As a result of what looked much like martial law imposed on Boston last week following a pitched gun battle between police and a couple of Muslim punks, a lot of people out here have been critical of the police. To counter that, several bloggers and others have pointed to the actions of one police officer in particular who delivered milk to a family during the lockdown. As one of the comment there at Lagniappe's Lair says, there was probably a lot of this going on.
This retired police officer gives a good defense of the actions taken from his perspective. It's readable and makes good sense. I agree that the police were in a bind and would be criticized either way -- certainly everybody would be on their case, calling them incompetent goons if the wounded Muslim punk had managed to hurt someone else. No one could know that the fight had been taken out of him. The police had to assume that it was not, that he still intended to actively continue on his chosen path of death and destruction.
Despite my jab at police unions and my utter disdain for public sector unions in general, I am quite familiar on a personal level with the courage and dedication of individual police officers. I have stood in a line with and fought alongside law enforcement officers. For me it was a job, a paycheck for a brief period rather than a career choice. Were a bunch of them losers? Sure. But when you needed back up, you didn't really care all that much which ones showed up, because they would all pitch in to bust heads or pull somebody off you just the same. When it was all over, you might have to help them write their reports in those days when the only spell-checker was the guy sitting across from you, but we got the job done and nobody was too badly hurt or dead.
So let's put aside for the moment, how we feel about Officer Friendly or Deputy Fife, and focus on the legality and more importantly the constitutionality of what was done in Boston. It's perfectly legal for a state to call out the National Guard in the evident of an emergency. Technically, this was an emergency. Mad bombers were on the loose. We'll give them that one.
Were there legal and constitutional grounds for a lockdown? No. Did it make the job the police were doing easier to the extent that the citizens of Watertown complied with that request? Yes. Requesting people to stay off the streets and remain in their homes, if possible, was a reasonable if somewhat extreme measure. But if the authorities demanded that they stay in -- and that seems to be what some are saying, it is pure police state action. People who were advised of the risk and issues involved and were willing to be mistaken for a perpetrator, as the ladies delivering newspapers during the Dorner manhunt, should be allowed to go about their business. I think the police and the state were wrong here.
Involuntary searches of residences appear to have been conducted by the police. If people were forced out of their homes and forced to permit law enforcement officers to enter and search those homes -- if that took place, it cannot be justified constitutionally. Seeing a fleeing perpetrator enter a residence and pursuing that individual is very different than saying a perpetrator might have been seen in the "neighborhood" and then forcibly trespassing. Did the police do that in Watertown? Were weapons confiscated?
I don't think it is cop-hating to be concerned about increasing militarization of local police forces. I don't think it is cop-hating to question whether actions are constitutional. I don't even think it is cop-hating to suggest that a lot of those guys were out there and happy to be getting the overtime -- although I will admit that given the fact one officer was killed and another nearly so, that is a rather insensitive and cruel joke.
I do not need the police to take care of me, look out for me, or protect me. I can do that myself. They do a lot of thankless, routine work under difficult conditions. They take a lot of harassment from the people they are paid to help. They make mistakes. Some have exemplary character and are worthy of our respect. Some are thugs. So long as the police remember they are working for the taxpayers and not the tax-collectors, we should all be able to get along fine.
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