Policing is a dangerous profession. There is a certain level of criminal behavior tolerated in the general public (under the banner and law of personal freedom – unlimited gun ownership, stand your ground, etc.) which compounds the uncertainty of any potential police encounter. Police are trained to control the situation but in America we allow too many unknowns to enter the equation. We fail the police in this respect. But we also fail them in another respect. We reduce enforcement to a subjective determination of the situation. In theory, this grants a police officer wider freedom of action. But in practice, this forces a greater level of tension to act rather than be acted upon. We fail the police by ignoring the level of psychological pressures this places on even the most mundane and routine situations.

In an earlier post, I refuted the whole Blue Lives Matter as a rhetorical device by bad actors who could care less about police lives and the stresses they endure and wished only to support unrestrained physical force against black people. Sadly, 1/6 proved this point. It was easy enough for those who proclaimed Blue Lives Matter to take a fire extinguisher and smash it on top of Officer Sicknick’s head. None of them respect the authority that policing represents as the embodiment of the rule of law.

The standard by which police reform should be measured, and the success by which it is to be judged, will be in how it better protects the lives and well-being of police officers and the general public.