Public Support for Police Oppression

Let me say this first:

I like having police. 

I don't always like how individual officers conduct themselves.

And I don't always like police policies. 

However, I like being able to call the police when I hear gunshots outside my home, so that I can take shelter inside and let a trained officer investigate.  

The excellence of our police force in the U.S. is probably a major reason why we have front yards with decorative white picket fences, while homes in Brazil have fortifications like high concrete walls topped by electric fencing, like Jurassic Park.

However: this weekend, after a tough semester of record low temperatures, students at the University of Tennessee took to the balmy springtime night for a party in Fort Sanders that ultimately grew to over 800 students.  

Fort sanders is one of the most densley populated areas of Knoxville.  It used to be a "tony suburb," the West Knoxville of the late 1800s.  Mansions and greek revival palaces dotted the rolling hills once defended by Federal Troops.

Where the Army of the Ohio waged once resisted Confederate assault to bloody consequence, a history subsequently over-run by Knoxville's well-to-do, college students now occupy a range of structures often promoted for the to "walk to class, skip to the strip" (the strip being a popular area for after hours imbibement, and separating the majority of University of Tennessee's campus from the predominantly residential area of Fort Sanders). The University's "The Fort" bus line and the "T-Link" late night service ferry students from studying late at night back to their homes.  

Local developers are keen to exploit this demographic, apparently flush with cash.  Many of the older Victorian age mansions have been mercilously hacked into apartment units; concrete parking lots smother what were once the green lawns of proud home owners.  While many properties retain the historic charm that merits the area a national historic district,  some have earned reputations as "slums," essentially cash cows for unscrupulous landlords with little to no concern for student welfare. 

With the dense student population, crime is a recurring theme in Fort Sanders, with incidents ranging from sexual assault to shootings with disturbing frequency. Due to the proximity to The University of Tennessee (in fact several buildings are wholly within "The Fort," the area is actually within the jurisdiction of both the Knoxville Police Department and the University of Tennessee Police Department.  Crime data for both agencies shows Fort Sanders has a higher-than-average rate of crime, compared to surrounding neighborhoods.

In my mind, a higher-than-average rate of crime reflects a lower-than-average intensity of community policing.  This includes simply having police visibly patrolling on the streets to both monitor and deter crime.  So I feel I was justifiably surprised to hear that not two but three law enforcement agencies were deployed to bust up a party at Laurel and 23rd: UTPD, KPD, and Knox County Sheriff's Office.  The third agency (KCSO) is especially surprising - while I pay property taxes to Knox County, as a resident of Knoxville I rarely see law enforcement support from the Sheriff, even though I live in a neighborhood where crime rates are also higher-than-average, and even though the Sheriff suggests "The Patrol Division maintains a strong presence in neighborhoods and around businesses in Knox County."  Whatever neighborhood the KCSO is patrolling, it's not mine. 

Again, my hypothesis is that higher than average crime rates reflect lower-than-average policing. So let me cover some key facts.

Wikipedia (I'm unable/unwilling to obtain this information elsewhere) states the following:

KPD force: 384 Officers

The Sheriff's office employs "475 sworn officers."

UTPD employs 52 police officers. 

So in all, Knox County Tennessee has 911 officers of the law, give or take a few for police brutality. 

That's right, we lose officers from time to time not in the line of duty, but because they are fired for acting more like despots than agents of the law.  

We just lost one this past Monday after a weekend incident for choking out an architecture student arrested for allegedly being publicly intoxicated.  No longer with the KCSO is a 47-year old officer with the Sheriff's Office of 22 years.  I'll wager this is just the first time that particular officer was caught on camera abusing the power of his badge, and his official file may substantiate that idea.  Two officers present who did nothing to stop the clear abuse were also "placed on leave." A few months ago, the Knoxville Police Department lost two of their "finest" as a result of the brutal beating of a homeless man.  It's not that far off from Cormac McCarthy's depiction of Police Officer's brutal beating of a black man in post-war era Knoxville - an account that belongs in the annals of fiction if not recent memory.

