The Jade Badge of Courage

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It comes as no surprise, I'm sure, to learn that police, investigators, and emergency personnel all routinely encounter a sort of darkness that most of get through our day just fine without.  It's the kind of darkness that people wear close to their skin or wrap around their heart, that never sees the light of day.  Police, investigators, and emergency personnel don't work in the light of day.  (Metaphorically.)

You can reign in your crazy fantasies here, too.  I'm not even talking about serial killers and shotgun murderers, child rapists, or people with the kind of secret sexual lifestyle that inspires television crime drama.  That stuff is there, and it's plenty dark.  It can also be a bit of distraction.  There's plenty of other darkness.  There's the man who knows his smoking is killing him, and just sort of hopes every trip to the emergency room might be his last one.  There's the lady whose Alzheimer's is so advanced that she can't stop shoplifting and only giggles like a two year-old when she's caught.  There's the guy who always wondered what it would be like to smoke marijuana and happened to smoke some pretty foul grass on a foggy, icy night when he was already tired, and no one knows if it helped him into the lake or not; they just know he ended up in the lake.  There's the girl who is so bored and discontent with her life that she wanders through the park, daydreaming with her eyes closed, not paying attention to where she's walking or who else is around her.  That's all darkness, too.

What makes makes darkness a challenge for people like police, investigators, and emergency personnel is that there is in, in the end, nothing they can do about it.  Whatever they do, it's too late to stop the something from happening.  Perhaps they can stop it from happening again, but they are are the mop up crew for society's spiritual and moral waste water.  Once it's spilled, you can clean it up, but that doesn't undo the spill, not really.

Not only that, but normal human coping mechanisms are not options for these folks.  Laws, codes of conduct, oaths of service... These things bind such personnel.  The darkness they encounter, they cannot talk about.  They can't go fishing with a buddy and talk about it, even if someone wanted to hear it, even if someone could stand to hear it.

So what do they do?

They drink, a lot.

They tell cynical, tasteless jokes.  A lot.

Sometimes they stretch the boundaries of their oaths, and they talk to one another.  Sometimes they violate their codes, and they just go ahead and talk to their wives or their friends.  Sometimes they find a counselor who is qualified, willing, and distanced enough to sit back and listen and is bound by an oath of her own.

That's probably the healthiest option, but it's not always as easy as it sounds to find such a person, let alone to feel the kind of trust necessary to expose them to the private darkness the cop is carrying around.

Most often, cops wear the darkness like a sheath over the badge.  It's a sign of toughness.  It's a sign of pride.  It's a sign of shared, gasping futility.  It's a way of saying, "I take this crap into my head so that you never have to, and nothing you can ever do will thank me enough for that."

We've been talking recently in my anthropology class about cognition and perception, about meaning and expression.  The world that you know is shaped by meanings that you have internalized.  Those meanings develop (in part) as the world passes through your perception (seeing it) and then your conception (organizing it, making sense of it).  It's one thing to know that the darkness is out there.  It changes your whole world when you come face to face with the darkness.  It breaks your world when you have no way to organize and make sense of it.

.Nevets.

Cops and Robbers

"Cops and Robbers"

Original Flash Fiction by C. N. Nevets, (c) 2012

                “It was supposed to be cops and robbers.”  Tommy slurped at his coffee mug and looked out at the attentive, interested faces of nineteen year-olds clustered around the college coffee shop, staring at him at the table where he sat.  Officer Thomas “Tommy” “T. J.” Jansen, a.k.a., “the Hook,” was nobody special, but he was still the one addressing this class of mostly criminal justice majors.  Check that.  Officer Jansen was nobody special, and so he was the one who couldn’t say no to the request for someone from the department to come down and address this class of mostly criminal justice majors.

                “It was supposed to be cops and robbers,” Tommy repeated, following it up with another slurp.  The Hook was 37 years old.  He looked like he was 47.  He felt like he was 57½.  He’d been married for 15 years.  He’d been divorced for 6.  Another 9 to go before he’d be caught up with his own bad luck.  She’d married a cop.  She’d wanted a police man.

