I stumbled across a 1950s police drama inspired by Dragnet: in Code 3, real-life stories from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office are dramatized, in much the same valorizing manner.
The officers in Dragnet and Code 3 were supposed the represent the best elements of American law enforcement, and while you can easily fault them for being goody-two-shoes and papering over the worse aspects of the profession, ignoring the harsher treatment often encountered by people at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale and the leniency expected by those at the top, the programs represented an aspiration, showing the police not, perhaps, so much as they were as who they were supposed to be.
Even taking all that into account, the first episode of Code 3 had me doing a double-take. In it, a former member of the Czech underground, now a naturalized U. S. citizen is going though training to become a deputy. Older than the others, driven, he's too rough in hand-to-hand training and too outspoken in the classroom. Sent out to observe with a pair of experienced deputies, he's furious when they break up a fight among truck drivers and shrug off (and diffuse) hostile comments from the separated combatants by refusing to take them seriously. "Why do those people not show us respect?" He shoves one driver who directs a comment to him; the guy reacts angrily, the trainee's hand creeps towards his holster and the situation is briefly tense until he's told to stand down.
In the patrol car afterward, the deputies explain that in this country, an unarmed citizen feels safe talking back to law enforcement, and that it is a point of pride. "Those guys were just blowing off steam. We sent them on their way and didn't have to arrest anyone."
He struggles with that; plot complications and so on follow, but in the end, in the course of a dramatic confrontation with another immigrant from Eastern Europe, he comes to terms with the way policing works in the U.S. and is on his way to a career serving public safety.
So, tell me -- just how comfortable would you feel talking back to a police officer today? How comfortable with it, really, were truck drivers in 1950s LA County, and was it more or less so than their counterparts are now? How much respect does a police officer or sheriff's deputy expect these days, and how much disrespect will they treat as semi-amusing routine? And what kind of behavior does our entertainment media model for officers and the public along those lines?
Interesting question. I have never felt reticent about disagreeing with a police officer, even when young (I cannot imagine a police officer being too upset with a well-spoken, white woman aged 86!) It always amazed me that my mother was extremely deferential toward police officers. My words to her were that the police officers worked for her and should not be seen as intimidating. That said, I am extremely aware of my "privileged" position in our society and wish we could all "just get along".
ReplyDeleteConsidering the High Sherriff of Lake Co, Fl in the 1950's was the notorious Willis McCall, I seriously doubt any truck driver would backtalk him or his deputies without getting a hickory shampoo & a few nights in the county jail.
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