Reflections from a Patrol Car
I texted my mom from jail yesterday.
That wasn't a text I ever thought I'd have to send. Fortunately, mom didn't take it too hard. She asked me what she should have on hand for breakfast when I visit later this week, and I texted back that I was good with "The usual: cereal, eggs, yogurt." I didn't mention that I was standing in sally port 2 of the Marion County jail.
Fortunately, I was there as a guest of the Salem Police Department, and my stay would only last as long as it took to unload the prisoner, and complete the necessary paperwork, before leaving again. The Salem Police Department is made up of around 200 officers who are sworn to protect the community of Salem. Their ride-along program allows citizens to spend a half-shift or so observing their police officers in action, and it was this program that put me on the streets of south Salem yesterday -- and yes, eventually, in the county jail.
Officer G, as I'll call him, has been with the department for 9 years, joining after serving for 8 years in the military. Officer G went out of his way to be gracious and welcoming during the nearly 5 hours that I rode along in his patrol vehicle, shadowed him into volatile situations, and stood by as he helped book suspects into the jail.
What began as a simple noise complaint gave rise to nearly two hours of work -- investigation, detention, paperwork, and transport. The noise complaint was called in by the stereotypical "little old lady" who grew tired of the screaming coming from the neighbor's home. Officer G led the way past the gate towards the duplex where the screaming was coming from. While on his way, he passed an open window, and, upon peering inside, noticed an individual -- the source of the commotion. Standing a few feet back, I watched as the officer began recording what he was witnessing through the window: a 40-something-year-old person, using meth. After 30 seconds or so of recording this, he announced himself, and the screaming (loud then) ratcheted up, complete with throwing things, cursing, and aggression towards a roommate. Backup soon arrived, and the investigation began. Miranda rights were read, evidence collected, and an arrest made. Paperwork was completed, and the suspect was booked into the jail -- and each step along the way, the yelling, cursing, threatening did not abate.
I was told by officer G -- and this was confirmed by the jail staff -- that this individual was unusual; most suspects arrested and booked into jail are, to varying degrees, upset, and agitated, but it's not typical for them to be this worked up. (An hour or so after we had left the jail, we returned to book in another suspect, and sure enough, the the first suspect was yelling, loud as ever.)
Being a police officer demands a certain type of person. As we we returned to the station, following a welfare check on a 15 year old boy, Officer G remarked to me that he had to wear a lot of different hats. Social worker, drug counselor, and crimefighter, just to name a few. Adam Plantinga is a seargent with the San Francisco Police Department, and he has written 400 Things Police Officers Know. In an interview with David Helm, Plantinga puts it this way: “You need to be a psychologist, centurion, street lawyer, pilot, coach, marksman, and soothsayer. You have to hit like Hagler and tend to wounds like Florence Nightingale and be crafty like LBJ. ” Given these varied roles that might change from minute to minute, a police officer needs to have a certain flexibility -- acting to uphold and enforce the law when a drug addict is caught smoking meth, but recognizing the humanity in the same person, as he or she is struggling hard against mental illness, and the demons of their past.
Police work puts you up close and personal with the worst of humanity. Police Officers will describe for you the 10-90% rule. "We deal with 10% of the population about 90% of the time," Officer G explained to me. Sadly, that 10% represents the extreme brokenness of our society. It's the drug addicts who make their way, time and again through the revolving doors of prison, treatment, relapse, repeat. It's the parent who beats her 6-year-old child, time and again. It's the person, high on meth, who has barricaded himself in a motorhome, and then takes potshots at officers from inside, nearly killing them (all firsthand stories, relayed to me by Officer G).
How might a Christian worldview shape a police officer's approach to his or her work? How do we think theologically about police work? In his book Christ and Culture Revisited, (Reviewed by me, here) Don Carson reminds us that we need to hold together the whole narrative of scripture when we try to make sense of how faith & culture relate to one another. Under that umbrella, he makes the case that one of the major signposts in the biblical narrative is our understanding of the fall. It may go without saying, but police work requires, in theological language, a robust theology of sin.
Officer G shared a story in which he had recently detained a homeless man for shoplifting from a local grocery store. Angry at what she was witnessing, a college student who happened to be passing by went on an angry tirade against the officer for harassing what she determined to be a poor, innocent homeless person. The long arm of the law, in her view, was an oppressive force, abusing the underprivileged in the community. A theology of sin would flesh out for us how victims of crime often become perpetrators; how addictions (whether to substances, or to more abstract things, such as power, sex, money) can lead us to commit serious crimes; how our own deeply-rooted biases and prejudices tint our behavior in ways we may not immediately recognize; and how evil isn't just personal, but systemic. Plantinga puts it this way:"You often encounter people at their hopeless worst in toxic social conditions. You see victims of violent crime who are criminals themselves (gang members, drug dealers) and who are, to a certain degree, culpable in their own fate. You become accustomed to battered spouses returning time and time again to their abusers, and addicts ending up in the ER time and time again for overdoses." Anything less than an honest assessment of human brokenness simply will not do.