                “It was supposed to be cops and robbers,” Tommy said again.  The words were echoed by another slurp.  It was a coffee mug.  It wasn’t coffee he was slurping.  He wasn’t sure what it was.  Probably whiskey.  Maybe bourbon.  He hadn’t looked at the label.  He wasn’t really tasting it.

                Tommy “T. J.” Jansen saw the restless, awkward looks shared by the college students.  He saw a similar expression on the face of their professor.  Dr. Somebody Something, Ph. Something.  He realized they wanted him to say more.  In Tommy’s estimation, there really wasn’t more to say.  “It was supposed to be cops and robbers,” he said again.  He did not slurp this time.  “That’s what I thought.  That’s what I want on my tombstone.  That’s why I became a cop.”  He was staring into his mug.  Bourbon, almost definitely.  “A cop.  Cops and robbers.”   He snickered at himself.  “Cops and robbers.”  This time, he slurped.

                Tommy looked up.  He made eye contact with a guy in the back.  He was tall, tan, athletic.  He probably wanted to go into the FBI and be an “agent.”  Then he made eye contact with a girl in the front.  She was sweet-faced and bright.  She probably wanted to wear a suit and be an “investigator.”   They would both be cops, or they would be nothing.

                “It was supposed to be cops and robbers.”  He took a gulp.  Tommy felt himself finally finding a groove. He latched onto it, even though he couldn’t see the twists and turns of the dark corridor he was sliding down.  “Maybe for some people that’s some kind of moral issue.  Good versus evil or something.  Maybe for some people it’s about teams.  It’s us versus them.  Maybe, I don’t know, maybe for some people it’s about service to the community or some crap like that.  The people who care about the community against the people who don’t.  For me it wasn’t that complicated.”  Slurp.  “I never went to college like you assholes.”  Definitely bourbon.  “For me, cops and robbers was about doing.  It was about seeing and responding.  I’m a cop.  A see a robber.  I respond.  I act.  I do some damn thing rather than philosophize or religiousize about it.”

                Tommy “the Hook” finished off what was in his mug.  It might have been scotch.  “It was supposed to be cops and robbers, but it wasn’t.  It isn’t.  It’s not about to be.”  He looked at the guy in the back.  He looked at the girl in the front.  He looked at Dr. Somebody Something.  He had their attention.  Maybe their pity.  Probably not their confidence.  But he had their attention.   He glanced at his watch.  Yep.  Twenty years in.  Probably didn’t matter what he said at this point.

                “Its cops trying to figure out what the hell they’re supposed to do, every damn time they see something.”  Tommy’s right hand rested on his sidearm.  “There’s a lot of nonsense out there.  Just nonsense, you know?  People doing horrible things to other people for stupid ass reasons.  We make laws against that kind of shit, right?  We hire cops to make sure people follow those laws, right?”

                Under the table, Tommy caressed the butt of his weapon.  Its bulk was smooth.  He could feel the power inside the masculine grace with which it was formed.  He sniffed.  “So you got these guys beating the crap out of their wives.  The law says the women have one basic choice.  If they can get the hell out of there, that’s what they have to do.  When you can flee, you flee.   If they don’t flee.  If they fight back and defend themselves, they better damn well be able to prove they were in immediate peril  and had no option to flee.  The burden of proof is on them.  On these women with the shit beat out of them.  These women who did nothing more wrong than getting trapped by an asshole with a fist, or a belt, or golf club that he can’t stop swinging.”

                Tommy Jansen looked out at the students.  He definitely had their interest now.  They weren’t comfortable, but they were interested.  He glanced at his watch.  “It was supposed to be cops and robbers, right?  So who’s the robber?  The wife who shoots the guy who’s beating the shit of her, or the guy who makes her wipe her own bloody face before he’ll let her go out in public?”  Tommy looked at the professor.  She was interested, too.  “Morals say one thing.  The law says another.”

                To hell with it.  Tommy  reached between the third and fourth button on his uniform shirt.  He slid his hand inside and slipped out a silver flask.  He unscrewed the top.  He poured some into his mug.  He smiled.  “So we change the law,” he said.  “We make it more moral.  We say, okay, this is shit.  That woman had a right to feel threatened even if she didn’t know for sure he was about to kill her.  That woman had a right to stand up for herself.  We can’t demand that she gives in and runs away and hides or else stands there and lets herself be a punching bag.  She can defend herself.  Feeling threatened, we say, is as much a justification as being threatened – and we should never demand people run away.”

