . . . That’s it! Yeah, that one. . . . Aw, fuck, look at that. . . . The guy had no fucking chance. Fuck.”

  There were, we learned, a thousand ways for cops to be hurt or killed. On our screens, unwitting police officers conducted traffic stops, only to be gunned down by meth-heads previously invisible behind illegally tinted rear windows. Officers rushed heedlessly toward disabled trucks and inhaled fatal levels of anhydrous ammonia. They stopped to assist stranded motorists and were struck by passing cars. They responded to domestic violence calls and were hit over the head by poker-wielding husbands. They were pushed off bridges by fleeing felons and drowned in raging river currents. They were overpowered by combative
suspects who grabbed their service weapons and shot them in the head. They were beaten to death by crazed PCP addicts who kept right on pummeling them despite being repeatedly Tasered. They were poisoned, strangled, and pushed off the roofs of tall buildings.

  The dead cops were all heroes. But, it was quietly intimated, they were also failures. Mostly, we were told, they died because they weren’t prepared.

  They let down their guard. They neglected to take appropriate tactical precautions. They decided their ballistic vest was hot and uncomfortable, so they left it home when they went on patrol, and suffered the consequences when they were shot six times in the chest! They sat in their cars, too busy scrolling through personal text messages on their phones to notice the deranged drug addict lurching toward them—until it was too late and he shot them in the head! They interviewed domestic violence suspects in their kitchens, forgetting that kitchens are full of weapons—until the suspect grabbed a butcher knife from a drawer and stabbed them in the heart! They told the meek-looking elderly driver to go ahead and retrieve his registration and insurance, figuring he was harmless—until he shot them in the neck with the gun he pulled from the glove compartment!

  “There’s no such thing as a routine call,” the instructors told us. Even the most seemingly quotidian and benign situations could turn lethal in an instant. You had to approach every situation “tactically,” which meant you had to always be thinking about the numerous ways in which you could be killed, and act in a manner calibrated to keep you from becoming a dead hero.

  “Your top priority is scene safety,” the instructors said.

  This meant, among other things:

  Maintain situational awareness at all times.

  Turn off your lights and sirens when you’re a few blocks away from your destination—don’t give the bad guys advance warning of your arrival.

  Don’t park directly in front of the address you’re going to. Park down the street or on the next block.

  Back into parking spaces so you can get out fast if you have to.

  Peer into windows before you ring the bell or knock on the door—and stand off to the side after you knock, so you’ll be out of the line of fire if someone comes out shooting or swinging.

  Make sure you know who’s supposed to be in the house or the apartment before you walk in, so you won’t be taken by surprise.

  Try to determine the locations of all the exits and entrances before you walk in.

  Never walk into an unknown situation with your notebook or flashlight in your strong hand—you need to be able to draw your weapon instantly if necessary.

  Always control the situation. Never let victims, witnesses, or suspects take control. You decide where they sit and stand and who you interview first.

  Always find out how many people are in the house and assess their threat level before you get pulled into a conversation or start a detailed interview.

  Don’t let suspects wander around opening doors and drawers and reaching into bags and pockets.

  Don’t interview potential suspects in the kitchen; kitchens contain too many potential weapons.

  Don’t let potential suspects sit on sofas or in soft chairs; weapons are easily concealed between and behind cushions.

  Don’t look at a potential suspect’s eyes. Always watch their hands instead. (“Their eyes can’t hurt you. Their hands will.”)

  Never let anyone stand behind you.

  Keep all potential threats more than twenty feet away from you. At twenty feet, a knife-wielding suspect could run at you and stab you faster than you could draw, aim, and fire your weapon.

  Never waltz right up to the driver’s window during a vehicle stop—you have no cover. Instead, stand just behind the driver, where you’re protected by the car’s B-pillar.

  Shine your patrol car’s spotlights directly into the mirrors of cars when you conduct nighttime traffic stops, so the occupants will have trouble seeing you against the glare. If the driver complains, too bad. You need to be the one controlling the situation.

  “A good day is a day you go home safe,” the instructors told us.