I do not know the total number of police who were called in to Fort Sanders to respond to the block party.  Some reports suggest 60 officers.  A more industrious individual might be able to discern the total number by reviewing photographic evidence available at , or perhaps submitting a request for information to the agencies involved.  However, I do know that my neighborhood is served by about a dozen officers on active patrol, a beat that covers such a large area that it takes approximately 15 minutes to traverse the area in an emergency situation, running red lights all the way. Let me estimate then that at least 6 officers with cruisers from KPD were present at the Block Party. I have no idea how many UTPD officers were present, but what is known is that the Sheriff's Office was called for "reinforcements" when students began to throw beer bottles at police officers.  

A sheriff's office "prisoner wagon" was clearly present.  I will be curious to know how out of a crowd of an estimated 800, certain students were selected for arrest.  I imagine lawyers will be highly interested in this.  

One tweet even suggests officers from Sevier and Blount County were present; however, I would venture a guess this was sarcasm: https://twitter.com/Marlin_House/status/460843769898627072 - if officers from neighboring Blount and Sevier Counties were indeed present, to me that is a seriously disproportionate response to students gathered in the *neighborhood where they live* to enjoy the evening - some students were arrested for "obstructing the sidewalk." Seriously? Obstructing a public right-of-way? A second point: a week ago there was a stabbing on my side of town.  The night of the incident in Fort Sanders, I heard 8 gunshots.  Surely the police have something better to do in Knoxville than shut down a large party?

Let me be clear: I understand the need to keep streets clear, especially in a neighborhood two hospitals are present - although I will venture a guess students who are mostly millenials (generally a peace and love and harmony cooperative bunch), would be happy to make way on a dead end street for an emergency vehicles. 

As a 30 year old born in 1983, I am just on the cusp of the "millenial" generation.  I'm old enough to remember Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign, to the "Drug Abuse Resistance Education" campaign of the 90s, and McGruff the crime fighting dog.  The idea of D.A.R.E. frisbees, pencils, and friendly neighborhood officers coming to teach schoolchildren about the perils of drugs and alcohol (as a counterbalance, I suppose, to the billboards and advertisements suggesting alcohol is a raucous good time), is that "Police Officers Are Our Friends."

From reports that students of the otherwise pleasant and cooperative millenial generation were chanting "Fuck the Police," something has seriously gone wrong in the relationship between Police and millenials - at least the millenials who attended the UTK Block Party (I was at home across town being anti-social and watching a movie with my dog).  I'll wager it starts with busting up a party by threatening to use tear gas, and randomly arresting students. It might also extend to choking a student until the student passes out.  However more generally, I will suggest it is the result of an "Us vs. Them" mentality that U.S. municipal police departments have developed.  It's not Mayberry anymore.  Neither is it Switzerland.  Perhaps with good reason, Law Enforcement Officers in the U.S. must approach all citizens with extreme prejudice.  Every traffic stop is treated like the driver is a threat; every "sleepy" driver is suspected of being under the influence of drugs or alcohol.  I personally recall an incident in Blount County where I was pulled over for driving too slowly as a patrol car paced me - of course I'm not going to drive faster than a patrol car! This heightened state of mistrust between police and the public has created a schism that manifested itself in beer bottles lobbed at police when police broke up a party.

Personally I'd like to see the beer bottle throwers jailed.   I'm disappointed that that was likely not what happened, and that random students were detained and placed under arrest. I'm also disappointed at how this played out.  Along with purging bad apples from our Law Enforcement Community - paired with an inquiry into any past breaches of professional conduct and falsified official reports- there should be increased training in how to handle situations that may arise such as this.  The response to a party that has spilled into the street should not, in my mind, be to initiate arrests and threaten to use tear gas.  Sadly, it appears the KPD has not matured much since the Nixon era when it similarly used disproportionate response to a student problem.

However in following this highly interesting story that mirrors a rare conflict in the U.S. between students and Police that we see more often (and with more righteous cause than "the right to party") in foreign nations like Tunisia, Egypt, and Brazil, I feel I am more deeply disturbed by the attitudes displayed by the public, evident from messages posted on online comment boards.  I'm collecting a few of them here as examples.

