I tell the story over and over again of when I interned at a courthouse a decade ago and got to observe the sheriff’s department. On ride-alongs there were cops who would put on their sirens to scare people walking down the street. They’d catcall women holding their partners’ hands knowing neither of them could really do anything cause it’s cops. They’d look at bumper stickers and follow cars waiting for an excuse to pull them over cause the sticker made them mad. Individual bastards.
But there were nice cops. Ones I had my lunch break with. Ones who were empathetic and kind and felt bad for people. They showed me around and were helpful to people at the courthouse. They gave good life advice.
Then, those nice cops served evictions. They dragged people crying from their homes. They showed up to collect unpaid court debt and issue legal threats to people living out of crumbling little houses. They arrested people going through the worst times in their lives who just needed help, and the cops knew it too, but “what are you gonna do, those are the rules”
At the end of my internship I was part of a protest where we passively held signs outside the entrance to a jail because the jail had assaulted a trans woman prisoner and my lunch buddies and mentor figures showed up in heavy armor to beat us for asking for better treatment of our most vulnerable.
Looking “good cops” in the eye as they wait to hit you with a big stick gives you a change in perspective.
The experience shifted 20 year old me from “the system is broken but we can fix it from the inside” to “this is going exactly as designed” real fast.
ACAB means all for a reason