  Accordingly, Saturdays at the academy were devoted to physical training and defensive tactics. Our PT instructor was Sergeant Flanagan, a short, well-muscled Irishman in his fifties. I liked Flanagan, despite the fact that he immediately announced that we should come in each Saturday wearing white T-shirts with our surnames written in black marker on the back, rendering obsolete all the gray T-shirts we had previously been told to acquire.

  We lined up in the gym, facing him, all in our new white T-shirts.

  “Okay, the first thing you’re going to learn is how you stand. Set your feet about shoulder-width apart, with your dominant leg back a little bit. Your toes on your dominant foot should be pointing right toward me, but the toes on the other foot are going to be angled away from me by about forty-five degrees. Knees loose; don’t lock the knees. Now you’re going to clasp your hands in front of you, a little bit above waist level. No, Lowrey, what are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of rocket scientist? Don’t weave your fingers together like you’re doing ‘Here is the church, here is the steeple.’ Just keep your hands loose!

  “Okay, if you’re right-handed, keep your hands a little to the right of where your belt buckle would be if you were wearing a belt. If you’re left-handed, keep your hands a little to the left. If you don’t know if you’re right-handed or left-handed, I can’t help you.”

  Sergeant Flanagan looked us over. Several of us were having trouble getting our feet at the correct angles and placing our hands at the correct height, and he had to walk around and reposition us. Finally, he got us all to stand in more or less the same posture.

  “This is what we call the ‘interview stance.’ This is how you’re going to stand when you’re talking to someone. Okay. Why do we stand this way?”

  Wentz, who was somehow managing to maintain the interview stance while simultaneously creating the impression of a guy sitting with his feet propped up on a coffee table and a beer in his hand, was the only one to volunteer an answer.

  “Because this way you’re ready to do whatever you need to do. You’re in a stable position. If you’re facing someone and you’re flat-footed, they can push you over.” Wentz stifled a yawn.

  Flanagan gave him a hard look. “Right. What else?”

  “Um, since your dominant foot is at a bit of an angle, it’s easier to turn and run if you have to?” offered Lowrey.

  “No! No. Lowrey, you’re a cop. For Christ’s sake! You are not going to turn and run away.”

  Lowrey looked crestfallen.

  Wentz saved him by jumping in again. “This stance keeps your weapon angled away from the person you’re interviewing, so he can’t easily make a grab for it, and it keeps your strong hand near your weapon, so you can access it quickly if you need to.”

  “Yes!” Flanagan said. “The goal is to position yourself so you can adapt quickly if things go bad. This is also why you’re not going to lace your fingers together, Lowrey.”

  Lowrey carefully unlaced his fingers.

  “You don’t want your fingers all tangled up,” Flanagan explained. “You want to be ready to grab your tools if you have to, and you want your hands where you can move them up fast to protect your face if someone takes a swing at you. Okay. This is the interview stance. Everyone got that? Good. Now we’re going to learn the combat stance.

  “The dominant foot moves back. You’re going to lean forward, weight balanced on both feet, and you’re going to blade your body some more. When your body is bladed, you’re not such a nice, fat, juicy target for the bad guy in front of you. Right? And then, you’re going to bring your hands up to protect your face.

  “No, not your bel
ly button, Gregson, your face! Your head! Because your head is where you keep your brain, if you happen to have one.”

  Gregson’s ruddy face got redder, but he moved his hands up.

  “Your head is your computer, Gregson. You have to protect it from harm. Somebody tries to punch it, you want your arms up where you can block the punch, and hit back if you have to.

  “Got it? Okay, everyone get into the combat stance.”

  We all shuffled into position and raised our hands.

  “Now here’s what we’re going to say when we’re in the combat stance. We’re going say, ‘Back down!’ Come on. Say it!”

  There was a muted chorus of “Back down!” but no one put much enthusiasm into it. It felt silly to order the empty air in front of us to back down.

  “No! No!” Flanagan wasn’t happy.

  “You need to use your command voice here, people. Not ‘Please, sir, kindly back down, if you would.’ You’re a police officer! Say it like you mean it. ‘Back down!’”

  “Back down!” we shouted.

  “Better. Much better. Okay, let’s put it together now. We’re going to practice going from our interview stance to our combat stance, and every time we go into the combat stance, I want to hear you shout, ‘Back down!’ nice and loud and firm.