                The students were nodding.  The guy in back had his jaw set with a smug, John Wayne sort of satisfaction in the power of the American male to make wrongs right.  The girl in front was positively beaming with something close to a romantic attraction to the ideal of ordinary people changing the world for the better.   They didn’t know anything.  It’s not cops and robbers.  It’s cops, trying to figure out what the crap to do. 

                “So the burden of proof’s not on the woman anymore.”  Tommy felt his own jaw set.  It wasn’t smugness.  “She says she felt threatened, the only way she gets in trouble is if the cops prove she had no reasonable right to feel threatened.  The burden of proof is on them now.”  Tommy felt the tension in his jaw.  There was power there.  Maybe once there had been masculine grace.  Now there was just stubble and power.  “And it don’t matter if the guy had a gun or a weapon or anything else.  If she felt – felt, I tell you – threatened, we can’t say, ‘you could have just walked away.’  All those women with the shit beat out of them, they can now stand up for themselves.”

                One student clapped.  Tommy couldn’t bring himself to look around and see who it was.  He felt the vibe from the group.  He could tell that some of them were uncomfortable.  He could tell that they all thought it was good, even if they were maybe uncomfortable with how a woman could potentially abuse that privilege.  They didn’t know anything. 

                Slurp.  “Only, when you write a law you can’t write a law that says, ‘women who get beat up can stand up for themselves.’  That’s too specific.  It leaves out abused men.  It leaves out psychological torture.  Whatever.  So you say, ‘people who feel threatened can stand up for themselves and don’t need to run away.’”  Slurp.   “Cool beans, right?”

                There were nods out there.  He didn’t look for them, but he knew they were there.  Tommy’s hand was back on his side arm.  His jaw was practically locked, even as he talked.  “Only now I got some white guy who shoots a black kid and says he felt threatened.”  Gulp.  “I got some white guy who gets scared when he walks around his neighborhood and he sees black kids wandering outside their own neighborhood and into his.  Maybe his dad’s store was robbed by some black kids.  Maybe his mom was harassed by a black guy.  Maybe he got beat up once by a couple of black dudes.  Maybe he just listens to too much rap music and watches too much shit TV and thinks all black teenagers are gangsters.  Point is, he feels threatened.”  Slurp.  Slurp.  “People who feel threatened can stand up for themselves and don’t need to run away.”

                Now the college kids were confused.  They looked to their professor, but she wasn’t  offering them much help.  None of them really wanted to look at Tommy anymore.  His fingers wrapped around the butt of his weapon.  “It was supposed to be cops and robbers.  Instead, it’s cops trying to figure out the hell to do.   I’ve got a white guy who shot an unarmed black teenager, saying he felt threatened.  I’ve got a family who lost their boy, saying there’s no way he was a threat.  I’ve got civil justice people saying there’s no way it was self defense.  I’ve got black people saying I’d make an arrest if the kid were white.  I’ve got black people saying I wouldn’t bother with an arrest if the kid was white and the shooter was black.  I’ve got white people saying that the case is only still open because we’re being pushed around by black activists.  I’ve got neighborhood watch people saying that if the cops protected people then people wouldn’t have to make these tough calls.  I’ve got a kid who was doing nobody no harm and is dead.  I’ve got a guy who shot him, saying he felt threatened.  And it’s up to me to prove he didn’t feel threatened, because I can’t say, ‘you could have just walked away, asshole.’”

                Slurp.  Gulp.  “I’ve got women’s rights people saying that this distorts their law.  I’ve got women’s rights people saying that anything we do mitigate the law for this guy waters it down too much.  I’ve got people on the internet who think the cops aren’t doing their jobs.  I’ve got cops busting their asses, looking for evidence that isn’t there, to try and make an arrest that will stand up in court so we don’t lose any chance we have at getting justice.”

                Officer Thomas Jansen downed the last of whatever he’d poured from his flask and stood, his right hand still on his sidearm.  “So that’s what I want on my tombstone.  ‘It was supposed to be cops and robbers.’”

