Confused and Defensive about Cops

.... by Mar Preston 

I write crime fiction about a cop and his world, a homicide detective in the Santa Monica Police Department.

Detective Dave Mason has his faults, of course, but try as I might, I do not have the imagination to fit him into being a member of the Ferguson Police Department. I’ve written before about worrying that I have too rosy a view of cops because I only interact with the good ones. I know there are cops who like making DWB (Driving While Black) busts, cops who like busting heads, cops who should be kept on a chain at the back of the station.

Knowing that, I still believe there are few of them, and others in the department know who they are. The vast majority of cops still have a broad streak of protect and serve built into them.

I also know that law enforcement is set up as a paramilitary organization. Militarization of police forces has filtered down from big cities, to suburb, even small towns. Today’s riot police officers wear military-style camouflage and carry military-style rifles, their heads and faces obscured by black helmets and gas masks sitting atop an armored vehicle.

SWAT teams generally came to prominence in the 1970s as an answer to quelling urban demonstrations, but  those paramilitary tactics and equipment have spread almost everywhere in America through the 1033 program. This program makes available surplus Department of Defense equipment, meant to defend against a terrorist attack.  Not peaceful demonstrations.

The number of SWAT deployments has exploded since 1980, and the growing militarization of U.S. policing (even to make routine search warrants) seems to have overcome all the precepts of community policing. What’s happening to Officer Friendly?

I’ve read police bogs and commentary stating that this tactical equipment obtained from the Department of Justice is not accepted and used without local consideration of their impact. But not in Ferguson. I have read the statement and seen the video the Ferguson police have issued and I’m skeptical. However, this is a story that may unroll in ways that we cannot imagine now.

Yet we cannot help to form perceptions on the way things look. The military gear looks damn scary to me and to everybody else. I dread to see the day when sniper rifles are pointed in the face of peaceful demonstrators (like the people I know and demonstrations that have been part of) in Santa Monica.

I’m glad I write fiction and don’t have to decide what is truth in an increasingly complex world in which I have very little, if any, impact.

Tell me what you think about this as crime writers?

On Behalf of the Family - a Pollice Procedural

Confused and Defensive about Cops

….   By Mar Preston

I write crime fiction about a cop and his world, a homicide detective in the Santa Monica Police Department.

Detective Dave Mason has his faults, of course, but try as I might, I do not have the imagination to fit him into being a member of the Ferguson Police Department. I’ve written before about worrying that I have too rosy a view of cops because I only interact with the good ones. I know there are cops who like making DWB (Driving While Black) busts, cops who like busting heads, cops who should be kept on a chain at the back of the station.

Knowing that, I still believe there are few of them, and others in the department know who they are. The vast majority of cops still have a broad streak of protect and serve built into them.

I also know that law enforcement is set up as a paramilitary organization. Militarization of police forces has filtered down from big cities, to suburb, even small towns. Today’s riot police officers wear military-style camouflage and carry military-style rifles, their heads and faces obscured by black helmets and gas masks sitting atop an armored vehicle.

SWAT teams generally came to prominence in the 1970s as an answer to quelling urban demonstrations, but  those paramilitary tactics and equipment have spread almost everywhere in America through the 1033 program. This program makes available surplus Department of Defense equipment, meant to defend against a terrorist attack.  Not peaceful demonstrations.

The number of SWAT deployments has exploded since 1980, and the growing militarization of U.S. policing (even to make routine search warrants) seems to have overcome all the precepts of community policing. What’s happening to Officer Friendly?

I’ve read police bogs and commentary stating that this tactical equipment obtained from the Department of Justice is not accepted and used without local consideration of their impact. But not in Ferguson. I have read the statement and seen the video the Ferguson police have issued and I’m skeptical. However, this is a story that may unroll in ways that we cannot imagine now.

Yet we cannot help to form perceptions on the way things look. The military gear looks damn scary to me and to everybody else. I dread to see the day when sniper rifles are pointed in the face of peaceful demonstrators (like the people I know and demonstrations that have been part of) in Santa Monica.

I’m glad I write fiction and don’t have to decide what is truth in an increasingly complex world in which I have very little, if any, impact.

Tell me what you think about this, my fellow crime writers?

http://www.amazon.com/Behalf-Family-Detective-Mason-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00I82BFVK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408252352&sr=8-1&keywords=mar+preston

A question I often get when talking to readers is are your characters based on real people? Most of mine are pure figments of my imagination, thought admittedly they sometimes bear a few characteristics of people I have known. In my new book, The Good, The Bad and The Murderous, however, a central character in the story is a fictionalized version of a young man whose story appeared in the local press.

He was Nashville's youngest murderer in recent memory, who shot a man during a drug deal when he was twelve years old. The article told what had happened, that he had been tried as an adult and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. He was now out after spending more than half his life behind bars. He vowed to stay out of trouble but hadn't been able to find a job.

I modeled a character named Djuan Burden after him. Fortunately, the newspaper put an interview with the young man on it's website, giving me ideas for some of the dialogue.

The book opens with Djuan going into a medical equipment store to complain about a Medicare document showing his grandmother owed money on a power chair, which she didn't need and never received. He finds the owner of the store, which turns out to be a Medicare scam operation, shot in the head. He panics, knowing the police would never believe he wasn't the shooter, and flees.

None of the other characters in the book was based on a real person, but when I lifted Djuan out of real life (I even got the name Djuan from a male nurse in my doctor's office), it set the tone for the book. Instead of a story about Medicare fraud, it turned into a tale about police misconduct.

I've had a few other characters over the years based loosely on real people, but, with the exception of one in my first published novel, they all played minor roles.

Chester Campbell

Mystery Mania