{"id":23532,"date":"2015-01-14T18:38:18","date_gmt":"2015-01-14T23:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=23532"},"modified":"2015-01-14T18:38:18","modified_gmt":"2015-01-14T23:38:18","slug":"cops-why-they-have-problems-with-us-and-we-with-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=23532","title":{"rendered":"Cops: why they have problems with us and we with them"},"content":{"rendered":"

However, [Lennart Kollberg] couldn’t shake off the feeling that it was important to get hold of them [two witnesses] as quickly as possible.<\/em><\/p>\n

Why?<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s only the policeman’s occupational disease creeping up on you, he thought gloomily. A total wreck after twenty-three years of service. Can’t think like a normal human being any more.<\/em><\/p>\n

Twenty-three years of daily contact with police officers had made him incapable of maintaining sensible relations with the rest of the world. In fact, he never felt truly free, not even with his own family. There was always something gnawing at his mind. He’d waited a long time to build this family, because police work wasn’t a normal job, but something you committed yourself to. And it was obvious you could never get away from it. A profession involving daily confrontations with people in abnormal situations could only lead in the end to becoming abnormal yourself.<\/em><\/p>\n

Unlike the overwhelming majority of his colleagues, Kollberg was capable of penetrating<\/em> and analyzing his own situation clearly. Which he did, surprisingly and unfortunately, with unclouded vision. His problem lay in being both a sensualist and a man of duty, in a profession where sentimentality and personal involvement were luxuries which in nine cases out of ten you couldn’t allow yourself.<\/em><\/p>\n

Why do policemen associate almost exclusively with other policemen? he wondered.<\/em><\/p>\n

Naturally because it was easier that way. Easier to keep the necessary distance. But also easier to overlook the morbid camaraderie in the force, which had flourished, unchecked, for many years. Essentially that meant that policemen isolated themselves from the society they were supposed to protect and, above all, be integrated with.<\/em><\/p>\n

For example, policemen didn’t criticize other policemen, with rare exceptions.<\/em><\/p>\n

A rather recent sociological study had shown that vacationing policemen, who were more or less forced to mix with other people, were very often ashamed to admit that they were officers of the law. This was a result of the definition of their role and of the many myths that surrounded their profession.<\/em><\/p>\n

Constantly encountering fear, distrust or open contempt could make anyone paranoid.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kollberg shuddered.<\/em><\/p>\n

He didn’t want to be a fear-monger and he didn’t want to be distrusted or despised. He didn’t want to be paranoid.<\/em><\/p>\n

— From Murder at the Savoy<\/em>, by Maj Sj\u00f6wall and Per Wahl\u00f6\u00f5 (1971)<\/p>\n

I often re-read the ten breathtakingly fine Martin Beck police procedurals, of which this is one. And the other night, after reading the day’s news about the city’s NYPD problem, I found the paragraphs quoted above.<\/p>\n

There could not be a finer terse description of the intricate problems we have with cops, and they seem to have with us:<\/p>\n

…the morbid camaraderie in the force, which had flourished, unchecked, for many years… <\/em><\/p>\n

…policemen isolated themselves from the society they were supposed to protect and, above all, be integrated with.<\/em><\/p>\n

Constantly encountering fear, distrust or open contempt could make anyone paranoid.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kollberg is, of course, a fictional character created by two people — the writers — who were severe, if sarcastic, critics of Sweden’s political system and its security forces. In one of the books, we readers learn that the reason Kollberg doesn’t carry a weapon is because he once accidentally killed a fellow cop and he is haunted by it.<\/p>\n

In the second to last book of this series, Kollberg, overwhelmed with the disgust he evinces in these paragraphs, quits the police force.<\/p>\n

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However, [Lennart Kollberg] couldn’t shake off the feeling that it was important to get hold of them [two witnesses] as quickly as possible. Why? It’s only the policeman’s occupational disease creeping up on you, he thought gloomily. A total wreck … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[337],"tags":[161,95,308,751,773],"class_list":["post-23532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","tag-civil-rights-lawsuits","tag-lawsuits-against-police","tag-police-brutality","tag-racism-in-police","tag-violence-in-police-forces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t