ACAB

I didn't take this photo

Graffiti is back. Back in my day this was my tag $≠♡. I'm sure you never saw it.  But you could have figured out what it meant. I was able to figure out what FTP meant, but I had to Google ACAB. I got a little education and it made me think of my own experience.

I was the night manager of the Student Center at Stony Brook University back in the 80s. A big part of my job was dealing with the fact that there was a bar in the building. Whatever happened in the bar wasn't really my problem but everything that happened in the building was my problem. The bar was up on the second floor and on busy evenings I would make everyone leaving the bar go directly out of the building as opposed to down the stairs and into the lobby of the building.  Not everybody wanted to do that, exiting the building on the second floor took them onto the bridge that went nowhere. (Someone reading this might remember that the bar was called the End of the Bridge, EOB)  Often, the campus police would hang out with me at the top of the stairs to help keep the underage drunks from wandering into  the lobby where people might have been studying or doing other sober activities.  Like in lots of places and times there were "good" cops and "bad" cops and I got used to working with them all.

I remember  one night in particular. I had to  a whole Squad of campus cops helping me.  It was actually a little crowded with "good" ones and "bad" ones. (I am going to stop using quotes it's tough with voice to text)  I also remember that I had been dealing with one particular grad student who was a very belligerent drunk. He had become a regular pain in the ass.  He got in my face and wanted to walk down the stairs. I remember one of the cops hands going right past my nose and he went down the stairs like a sack of potatoes. I didn't even look down. He wasn't my problem anymore.

Early the next week I found out that he was seriously injured at the bottom of the stairs. He was walking around with a neck brace on. I didn't know if he was hospitalized and back then I really didn't care. But I did find out the police was denying he was pushed which meant he had to pay his hospital bills. I saw him in the coffee shop and introduced myself. He remembered me. I told him that I saw the whole thing I knew he was pushed and that if he needed me to say something I was ready to tell people what happened. His reaction was bizarre to say the least. He looked up from his coffee and said "Why would you help me, you're a Jew." I asked him if he had a lawyer and then if he did he should just give my lawyer my business card.  I was happy to never see him again but I did hear that the cops all changed this story so I never had to tell anyone what I saw. And after that the bad cops never really made eye contact with me.

I took this photo in Prospect Park

Those good cops that also watched it happen never said anything. So now I'm thinking, were they really good cops? 

Really, it says on the side of the cop cars to protect and serve. But what if they're not protecting us from bad cops? Are they still good cops?

So I was just about to publish this blog and I remembered that I had shared Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop.  I went back and read it more carefully....

"Equally important to remember: disabled and mentally ill people are frequently killed by police officers not trained to recognize and react to disabilities or mental health crises."  ..... 

 

 "The question is this: did I need a gun and sweeping police powers to help the average person on the average night? The answer is no. When I was doing my best work as a cop, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker. My good deeds were listening to people failed by the system and trying to unite them with any crumbs of resources the structure was currently denying them."

So I'm not wondering anymore why people are angry at the police.