                Tommy, “the Hook,” walked out of the college coffee shop and slid into the driver’s seat of his city car.  He cupped a hand around mouth and blew.  He could smell the drink on his breath.  It was brandy.  He blew again.  The last thing he needed was another DUI in uniform.  He unhooked  the strap that held his sidearm in place.

                He glanced at his watch.

                Yep.

                He’d said his piece.

                He closed his eyes, and he hoped that they remembered what he wanted written on his tombstone.

Jurisdiction 101 For Crime Writers

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You see a lot of cops on TV arguing about jurisdiction.  Generally speaking, the set-up is that whatever group of cops the show is following is being squeezed out by someone else, claiming jurisdiction.  The whole thing comes across as petty and political, and while's probably some truth to that, there are a few things I've learned about jurisdiction over the years, from my worth in the lab, in the field, and  on the ambulance.   If you're a crime writer, or just an interested reader, maybe some of these notes will be interesting or helpful:

• Any service that's provided by multiple agencies is going to have jurisdictional issues.  Jurisdiction is simply how those agencies define the boundaries of who provides that service in what geographical location, at what level of need, in what context of government, etc.

• More often than not, multiple agencies with overlapping or unclear jurisdiction in a certain situation will actually cooperate and work together.  There's not always bickering between them.

• The most common tie-breaker when agencies have competing claims is, "who got there first?"  The other common one is, "who was actually dispatched to the scene first?"

• Sometimes there are good, but not obvious, reasons to be concerned about jurisdiction.  In a volatile situation, an agency with a bad reputation in the area might be better off deferring to a more popular agencies in order to manage the public.

• Sometimes jurisdiction changes as a case or situation develops.  For instance, the DNR might handle the initial scene management if skeletal remains are found on park land.  A local law enforcement agency will probably be brought in for crowd control.  A county or state agency will be contacted to coordinate with the coroner.  If the crime itself crosses state lines, the FBI might need to take over, as the county or state agency would have no authority in another state.  (On the ambulance side, a basic life support unit may call for advanced life support when they determine that the patient needs breathing treatment, and ALS might then call for a helicopter if they determine the patient needs to be flown to a specialty trauma center.)

• Complexity of mobilization increases with scale and scope.  It's always least complex for the most local agency to respond.  Once a higher-level agency has gotten everything together and arrived on scene, it is understandable that they might be reluctant to withdraw.  It was harder (and probably riskier) for them to get there in the first place.

• Typically, units are dispatched to a scene.  If an agency has been told by another authority to go to a scene, they often don't have the freedom to just back off.   They might require the permission of the dispatching authority, or they might be required to stay on-scene or on the case by their operating protocols or even laws. 

Just as you see on TV, jurisdictional disputes can be heated, but it's important for crime writers to not oversimplify the situation.  Even when it's petty and personal, it's not as simple as people grabbing for power in most cases.

For instance, our EMS system in the county where I live and volunteer is distributed.  There are two advanced life support units out of the main hospital, and then volunteer basic life support units in most of the towns.  Because the local units are volunteer, they don't always have the people to be in service.  Other local units cover their territory when this happens. 

So, even though our town is small, we get a fair number of runs because we cover part of the countryside and  also cover for other towns which are either smaller or else just have a smaller volunteer base.  There's a very small town near us.  Most nights, they don't have an ambulance in service.  That means they dispatch our ambulance when there is an emergency.

When our pagers go off, we have four minutes to make it to the station and be rolling.  Most of all calls are 911 responses and that means as soon as we're going, it's lights and sirens and high speeds.  This is very dangerous, particularly when it's 3am and we were just woken out of our sleep.

So then, as we get close to the town, pretty often, all of a sudden, that town's local ambulance comes on the radio, says they're going in-service and are arriving on-scene.  Our presence is no longer required or desired.

This is jurisdictional dispute.  They were there first.  It's their territory.  But they were out of service, so we were dispatched and then took the risks involved in responding.  Ultimately, if the patient is cared for, that's what's important.  We know it's petty, but we do feel put out, and it's not some sort of power-grab.

This sort of thing happens all the time on the police side, as well.  So be kind to jurisdiction, dear crime writer friends. 

.Nevets.