Why is this highly disturbing?  It is evidence that even in the world's oldest democracy, there ispublic support for police brutality.  I'd like to think the U.S. is immune to public support for police brutality; surely we already went through our "growing pains" during the civil rights movement and perhaps even the Nixon era.  Yet in spite of the clear injustice of an officer of the law choking a restrained, un-resisting college student, some individuals blame the victim.  See below.  

Exhibit A: 

I am deeply saddened by what
happened on the University of Tennessee this past week-end at Laurel and 23rd
I understand kids wanting to
celebrate the end of a school year. A
majority of these kids have worked hard and deserve a chance to celebrate. Some will graduate (and to those I say well
done) and some will return to further their education.
What I don’t understand is the
total dis-regard for the law shown by these kids. What type of society do we live in where this
is acceptable behavior? What is wrong
with the kids who were at this “party”?
What is wrong with the parents of these kids who have raised their
children to disrespect authority figures / adults? When an adult (much less a police officer)
asks you to do something, then you do it.
It is not ok for anyone to treat an authority figure the way these kids
treated the officers. In my opinion, any
kid found to be involved with this should at least lose all future scholarship
money and possibly even be kicked out of the University. I don’t think the kids from Laurel and 23rd
demonstrate the type of student we want at The University of Tennessee.
I would venture to guess a
majority of these kids were under the legal drinking age but yet still had been
drinking – some of which excessively. I
would imagine there were other “illegal” drugs being used by a percentage of
these kids. I would also presume a small
percentage of these kids had some sort of weapon. When the police arrived these kids threw
objects including beer bottles at the officers and their cars. The kids also cursed at officers and provoked
officers by statements such as “you can’t do anything to me” and “you can’t
arrest me”. The police tried to contain
the situation to their best of their ability but the kids did not listen to the
officers’ requests to go inside. Instead
they stayed on the streets cursing at officers and telling the officers “you
can’t make me” and “you can’t arrest me”.
Keep in mind you are not talking about 4 students and 1 officer, you are
talking about the majority of the KPD and KCSO along with UTPD and
approximately 800 intoxicated students.
I am also saddened by the
media. I challenge you to obtain the
dash cameras of the responding officers and show these on the air and see
exactly what happened (not just a still photo).
I would speculate the police officers probably saved lives Saturday
night. There is no telling how many of
these kids would have gotten in fights, driven drunk, drank to the point of passing
out or alcohol poisoning, etc.
It is the responsibility of KCSO,
KPD and UTPD to protect the tax paying citizens of Knoxville and I have nothing
but respect for them. A police officer
goes to work every day leaving behind his or her family not knowing if this
could be the last time they see their loved ones. They do this not because they are required to
or for the pay but because they love their city and want to keep the law
abiding citizens of Knoxville safe. Being a police officer is a selfless job and
the men and women of KPD, KCSO and UTPD put their lives on the line every day
and I for one say thank you.

Exhibit B: 

It obviously wasn't a choking incident. This was a pressure point manuever intended to minimize the injury to both the Officer and arrestee by restricting blood blow to the brain to speed submission.....non story 

From: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2014/apr/27/kcso-actively-investigating-alleged-choking/

Exhibit C: 

People want justice with this? If the idiots hadn't been out there drunk and stupid they wouldn't be crying with their bleeding hearts right now. Anybody who supports the drunk students should have the 600 to 800 people come to their house and get drunk next time. Any takers? If so put up or shut up......I didn't think so.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/volunteertv

At least the officers did what they had to do. Honestly a snap shot in the rite moment may look like it's something bad and not be. And besides your witnesses were all trashed out of their minds. If they told u that they seen the cops ride in on a pink unicorn I guess ud believe that too rite.

As a scientist I'd love to explore perceptions of police interactions with the public more formally.  However, I don't have time.

But these comments, even if in the minority, are more frigthening to me than actual police brutality.  It shows evidence of a society willing to tolerate police brutality.