Fewer Barney Fifes, Please

In last Sunday's Gainesville Sun, a local public high school student (at Buchholz High) wrote a letter protesting the Alachua County Sheriff's Department's recent actions at his school. According to him, police were ticketing students for seat belt violations ($104) as they were leaving the school parking lot at the end of the school day. As many as twenty students (including the miffed letter writer) received these tickets. And he mused: if this was supposed to educate the violators concerning seat belt laws, why couldn't simple warnings have been issued?

As I see it, what was educated is that the police prey upon ordinary citizens in order to increase revenue and "enhance" their own work records by showing a larger number of citations having been issued. Assuming that the writer had his facts straight, I feel that this only confirms what I have been saying all along: the police unwittingly project an image by actions, true or false, of themselves as public bullies, not public servants. They have Taser stun guns and loaded firearms at their disposal. They have the power to issue costly citations and to send people to jail at will, and their testimony is rarely ever refuted in court. In fact, often it takes contradicting video evidence to overturn their testimony. And even then THAT sometimes doesn't work (remember Rodney King's recorded beating in Los Angeles many years ago?).

At the exits of both my subdivision and my workplace, I have observed police cars parked in inconspicuous places that enable them to observe drivers coming in and out. It is patently clear that they are profiling residents and workers respectively to "catch" anyone not coming to complete stops at the stop signs in these two places. In doing this, they are, like the example at Buchholz High, profiling a specific group of citizens for scrutiny.

I wrote a couple of days ago how police should be patrolling streets more and playing "gotcha" less with the public that they are mandated to protect, not persecute. I keep thinking of the old image of the big city cop walking up and down the street on his beat, making himself visible both to law-abiders and potential criminals alike and available to assist anyone in need. What kind of image do you suppose that cop what have created had he instead hid behind a bush, jumping out whenever he caught someone jaywalking or littering? I imagine we all know the answer to that one! The image would have been tarnished, just as it being tarnished today by petty, bullying behavior. We need fewer Barney Fifes and more Andy Taylors!