Handling Racism in Government Police Departments

HARBESON: What’s the problem?

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — Now that the Indiana Supreme Court has denied a request for appeal, the City of New Albany may finally have closure on the controversy surrounding the allegedly racist comments made by police officer Jack Messer. So like Barney Fife did when Andy took his single bullet away, I guess Messer will have to accept his 30-day suspension.

I don’t blame Messer at all for trying to get his suspension reversed based on his constitutional right to free speech. As a government employee, he has the ability to file such a suit. (Click here for a pdf of the Indiana Court of Appeals Opinion.) However, this would be a completely different story if he worked in the private voluntary market. As a matter of fact, it may not have even been a “story” at all.

If Messer was an employee of a private security firm, a situation like this would likely have been handled much differently. For example, if, after a “roll call” meeting of security officers, several employees gathered together and Messer made statements that seemed to be racist, it’s doubtful that a co-worker would run off to outside groups or the media.

If he was concerned enough to act, he would likely approach his employer. There’s no guarantee the private employer would do exactly what the complaining co-worker wants but an employer certainly has an incentive to do his best to handle the situation in a manner that will protect the business’ reputation.

Messer does not work for a private firm though. He works for an organization which claims monopoly control over a geographical area. In addition, Messer and his co-workers enforce not just the laws that follow natural logic and have real victims — they also enforce illogical and inconsistent laws that are determined by political whim and personal preference.

This creates an imbalance of power in relationship to other individuals who don’t have the shiny badges and since the “customers” do not voluntarily pay for the government enforcement, the potential for abuse and corruption exists.

Certainly everyone wants to believe that all police officers are consistently virtuous men and women, yet intellectually we know that’s impossible. We have to admit that this imbalance of power is just as likely, if not more so, to draw in people who are the exact opposite. So it makes sense to have policies that hold police officers to an extremely high standard of behavior and whether deserved or not, Messer got caught up in it.

It’s entirely possible that “getting caught up in it” is exactly what happened. Messer has claimed from the start that he was misunderstood and that his point, even if horribly verbalized as Messer himself admits, was really supposed to be about how government policies may have harmed black people more than they helped.

Who really knows if he’s just desperately backtracking, but there is no reason to think he meant otherwise. After all, during the entire time this issue has been in the news, no evidence has been brought forth to show that, in his 27 years of being an officer, he has ever mistreated a person of color while performing his job.

If Messer’s comments were questionable, the reaction by the local NAACP was questionable as well because back when this all started, representatives of this organization behaved as if they knew this man’s exact intent as well as his beliefs and, without even being present to hear the conversation in context, were somehow still able to judge him guilty of racist attitudes.

That’s just wrong. The NAACP representatives were doing the same thing — assuming ill intent without clear evidence — that they accuse police of doing when they pull people over for “driving while black.”

Messer says he would apologize to the person at the roll call who was apparently offended by his comments if he knew who it was. I do find it odd that this individual did not confront Messer directly at the time this all occurred. After all, the police are supposedly trained in conflict resolution so shouldn’t we expect that they would be capable of using their training to actually resolve their own personal conflicts?

Southern Indiana resident Debbie Harbeson never has a problem resolving conflicts with her husband. If you want to know how she does it, you can write to her at Debbie@debbieharbeson.com

Does fitness matter for police?

HARBESON: Is this a stronger union?

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — Note to readers: I’m about to discuss the Jeffersonville Police Union’s contract battle with the city concerning minimum physical standard requirements. I know I’m going to be tempted to mention doughnuts but I want to meet a higher standard for this job. That’s why I’ve imposed the following physical requirement: When I’m tempted to mention doughnuts, I’ll stop writing and run laps around my yard until the feeling goes away.

Why are Jeffersonville police officers so uptight about minimum physical standard requirements in their union contract? Prior to following this controversy, I thought that meeting physical standards on a periodic basis was just a logical part of a police officer’s job.

As I understand the main disagreement, the police union does not want failure to meet these minimum physical standards to be grounds for termination. They think this requirement is punitive and they apparently don’t believe punitive measures work well to motivate and direct human behavior, or at least police officer behavior. They obviously have no problem with punitive measures as an effective means of controlling and directing behavior for the rest of society.

At one point in the negotiations, it was agreed that police officers would not immediately be let go if they failed to meet the minimum physical requirements. Instead, union members would be given three chances to pass and meet the age-graded standards.

In other words, police officers were going to be held to a three strikes and you’re out standard and they didn’t like that at all.

So even though various changes have been proposed about meeting fitness standards, the union has remained firm in its position and it wants any physical standard requirement to be incentive-based. Union members would like a specific reward, such as a monetary bonus, for meeting the minimum standards.

But the purpose of incentives is to spur action and motivate someone to perform at a level significantly above and beyond minimum standards; not for maintaining the basic minimum for the job.

It seems so odd to me that the police union members would balk at demonstrating a minimum standard of physical ability. Where is the sense of pride in themselves and respect for the community that pays their salaries?

I know police officers don’t necessarily think this way because they are used to dealing with those who pay them from a monopoly-based standpoint. I can imagine how different this all might be if they actually had to persuade people to purchase their services in the voluntary market.

Think about it. Instead of being coerced to fund city police, what if you had the freedom to choose from a variety of protection services? (Assuming you wanted to hire one at all.)

Do you think minimum physical standards would be on your list of criteria to consider as you made your decision?

Even when we only consider activities where police officers actually assist peaceful citizens who may be in need, and ignore possible dealings with dangerous (and fit) criminals, it still seems wise to make sure that police maintain minimum physical condition. No one wants to see police officers become part of the story because they let themselves go so much that they were physically incapable of performing the job.

Rather than fighting minimum physical fitness standards as a contractual job requirement, what if the police officers had spent their time and energy for the past two years working to ensure that they and their fellow union members reached their minimum age-graded physical standards? Would any of them really need to worry about holding on to their jobs? If so, then I guess that’s all anyone needs to know.

Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson ran around her yard about 500 times while composing this column. Which means she now deserves a doughnut.