I’ve never had an experience in which calling the police made things better. In every case where I’ve seen them show up, they roll in with bravado, hubris, anger and fear. And in every case I’ve seen and experienced, they make things worse.
Been robbed?
They don’t care. They’ll make a report, but it’s an annoyance to them, just the necessary paperwork for you to file an insurance claim for what was stolen, if you’re lucky enough to have insurance. Will they go after the robber? Help you deal with the trauma of how unsafe and violated you feel? Ha! Good luck.
A car accident? Same thing. Better to just exchange insurance info and take care of it yourselves. If it’s worse than that, medics will arrive. The medics actually help! They calm down the people who’ve just experienced the trauma, they deal with injuries and help address the pain.
Police only escalate. They only make things worse.
I mean, imagine you’re a young woman who has been raped – would you call the police? They arrive with their bravado and humiliate, victim-shame and degrade – then if you’re lucky enough to be believed and taken to the hospital to be examined, the so-called ‘rape kit’ will be tossed in an evidence room and sit there for ten years or more. Have you followed the news that’s come out about this the last couple of years? Every state across the nation is the same: they ignore and fail to prosecute these cases.
Someone has been shot – they are hurt! Would you call the police?
If you call 911, just hope that the ambulance arrives there first. Police will not find the shooter, and they certainly won’t help the injured person. They may, however, escalate and make things worse. In fact, this is the most likely outcome.
Ok, but what if someone is driving recklessly and endangering everyone on the road? Shouldn’t we call the police then?
Hmmm. What will the police do in this situation? They will begin a car chase, which will endanger even more people.
But how to deal with this situation – it’s a bit more tricky, because while there may be a reason for reckless driving (getting someone to a hospital, for example), it’s more likely just some selfish jerk who gets off by driving fast and furious. Maybe there’s a combination of solutions. We can use technology to slow them down – a machine that punctures their tires or something. I’m not sure. But I do know that there’s got to be a better way than calling the cops!
Interestingly, in Germany where the Autobahn highway has no speed limit, they have less of this type of behavior and fewer accidents, because people are used to driving faster.
And who knows, in a few more years we may not have this problem anymore because only the wealthiest will be able to afford Teslas and the rest of us will simply be out of gas as the fossil fuels deplete and the climate crisis exacerbates….
But I digress.
Back to my main point: when would you call the police?
Because I, personally, cannot think of a situation in which an alternative solution would not be better than calling in the cops.
In fact (and here’s a way to use white privilege if you have it), I have a black friend who experienced harassment from a racist neighbor who got drunk regularly and threatened my friend with racist slurs. Did we call the police? Hmm. Whose side do you think they would take? Instead we formed a vigil, taking shifts sitting in our vehicles outside my friend’s house and documenting the neighbor, and if the neighbor started up, trying to talk him down – we did this for a few days, and the neighbor stopped the harassment. I guess the racist neighbor felt intimidated by the fact that this person he’d been harassing had so many white friends willing to stand up and be there. I’m not saying this is a perfect solution – but maybe community mediation or some other intervention could have worked. But NOT the police.