March 28, 2003
Protests, Policing, and Politics
Below is a nice long excerpt from this other story in today's Tribune, about policing the protests. I've emphasized the portion to which I want to return.
Police spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz said the city and the police have no agenda other than to enforce the law.
"Our community in general has a very high tolerance for free speech," Schmautz said. "Where the public draws the line is with the illegal activity. If they want to say their words, we let people do it," he said. "But when they disrupt people's right to maneuver about town, then we have an issue.
"I don’t think the number of people we arrest has anything to do with whether we've done our job successfully,” Schmautz said.
Some accused the police of too much restraint, others say the police have responded heavy-handedly.
"Since last Thursday the police have been way too aggressive, and I’m not sure what’s driving it," said Dan Handelman of Peace and Justice Works, a local citizens organization that includes the police watchdog group Copwatch. "I saw people getting thrown to the ground for merely stepping off the sidewalk. It seems like an overreaction."
Schmautz said politics are not part of the equation for the police, but he acknowledged that passions are high on all sides.
"If you think President Bush is doing the right thing, you're angry with the protesters. If you think Bush is wrong, you can't believe cops are trying to stop these people from trying to stop the war. It all comes down to how you feel about this war," he said.
"It’s hard to be the people who have to figure out where the line is," he said, referring to police working the protests. "You can’t control what's going on in Iraq, but you can control your streets. Every protest is a learning experience. We’re doing the best we can."
That's a dangerous line of thought, this idea that policing is somehow above and beyond politics. My opposition to the war doesn't negate my capacity to judge police actions on their own merits. To suggest that one's view of policing is determined entirely by one's political leanings on this or that issue is to suggest that policing decisions are somehow purer than other considerations. Or rather, it's to suggest that, since your views of policing are tainted by your politics, you just have to let the police do what they want, since you are incapable of rendering an impartial judgement.
This is, unquestionably, bunk.
There does seem to be a clear tactic of intimidation at work now. Last night in SE Portland, a march beginning on Belmont was tailed or observed by (at least by all account so far on Portland Indymedia) more police officers than protestors -- including bicycle cops, motorcycle cops, squad cars, and riot cops on a truck. All such an approach does is throw such a show of alienating police presence into a neighborhood that residents might become, well, irked. And when they get irked, the hope is that they won't call the PPB and complain about the overbearing police presence, but complain about the protestors who made such a presence "necessary."
They needed this kind of force on SE Belmont and SE Hawthorne last night just to arrest a single protestor, and a Unitarian minister, no less? Somehow, I don't think so. But sending out that much needless force certainly helps them buttress their argument that protests cost the City too much money.