Coupled with that, of course, is a strong theology of both creation and redemption. The woman in the back of Officer G's police cruiser, the alcoholic with more than a half a dozen warrants out for his arrest, and the myriad of other characters that an officer may encounter on a given shift, are not just "criminals." They aren't just "suspects" or "addicts" or "ex-cons." They are, first and foremost, image-bearers of God. It left a positive impression on me the way that Officer G knew the names of the people he interacted with. He had seen them -- and known them -- at their worst. But they aren't statistics or numbers. They were people to him. People with stories, and backgrounds. "When are you gonna stop drinkin'?" he asked one person. "It's gonna kill ya!"
Of course, all of the exposure to the brokenness of the world can do a number on even the most compassionate officer. Plantinga puts it this way: "All of this has a tendency to make you skeptical and disillusioned—to distort your worldview. It’s part of what’s known as compassion fatigue, the main symptom being a vague sense of loathing for human frailty." Arresting, re-arresting, and re-re-arresting a person, or watching a battered wife return time and again to her abusive husband has, I imagine, a way of filing down your soul. "I lay awake at night sometimes, thinking about a kid, or what I might have done differently," said Officer G. And it struck me that, to an extent, that's the nature of redemption. To bring some amount of healing into the world requires that the healer himself become wounded. You begin to bear the scars of the wounded, and the perpetrators. You carry the hurt of those who have been affected by the sin of this world. Officers have to take early retirement, owing to injuries sustained on the job. Your family lives with the uncertainty that their loved one may not come home; as I was going on the ride-along, a received an alert on my phone that a police officer in New York City had been shot in cold blood while sitting in her patrol car. The threat is real.
The work of a police officer, is perhaps not unlike the work given originally to Adam: Guard the world from the presence of evil. Now, post-fall, that work is all the more real, all the more complicated, and all the more soul-numbing. The men and women in blue stand guard in a world rife with evil, and do their best to stem the tide of sin. But in a post-fall world, that job is much more difficult, and much more costly. It is a task that will demand that some of that curse be shared by the officers themselves.
And perhaps that is a window into the need for hope. Hope says that the world as it is now will not always be this way. It will be a world in which the tide of evil is forever stemmed, and in which righteousness will reign for eternity. That means, of course, that there won't be much need for cops in the world that the bible describes as heaven. I'm guessing most of them, as much as they love their jobs (and they do!), won't mind. This hope can, I think, sustain police officers through their darkest moments.
Thank you, police officers, for the work you do to keep us safe. Thank you for the work you do to guard this world from the presence and the power of evil. And thank you for the compassion you exercise as you do it.
That wasn't a text I ever thought I'd have to send. Fortunately, mom didn't take it too hard. She asked me what she should have on hand for breakfast when I visit later this week, and I texted back that I was good with "The usual: cereal, eggs, yogurt." I didn't mention that I was standing in sally port 2 of the Marion County jail.
Fortunately, I was there as a guest of the Salem Police Department, and my stay would only last as long as it took to unload the prisoner, and complete the necessary paperwork, before leaving again. The Salem Police Department is made up of around 200 officers who are sworn to protect the community of Salem. Their ride-along program allows citizens to spend a half-shift or so observing their police officers in action, and it was this program that put me on the streets of south Salem yesterday -- and yes, eventually, in the county jail.Officer G, as I'll call him, has been with the department for 9 years, joining after serving for 8 years in the military. Officer G went out of his way to be gracious and welcoming during the nearly 5 hours that I rode along in his patrol vehicle, shadowed him into volatile situations, and stood by as he helped book suspects into the jail.
What began as a simple noise complaint gave rise to nearly two hours of work -- investigation, detention, paperwork, and transport. The noise complaint was called in by the stereotypical "little old lady" who grew tired of the screaming coming from the neighbor's home. Officer G led the way past the gate towards the duplex where the screaming was coming from. While on his way, he passed an open window, and, upon peering inside, noticed an individual -- the source of the commotion. Standing a few feet back, I watched as the officer began recording what he was witnessing through the window: a 40-something-year-old person, using meth. After 30 seconds or so of recording this, he announced himself, and the screaming (loud then) ratcheted up, complete with throwing things, cursing, and aggression towards a roommate. Backup soon arrived, and the investigation began. Miranda rights were read, evidence collected, and an arrest made. Paperwork was completed, and the suspect was booked into the jail -- and each step along the way, the yelling, cursing, threatening did not abate.
I was told by officer G -- and this was confirmed by the jail staff -- that this individual was unusual; most suspects arrested and booked into jail are, to varying degrees, upset, and agitated, but it's not typical for them to be this worked up. (An hour or so after we had left the jail, we returned to book in another suspect, and sure enough, the the first suspect was yelling, loud as ever.)
