The Myth of the Societal Protagonist Otherwise Known as “The Good Cop”:
By: Emeka Ezeokoli
Tags: Racism, Black Lives, Police Brutality, George Floyd, Policing

Why “Good Cops” Are Bad for Public Health

“The only way to police a ghetto is to be oppressive. None of the police commissioner’s men, even with the best will in the world, have any way of understanding the lives led by the people they swagger about in twos or threes controlling. Their very presence is an insult, and would be, even if they spent their entire day feeding gumdrops to children.” — James Baldwin “5th Avenue, Uptown” [Nobody knows My Name]

The Deconstruction of “Good Cops”

The media’s dissemination of stories documenting the public performance of philanthropic gestures by police is a sensationalist tactic designed to mold your local patrolman into the societal protagonist otherwise known as the “good cop”. Visuals of white male cops kneeling by the roadside changing a tire for a Black driver, playing basketball with Black children, buying groceries for the “Black poor” or having Black children run up to them with joyous expressions are often consumed by the general public with approving eyes and receptive hearts. These heartwarming, seemingly innocuous interactions between Black people and law enforcement personnel provide temporary relief and a glimmer of faux hope for a traumatized people who so often imbibe imagery of police encounters ending tragically for those of their racial demographic that a palatable counter narrative is consumed with great haste, but devoid of critical analysis.

But one has to wonder: why are these “good cops” almost always white males and why are they always pictured rescuing afflicted Black people? The image of white cops coming to the aid of beleaguered Black folk to the all too immediate and receptive applause of a gullible audience reflects the effectual utilization of propagandistic palliatives for social unrest as a means of tempering anti-law enforcement sentiment, generating public sympathy and support for the government agents of an oppressive paramilitary force, and manufacturing the illusion of racial harmony while neglecting to provide an actual panacea for institutional violence. We can regard this preferred means of media manipulation in one way only: that symptom alleviation is favored over disease eradication. That is, suppress the protest but do nothing to actually address the conditions that produce the protest. The race and sex of the “rescuing” officer (white male) and the race of the victim (Black) are of significance as this visual ostensibly gives credence to the “white male savior” trope. The efficacy of this deceptive and deflective mechanism (employed to circumvent legitimate criticisms of police terrorism) reveals itself in the laudatory comments of the most naïve who respond to such imagery with an almost childlike jubilance. “God bless that officer!” “We need more cops like them!” and “Thumbs up for good cops!”

But it is erroneous to use the public performance of philanthropic gestures as a means of identifying “good cops” considering what makes a cop good is less about an officer’s munificence and more about how effectively cops perform the various aspects of policing. When a police officer demonstrates the capacity to do something “good” (i.e. something deemed morally sound) people mistakenly determine the officer is moralistic and is therefore good for society by commission of a kind act. Generally speaking, the criteria for what makes anyone “good” at their occupation would be one who executes the requisite responsibilities inherent to his or her profession in the most expeditious manner, in a way that ensures productivity, maximizes efficiency and profit, and satisfies other occupational objectives. For cops those objectives are enforcement of the law, maintaining order, revenue generation (for the city government), and protecting private property. The means cops use to satisfy those objectives include racial profiling, data collection and surveillance of peaceful protestors, the arrest and detainment of peaceful protestors, arresting the homeless for quality of life offenses, executing search warrants, no-knock raids, jump-outs, nickel rides, stop and frisk, excessive use of force, asset forfeiture, the racially disparate distribution of tickets and fines, the deceptive and manipulative use of informants to secure evidence for convictions, undercover sting operations, and fortifying the blue wall of silence*.

A “good cop” (i.e. the cop who satisfies the departmental objectives assigned them) is one who faithfully executes his duties with respect and loyalty to their badge and police commissioner. In doing so, said cop will by default be “good” at executing policies and tactics that infringe upon the liberties of the public they profess to protect. Any benefit to the civilian populace derived from policing is incidental. On the contrary, any morally inclined human being would frequently be at odds with themselves for participating in predatory tactics that render poor Black communities the disproportionate victims of government theft (by way of excessive fines), abuse, murder, and other forms of domestic terrorism that can be found in every police department in America. We need to stop hastily identifying cops as “good” for exhibiting the most basic forms of civility. To do so is to misinterpret the commission of a kind act as evidence of an officer’s occupational efficiency. When we understand that a “good cop” is merely one who is good at policing and nothing more, we will understand why “good cops” don’t challenge the malfeasance, corruption, brutality, virulent racism, culture of abuse and indemnity that permeates their departments and why they seldom denounce the criminal conduct of their colleagues. The good in “good cop” means efficient; not moral. Understanding this it becomes apparent that “good cops” will be efficient at implementing harmful policies and enforcing unjust laws that further endanger already marginalized communities.

