THE TIMES THEY HAVE A CHANGED

Ray had a car.

The years were 1956-58, the car was a black Pontiac convertible. It rolled off the assembly line in 1949, so it had lost that new car smell.

One night while driving around the downtown area, Ray and I were pulled over three times by the police, ordered up against the car and searched. After the second time, the policeman told us what was going on. A bank had just been robbed and the robbers, two white guys, a redhead and his handsome accomplice (I may have embellished the description), got away in a beat-up black convertible. (Redheaded Ray didn't mind the hassle, but was very upset at the description of his car.) 

No, we didn't mind being stopped. If we matched the description of the bad guys, it made perfect sense. Now today if Ray and his very intelligent companion were black, and the police were white, we would have been able to cry racism, claim to be victims and been the lead story on Rev. Al's MSNBC TV embarrassment. But since we were, and are, white males, we couldn't blame our situation on anything, so we accepted it for what it was, police doing their job. 

Where we profiled? You bet. Thankfully the times were such that the police didn't have to stop three grandmothers in a '58 Mercury Grand Marque to show the media and the race agitators they were not profiling but actually going after the people who most likely committed the crime. 

Times have changed for the police. The liberal media, the increasing lack of consequences being tied by parents and society to the actions of our young are major contributing factors. Also, if you will notice anytime our President talks about improving relations between the police and the communities of color, it's always the police who are told to change. 

In the US we have 373 police for every 100,000 people, that means that every police officer has 268 people to protect and serve. (These DOJ published numbers are approximate. If I totally make up any numbers, I'll let you know.) There are 40 million interactions per year between police and the public, and 9 out of 10 say the police acted properly, and yet today the police seem to be the group a certain element of our society loves to hate. 

With over a million people employed in elements of law enforcement full time, there are bound to be some scum bags. The police profession is not alone: teachers and clergy with sex scandals; lawyers and politicians with ethics issues. We are even confronted with Mickey Mouse dispensing measles. I understand killing someone is significantly more serious, but do we pack the streets with protests against lawyers, against teachers? Are a couple of hundred teachers or lawyers being killed each year just because of what they do for a living as are law enforcement officers? 

Again, that certain element of our society finds any wrongdoing by police to be especially heinous because it usually involves one of the "underprivileged" members of our Society. It makes little difference that most of the crime is being committed by the "underprivileged" members of our society. (That is as un PC of a statement as you are ever likely to see in print.) 

These same folks who seem predisposed to dwell on the underbelly of the police profession really get their unmentionables in a wad over the "militarization" (their word not mine) of the police force. Some local police departments have been the recipients of unused military equipment and weapons. I believe that is a good move by the federal government, and unfortunately, a needed move. I just wonder if the police would carry the advanced type of weapons/equipment they have been given if the bad guys carried 22s? All I know is if my family or I needed police help, I don't care if they come in a Sherman tank with a mounted 50 caliber. 

I suppose in a number of situations the police today have become less courteous, less like Andy Taylor and Barney Fife and more quick to anger, but I attribute that change in no small degree to the change in their "customers." Will we ever get back the civility that was then? Probably not, but if parents can take the time to teach their children to be courteous, obey authority and accept personal responsibility, I'll bet we will also see a similar change in police behavior.

Ray's and my story and the lives of the involved policemen could have been very different if we had refused to get out of the car, laid a couple of "F-bombs" on the police and took off in a cloud of oil smoke (Sorry Ray). That thought would never have crossed our minds. 

The times they have a changed.