Being a police officer demands a certain type of person. As we we returned to the station, following a welfare check on a 15 year old boy, Officer G remarked to me that he had to wear a lot of different hats. Social worker, drug counselor, and crimefighter, just to name a few. Adam Plantinga is a seargent with the San Francisco Police Department, and he has written 400 Things Police Officers Know. In an interview with David Helm, Plantinga puts it this way: “You need to be a psychologist, centurion, street lawyer, pilot, coach, marksman, and soothsayer. You have to hit like Hagler and tend to wounds like Florence Nightingale and be crafty like LBJ. ” Given these varied roles that might change from minute to minute, a police officer needs to have a certain flexibility -- acting to uphold and enforce the law when a drug addict is caught smoking meth, but recognizing the humanity in the same person, as he or she is struggling hard against mental illness, and the demons of their past.Police work puts you up close and personal with the worst of humanity. Police Officers will describe for you the 10-90% rule. "We deal with 10% of the population about 90% of the time," Officer G explained to me. Sadly, that 10% represents the extreme brokenness of our society. It's the drug addicts who make their way, time and again through the revolving doors of prison, treatment, relapse, repeat. It's the parent who beats her 6-year-old child, time and again. It's the person, high on meth, who has barricaded himself in a motorhome, and then takes potshots at officers from inside, nearly killing them (all firsthand stories, relayed to me by Officer G).
How might a Christian worldview shape a police officer's approach to his or her work? How do we think theologically about police work? In his book Christ and Culture Revisited, (Reviewed by me, here) Don Carson reminds us that we need to hold together the whole narrative of scripture when we try to make sense of how faith & culture relate to one another. Under that umbrella, he makes the case that one of the major signposts in the biblical narrative is our understanding of the fall. It may go without saying, but police work requires, in theological language, a robust theology of sin.
Officer G shared a story in which he had recently detained a homeless man for shoplifting from a local grocery store. Angry at what she was witnessing, a college student who happened to be passing by went on an angry tirade against the officer for harassing what she determined to be a poor, innocent homeless person. The long arm of the law, in her view, was an oppressive force, abusing the underprivileged in the community. A theology of sin would flesh out for us how victims of crime often become perpetrators; how addictions (whether to substances, or to more abstract things, such as power, sex, money) can lead us to commit serious crimes; how our own deeply-rooted biases and prejudices tint our behavior in ways we may not immediately recognize; and how evil isn't just personal, but systemic. Plantinga puts it this way:"You often encounter people at their hopeless worst in toxic social conditions. You see victims of violent crime who are criminals themselves (gang members, drug dealers) and who are, to a certain degree, culpable in their own fate. You become accustomed to battered spouses returning time and time again to their abusers, and addicts ending up in the ER time and time again for overdoses." Anything less than an honest assessment of human brokenness simply will not do.
Coupled with that, of course, is a strong theology of both creation and redemption. The woman in the back of Officer G's police cruiser, the alcoholic with more than a half a dozen warrants out for his arrest, and the myriad of other characters that an officer may encounter on a given shift, are not just "criminals." They aren't just "suspects" or "addicts" or "ex-cons." They are, first and foremost, image-bearers of God. It left a positive impression on me the way that Officer G knew the names of the people he interacted with. He had seen them -- and known them -- at their worst. But they aren't statistics or numbers. They were people to him. People with stories, and backgrounds. "When are you gonna stop drinkin'?" he asked one person. "It's gonna kill ya!"
Of course, all of the exposure to the brokenness of the world can do a number on even the most compassionate officer. Plantinga puts it this way: "All of this has a tendency to make you skeptical and disillusioned—to distort your worldview. It’s part of what’s known as compassion fatigue, the main symptom being a vague sense of loathing for human frailty." Arresting, re-arresting, and re-re-arresting a person, or watching a battered wife return time and again to her abusive husband has, I imagine, a way of filing down your soul. "I lay awake at night sometimes, thinking about a kid, or what I might have done differently," said Officer G. And it struck me that, to an extent, that's the nature of redemption. To bring some amount of healing into the world requires that the healer himself become wounded. You begin to bear the scars of the wounded, and the perpetrators. You carry the hurt of those who have been affected by the sin of this world. Officers have to take early retirement, owing to injuries sustained on the job. Your family lives with the uncertainty that their loved one may not come home; as I was going on the ride-along, a received an alert on my phone that a police officer in New York City had been shot in cold blood while sitting in her patrol car. The threat is real.
The work of a police officer, is perhaps not unlike the work given originally to Adam: Guard the world from the presence of evil. Now, post-fall, that work is all the more real, all the more complicated, and all the more soul-numbing. The men and women in blue stand guard in a world rife with evil, and do their best to stem the tide of sin. But in a post-fall world, that job is much more difficult, and much more costly. It is a task that will demand that some of that curse be shared by the officers themselves.
And perhaps that is a window into the need for hope. Hope says that the world as it is now will not always be this way. It will be a world in which the tide of evil is forever stemmed, and in which righteousness will reign for eternity. That means, of course, that there won't be much need for cops in the world that the bible describes as heaven. I'm guessing most of them, as much as they love their jobs (and they do!), won't mind. This hope can, I think, sustain police officers through their darkest moments.
Thank you, police officers, for the work you do to keep us safe. Thank you for the work you do to guard this world from the presence and the power of evil. And thank you for the compassion you exercise as you do it.
Good article Rob. Compassion fatigue is very real. Without a Godly perspective of humanity, the fall and EVERYONE'S need for redemption, it can be tough to do that type of job.
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