This piece is not for cop groupies or badge huggers. Those folks cannot be reasoned with and should not risk a sprained brain trying to process a thoughtful exploration of American policing. As a rule, never invite irrational people to engage in rational discourse unless your true goal is entertainment. And while I hope this piece is reasonably entertaining, the goal is to contribute a well-reasoned idea into the public debate over how we should address the sorry and unsustainable state of policing across the nation.
Let me get the obligatory part of this discussion out of the way first. When you are Black in America, there is no such thing as a “routine” traffic stop. I do not know what it feels like to be a white man anymore than a white man knows what it feels like to be me. But based on the public and private stances taken by a great many white men, it appears that none of them experience the levels of tension and heightened anxiety that have come with every traffic stop I have been involved in since I was a teenager. As long as there are so-called “routine” traffic stops, Black men like me will get behind the wheel of their cars every single day and- both swiftly and subconsciously- prepare for the worst-case-scenario: getting pulled over by a cop with a badge, a gun, a bad attitude, and a license to disturb my peace. We get used to it over the years but the weathering effect of staying on-guard like that is real. Regardless of the denial around the issue, it diminishes our quality of life unfairly.
But those are my personal feelings and I recognize that we are in an era where “F**k Your Feelings” has become an accepted political rallying cry. So, setting aside my worthless feelings, let’s define our terms and then deal with the cost of a “routine” traffic stop going wrong. By “routine” traffic stop, I mean an administrative stop. A police officer pulls someone over for a perceived compliance code violation (like an expired tag or a prohibited air freshener) as opposed to an active threat (like speeding or reckless driving). Police officers should always intercept active threats because that is what we pay them to do. They should not be deployed to serve as overzealous middle school kids on the safety patrol. But because departments from coast to coast do utilize officers this way, we are continually exposed to the following scenario:
Cop pulls over a car. Exchange between cop and vehicle occupant turns hostile. Someone (almost always the occupant) gets hurt or killed. The municipality employing the cop winds up settling a lawsuit- sometimes for millions of dollars. Budgets in public services get tapped to offset the financial strain of the settlement. Taxes get raised to replenish the lost revenue. The public suffers and the occupant suffers. Only the cop has any chance of emerging unscathed. All of this over an expired tag or an illegal air freshener or window tint or loud music or just fill in the blank with any trifling matter unworthy of the human and civic toll we all pay.
Consider what we get as a society when the traffic stop goes “normally” and without incident of threat for anyone. We get a couple hundred dollars payment of a traffic citation into the public coffers. That is pretty much it- unless of course you count the mounting resentment that everyday people feel about being “policed” this way. Pardon my acknowledgment of feelings yet again. It is reasonable to conclude that the cost-benefit analysis is way out of balance when it comes to “routine” traffic stops.
The truth is that technological advancements renders this type of interaction between police officers and the public obsolete. Cameras, computers and a fully functioning postal service can do a splendid job of monitoring the streets for administrative violations, delivering notice of said violations, and of communicating non-compliance to the authorities when matters are left unresolved. They already do this in more advanced municipalities across the country. People who receive notice of such violations can exercise the option to just pay the fine or appear in court and fight the citation exactly as they do now.
The social payoffs are that the police officer never has to “risk his life” in one of these unnecessary interactions that he or she has been trained and ordered to initiate. The young Black man in college does not have to adhere to his well-meaning uncle’s simpish advice that he compromise his dignity and sing a song of “yes sir” and “no sir” to a cop with a GED who is not extending him the same courtesy. The citizens of that town will never have to worry that a matter as trifling as an air freshener could wind up compromising the public schools and running down property values. Yes, it is all connected. Call it ‘Critical Cop Theory’ if it helps you remember. The reality is when a cop allows a “routine” traffic stop to exact a heavy human toll the impact is felt farther and wider than might be evident in the moment.
The only argument for maintaining the current practice of having cops pull people over for any petty-ante code infraction is to perpetuate a “stop and frisk” and a “show me your papers” culture of predatory policing. In this culture, police are deployed to keep (some members of) the public on edge. It is a self-evident truth that many Americans have had enough of being on edge. And for the municipalities that set these unnerving melodramas in motion the juice is no longer worth the squeeze.
As society and technology have evolved, so too must our methods of law enforcement. There are many crucial steps to be taken to dig us out of the hole we are in but ending “routine” traffic stops should be the first- and it may very well be the best.