Of course, we’ve all been told that this election is the most important in our lifetime by the current occupants of the large white abode on Pennsylvania Avenue and the somewhat smaller house built in 1893 less than three miles away, a house hidden from prying eyes behind shrubbery on the grounds of the Naval Observatory where Vice Presidents have called home since Gerald Ford occupied it in 1976. And we’ve also been given that same urgent message the same by the two Democrats who aspire to take up residence in these hallowed homes.
To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever lived through a year when more issues of grave importance have presented themselves, so when all the numbers are crunched, I’d be surprised if the voter turnout wasn’t quite strong. It seems when the issues are urgent and multifarious, people want their voices to be heard. As many of you no doubt did, I did my civic duty long before Tuesday’s official Election Day, for me, actually on the first day early voting was allowed, Oct. 6.
Of all the issues to be considered, the ones that garnered more than their fair share of headlines in our dailies and positions at the head of the line on our evening national news have been those stories about the behavior of law enforcement and their actions in a series of incidents with minorities and the ensuing protests that have impacted several of our larger cities. It seems the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake have been both on the lips and in the minds of so many who cry for justice for those whose lives were lost or irrevocably altered.
There are those who support the platforms of organizations such as Black Lives Matter and Black Visions Collective. These types of organizations have accused police departments of condoning systemic racism and advocate defunding police departments, with the money saved in slashing those budgets to be made available to schools and to be used to improve public housing and public health. Other more radical activists actually have suggested law enforcement be abolished, feeling departments are so fundamentally broken that they need to be stripped to the bones before they can be rebuilt.
During this season’s NBA playoffs, basketball analyst and former Hall of Fame player Charles Barkley detoured from talking basketball to react to a lot of the recent talk about defunding and abolishing police departments. He made it clear he vehemently disagreed with either.
Said Barley on the Sept. 24 TNT broadcast, “Who are Black people supposed to call, Ghost Busters, when we have crime in our neighborhoods? We need to stop the defund or abolish the police crap.”
The civil unrest that has resulted over extended periods of time in cities like Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle has come at a heavy price, both in terms of the businesses and property damaged and also the increase in the danger to the police that have been present to maintain some semblance of order. The list of officers hit by bricks, run over with vehicles and shot by protesters is a lengthy one. According to the website True North Wire, in New York City alone, over 350 NYPD officers in a two-week period were victims of violence.
Not surprisingly, the increased risks in an already inherently dangerous job has spawned this year a trend seen as disturbing for all who see the police as vital to an orderly society while at the same time recognizing that some reform in the selection and training of young officers is needed.
The trend has revealed record numbers of sworn officers resigning or taking early retirement. Among the many cities severely impacted in the past several months have been San Francisco, Portland, and, closer to home in Kentucky, Louisville and Lexington.
An ancillary trend more than likely related to the growing number stories about those with such great disdain and complete lack of respect for the police is the decrease in the number of those willing to do police work.
Kentucky’s Clark County Sheriff and Fraternal Order of Police President Berl Purdue has stated that applications for police and sheriff’s departments in his state in the last five years are down anywhere from 25 to 40 percent.
Fifty years ago, writer Joseph Waumbaugh, while still a member of the Los Angeles Police Department, wrote “The New Centurions,” an autobiographical novel that takes a deep dive into the stresses of police work. A half century later, it seems those stresses have magnified manifold, and that’s what begs the question, “From where will the new centurions come?”
That’s a question among several others I asked recently when catching up in a phone interview with Mark Murphy. Within a month after his retirement in April 2013 from the Allen County Sheriff’s Department following a distinguished 26-year career, Murph, as he is known to many, has found his own personal paradise living in Hawaii on the island of Oahu.
Please join me next week for a look under the law-enforcement hood with former Detective Mark Murphy.
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