We often assume that if two people experience the same institution differently, one of them must be wrong. Policing offers a harder possibility: Sometimes both are telling the truth.
COMMENTARY | BRANDON L. BURLEY
I recently spoke at a narcotics recovery meeting.
I went into that room as a retired detective.
Many of the people there had experienced law enforcement from a very different side of the badge.
As we talked, several shared bad experiences they had previously had with police. Some of those experiences had clearly shaped how they viewed law enforcement.
I did not go there to convince them they were wrong.
I did not ask them to like police.
They did not ask me to dislike police.
I talked about the human side of the profession. I listened to the human side of their experiences. More importantly, we talked about recovery, second chances and the fact that their lives still matter.
Nobody had to surrender their history for that conversation to happen.
I left still believing deeply in good law enforcement.
They were free to leave still believing that some of their encounters with law enforcement had been wrong.
Those things could exist in the same room.
That experience reminded me of a problem much larger than policing.
We have become very good at asking people which side they are on.
We have become less comfortable asking what happened to them.
The same blue lights
A police cruiser pulls onto a residential street.
One person looks through the window and feels relieved.
Someone called.
Help arrived.
A few houses away, another person sees the same blue lights and feels their stomach tighten.
Same car.
Same uniform.
Same department.
Different history.
Our political culture often insists that one of those reactions must be wrong.
I am not convinced that is true.
The better question may be:
What happened to you that made you see it that way?
The person who sees safety is not naïve
Imagine someone whose experiences with law enforcement have mostly been positive.
Their home was burglarized, and an officer came.
Their teenager crashed a car, and a deputy stayed until help arrived.
Their elderly parent wandered away, and police helped find them.
