3 Responses to “To understand police reform”

• #1

  John the Drunkard

  February 17, 2021 at 6:41 am

  Important to realize that police in training watch videos too. They watch officers losing control of street situations and being injured or killed. Over and over. The paranoia seems to pervade every interaction.

  You’re also told anybody could kill you at any time. And that, in many ways, was the single most powerful message that recruits at the police academy absorbed. And what that meant was you have to constantly be looking at people’s hands. You can’t let people sit down on the sofa, because it’s too easy to hide a weapon between the sofa cushions and they could pull it out. You shouldn’t interview suspects in the kitchen, because there are too many knives available to them. Don’t look them in the eye. Look at their hands all the time. Be constantly alert for these sudden motions where somebody is reaching for something. … It’s kind of hard to show respect, empathy and compassion while you’re staring at somebody’s hands fixedly and refusing to let them sit on their sofa.
• #2

  Screechy Monkey

  February 17, 2021 at 8:44 am

  John — that’s a really good point. I read an article last summer by a former cop who made the same points about the hardcore “you are constantly under immediate threat” messaging in police academies.
• #3

  Freemage

  February 17, 2021 at 5:01 pm

  The Fresh Air piece was fantastic, tho I was frustrated, as usual, by Terry Gross’ approach to interviewing. I used to work for a major newspaper, and one of my jobs was to open the complimentary copies of books from the publishers. Very often, they would also include press releases, and these quite often include a whole list of suggested questions for an interviewer to ask the author–the idea being that the author would know what was coming and have a ready answer.

  Now, this isn’t a horrible thing; it gives a structure to the author’s comments. And if the interviewer gets an answer they find interesting, they can drill down on it, hopefully getting the author to give more in-depth insights into their reasoning.

  Gross, though, always seems to be reading from one of those lists. She gets the prepped answer, then moves onto the next question–making it less of an interview than a scripted dialogue. That said, some of her guests–to her credit, Rosa Brooks in this segment, is part of this category–can carry the ball on their own, adding details on their own and pushing forward.

  (I also heard Gross’ interview with Larry King, and it was almost painful the way he basically ripped into this approach to interviewing, saying he preferred to get the bare minimum of prep about a guest–name, why they are getting interviewed, maybe a couple small biographical details–and then go from there, completely unscripted.