Police Union Backpedals over Tasteless T-shirt
November 4th, 2011
What is it with cops and t-shirts that dehumanize the very people they are sworn to protect? It’s like they think they’re better than us or something. This week in Northern California the Twin Rivers Police Officers Association (That’s the Union not the Department) sold t-shirts with the message, “U raise ‘em, we cage ‘em” surrounding a picture of a young child in a jail cell. The shirt has sparked quite a bit of controversy from a community that already had a high level of mistrust for their “peace” officers. In the last two years the department has three cases in which officers shot and wounded suspects.
Superintendent Frank Porter, who oversees the department said, “I am deeply disappointed that any of our employees would produce anything like that.” Officials are meeting to decide whether or not to take disciplinary action. Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll have an internal investigation and determine that this was an isolated incident organized by a few bad apples.
It’s not like a t-shirt being sold to raise money for the families of fallen officers would carry a message that was appealing to their customer base. No way. The Police Officers Association website said in an official statement, “We realize and acknowledge that we have made a mistake and an error in judgement.” Union President Arlin Kocher stressed that the t-shirts were only sold to Union members. See, it’s just an inside joke. They only think of you as less than human in private. Of course Kocher posted the t-shirt graphic on his personal Facebook page saying he helped design it, and didn’t change the privacy settings until after he was contacted by the media about the shirts.
Twin Rivers Police Department spokesman Willian Cho said “I know how it looks to a lot of people. That’s not how the officers feel. They truly care about kids. As hard as it is to understand, it’s cop humor.” See? No problem. Throwing your children in cages is just “cop humor.”
The most vocal critic in law enforcement was former Sacramento Sheriff John McGinness who said, “Bad message. If it was the gang unit in a high crime area, that might be a little different.” See? The problem was the shirt was being sold in the wrong area.
Plenty of criticism came from outside law enforcement, obviously. “There is nowhere on the planet where it is OK to wear a shirt like this,” said Ed Howard, senior counsel for the University of San Diego’s Children’s Advocacy Institute. Community leader Derrell Roberts said, “This doesn’t speak highly of the culture of this department.”
But it’s not just this department is it?
It wasn’t that long ago that the Denver Police Union faced similar contraversy for printing t-shirts that read “We get up early to beat the crowds.” This was on the wake of mass arrests of political protesters at the Democratic National Convention. If police were, “just following orders” they wouldn’t be so gleeful about it. They hurt people because they enjoy hurting people.
But it’s not even just the US.
Not long after that incident the Israeli Defense Force embroiled itself in a similar controversy by printing t-shirts for a platoon of Israeli snipers depicting cross-hairs over the belly of a pregnant Palestinian woman with the caption, “1 shot 2 kills” in both English and Hebrew.
You see it’s not about the “culture” of individual departments, or even agencies. It’s about the mentality of those who seek positions in which to exercise brutal power over others. See we don’t need examples of police brutality, excessive force or even collateral damage to identify the authoritarian sociopaths in this world. We just have to look at what they find funny, and they find violence against you hilarious.
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