The Futility of Evaluating Police on the Basis of Individual Merit

Let’s examine the frequently uttered “Not all cops are bad!”, a popular retort from police sympathizers to police critics. The implicit meaning of this statement is that not all cops murder unarmed civilians or conduct themselves in the egregious, needlessly violent manner which has characterized the behavior of cops in viral videos that ended in the chokehold deaths of defenseless men like Eric Garner or the fatal shooting of preteens like Tamir Rice. “Not all cops” suggests that police criticism should be confined to individual officers found guilty of misconduct rather than a wholesale rebuke of law enforcement personnel in general. Why? The logic is that since “not all cops” engage in the most extreme or overt forms of police brutality they are therefore “good cops” by virtue of non participation. But total participation in the most extreme acts of violence is not needed to point out the complicity of all cops in perpetuating the very racist, corrupt, and biased way in which police departments operate. What is required is to give the conversation an institutional framing that allows us to analyze law enforcement as both a practice and system to which all cops belong.

“For, as I have said, the police system of the South was originally designed to keep track of all Negroes, not simply of criminals; and when the Negroes were freed and the whole South was convinced of the impossibility of free Negro labor, the first and almost universal device was to use the courts as a means of re-enslaving the Blacks. It was not then a question of crime, but rather one of color, that settled a man’s conviction on almost any charge. Thus, Negroes came to look upon courts as instruments of injustice and oppression, and upon those convicted in them as martyrs and victims.” -W.E.B. DuBois

For example, let’s imagine there was an organization with multiple chapters in all 50 states — a different name per chapter but operating under the same umbrella — using the same tactics to commit crime yet was incredibly adept at eluding criminal prosecution whenever they engaged in felonious conduct. If this national organization systematically targeted people of your racial, religious, gender or ethnic demographic for abuse, would you excuse their criminal conduct on the grounds that on occasion some of its members publicly performed good deeds or were well mannered? If members of this organization had previously threatened your life, abused your friends, raped women, or killed people in your neighborhood, would you be inclined to weep when you found out one of its members was finally on the receiving end of the violence they recklessly doled out to unsuspecting victims? Knowing they lived by a set of laws that perpetuated the abuse of the most vulnerable, would you deflect criticism of the organization on the basis that “not all” of its members are bad? You would likely believe the organization in general was not to be trusted and the societal function of its members can be best described as counterproductive if not destructive. On an individual level, not all cops are inherently immoral human beings nor do all cops employ the most violent tactics when policing. However, all cops do work for a repressive, paramilitary organization that routinely enforces policies that perpetuate racial and class disparities and abuse of the most economically impoverished but melanin rich people. When the objectives of policing infringe upon the civil liberties and human rights of the populace (as is most often the case in Black and Brown communities) all cops will be expected to implement those policies regardless how strong their moral compass.

A common feature in discussions surrounding police violence is to equate wholesale criticism of police with being racist towards all Black people. This too supports the notion that police should be judged on an individual basis. On the surface to say “there are good cops and bad cops just like there are good Black people and bad Black people” sounds comparable, but what appears an even comparison is actually a false equivalency. Police act as representatives of a specific organization endowed with specific powers, trained in a specific manner to execute specific objectives, after receiving a specific brand of occupational training. Furthermore, as long as they are in uniform acting as representatives of the state, their societal role is supposed to be executed independent of their political, religious, moral, or spiritual beliefs. Black people represent a larger, much broader group of people most distinctly bound by color and ancestral lineage but can otherwise be variegated in regards to ethnic grouping, religious upbringing, educational training, occupational training, socioeconomic status, spiritual and/or philosophical beliefs, cultural practices and other divergent aspects of life that cannot be confined to complexion. To express contempt for the latter based on the flawed notion of intrinsic, cultural inferiority is racism. To express indignation for the former is to be critical of agents assigned to uphold an American institution that has its roots in slave patrols and fugitive slave laws.

This is why any analysis regarding the societal function of police should not use fluid factors such as officer disposition, personality, or behavior as its main criteria. Any of the aforementioned criteria can fluctuate like New York weather within an individual officer, let alone between different cops. Instead, the conversation should focus on the more structural components of policing like the laws enforced, policies adhered to, tactics deployed, the amount and use of discretionary power, and how racism and capitalism influence cop culture. Should any well meaning police officer publicly repudiate or seek to abolish unscrupulous law enforcement policies that conflict with their moral code, they will likely be ostracized within their department (see Joseph Crystal formerly of Baltimore Police Department), terminated (see Cariol Horn formerly of the Buffalo Police Department) or even threatened with violence. In the event a cop is charged with committing a crime against a civilian all cops will be expected to uphold the blue wall of silence before abiding by any moral conviction that might require them to disclose information that could result in a fellow officer’s criminal conviction. Commonly promulgated as a criminal code that endangers the general public by allowing lawbreakers to go free, the “no snitching” creed of the street is ironically de facto police policy. The question of an individual officer’s morality is thereby tertiary to the execution of police work in which even legality is at times secondary and the fulfillment of departmental objectives — by means ethical or unethical, moral or immoral — is always primary.