If a local culture does not value
education, such that the public education system is weak, and furthermore engages
in and enables aggressive behavior, even self-protective statements and efforts
can provoke aggressive responses based on ignorance. In such a culture,
authorities may be particularly unlikely to stem such aggression, and they may
even be inclined to engage in active or passive aggression against victims rather
than enforce laws and rules. For existence, police called on a noise complaint
at an apartment complex may willfully or unwittingly turn on the complainer not
due to lack of noise, but, rather, out of ignorance as to what constitutes a
residential disturbance, fear of confronting people who are disturbing others,
a desire to inhibit future calls or simply due the aggressor’s bidding by blaming
the victim for complaining. Besides indicating a corrupt, sordid police
culture, that of the locality itself would likely be compromised. During a
pandemic, such pathology might be especially transparent because it is clear
when people and authorities are not only not enforcing laws and organizational
policies geared to protecting both employees and customers, but also acting against public health by turning on the
victims. The case of Arizona and, more particularly, the Phoenix police
department, is particularly revealing.
On March 30, 2020, the chief
executive of Arizona issued an executive order in response to the coronavirus
pandemic. With enumerated exceptions, people in Arizona were to stay in their
places of domicile. Essential activities constitute the first exception in the order.
Obtaining food (i.e., groceries) is first on the list of such activities.
Interestingly, outside exercise, including walking, and “constitutionally
protected activities such as speech and religion” are also listed.[1]
The order requires that when “individuals
ar using shared or outdoor spaces when outside their residence or property for
Essential Activities, they shall to the extent possible maintain physical
distancing of at least six feet from any other person, consistent with guidance
from the CDC.”[2]
The word shall here means must. The executive order is stronger than mere guidance. Even so, even local police in
Phoenix took physical distancing to be nothing stronger than CDC guidelines. Even
though the executive order states that “(n)o person shall be required to
provide documentation or proof of their activities to justify their activities
under this order,” the order was enforceable against infractions. Even so, the
police in Phoenix were not necessarily grasping this point.
For example, while I was shopping
at an Albertsons (Safeway) grocery store in Phoenix on May 1, 2020, when the
executive order was still in full effect, a man approached me very closely from
behind while I was at the front of a one-way aisle. Even though the “cash
register has emerged as the most dangerous place” in a grocery store, “according
to public health and worker safety experts,” the most dangerous place for
customers may be the aisles when confronted with a customer who not only
refuses to keep a distance, but also becomes physically and verbally abusive as
a result.[3]
The customer who I encountered
was confrontational and aggressive from the outset. He refused to step back,
causing me to back up past the product I had been selecting. I asked him to
step back so I could get the product, but he told me I would have to go down
the aisle and come around again. We were at logger-heads. The aisle was too
narrow for him to pass me. Indeed, passing me so closely would have violated
the store requirement that six feet
be maintained where possible (e.g., excepting the cashier area). While I was
calling for a store employee or manager to come (none did), the other customer
rammed into my cart, causing it to block the narrow aisle. Both he and his wife
(far behind him) were hurling insults to me even though he had violated the
store requirement. Even as I was walking to the store manager’s office, the
customer’s wife felt the need to insult me. It is such aggression on top of
fault that I submit is particularly toxic, as well as prevalent in the local
culture there.
A police supervisor claimed he couldn't tell tell from either my video or the store's who slammed into whom. Why would a police manager lie? I had called to complain about his subordinate, but the supervisor managed to dissimulate and deflect (indicative of the culture).
Adding insult to injury, when the police arrived—seven or eight of them!—after I had agreed to the manager’s suggestion that I report the aggression to them, four of the police were positionally or vocally hostile and even confrontational with me even in approaching me. Put another way, when the caller is the victim, he or she does not need three police standing in a hostile pose behind the police employee conversing with the victim. Such distrust applied to a victim is consistent with blaming the victim.
Even though the store manager
told me later that she had told the police that the store requirement on
physical distancing was not a suggestion, the policewoman told me that the
manager had told her otherwise. I showed the police employee a large sign indicating that maintaining six feet of distance was a store requirement and told her that a store policy is not a suggestion, then she was once again antagonistic, threatening me by asking me if I understand that I could be charged with assault because my cart blocked the aisle after the other customer repeatedly slammed into the cart.
I don't know why law enforcement would even venture an opinion on a store policy (and getting that wrong) when it is clear that law enforcement enforces laws. The police employee even got the law wrong. She erroneously claimed that the governor’s executive order only gave a guideline for physical distancing, so it was unenforceable. Strangely, she even told me that the police cannot enforce a store policy, or suggestion as she viewed a policy to be. “A store policy is not a law,” the police employee told a man with three degrees in business. Perhaps because she was irked at me for knowing more, she even told me that I had committed an assault against the customer who had rammed my cart because my cart was blocking the aisle. Incredible!
I don't know why law enforcement would even venture an opinion on a store policy (and getting that wrong) when it is clear that law enforcement enforces laws. The police employee even got the law wrong. She erroneously claimed that the governor’s executive order only gave a guideline for physical distancing, so it was unenforceable. Strangely, she even told me that the police cannot enforce a store policy, or suggestion as she viewed a policy to be. “A store policy is not a law,” the police employee told a man with three degrees in business. Perhaps because she was irked at me for knowing more, she even told me that I had committed an assault against the customer who had rammed my cart because my cart was blocking the aisle. Incredible!
Was there no limit to the lengths
that the local police would go to blame the victim? Later, when I spoke with
the policewoman’s supervisor, who had also been at the store but had not
bothered to speak with me, I was stunned when he claimed that he couldn’t tell
from the store’s video (and presumably mine, as the police woman had shown my
video to him in the store) who was slamming whose cart. After the police herd
had left the store, the store manager and I examined very closely the store
video, and we agreed that the other customer had rammed my cart—not vice versa.
Yet later, the police supervisor claimed that nothing of the sort was on the
tape (including my own!) and that the store manager had agreed with him. “It is
on tape,” I told the supervisor by phone. “You’re wrong,” he said, “maybe your
conduct was disorderly.” He was threatening to charge me with disorderly
conduct!
In short, the local police seem
to have been getting away with turning the tables on victims, especially if a
police employee (or supervisor!) is annoyed when a victim tries to support his
or her claim even with audio-video by returning to the matter of the actual
aggression. Even when I called in a complaint against loud, heavy-bass music near
my apartment, the policeman who responded felt the need to focus on me rather
than the ordinance-violator. “She says that you taping her music from inside
your apartment is harassment.” Even getting some evidence away from the culprit’s
apartment outside would not constitute harassment. In fact, for a police
department to discourage evidence and then refuse to intercede for lack of
evidence (i.e, he said, she said) suggests (just a suggestion!) a dysfunctional
police culture (as well as incompetent employees). For a police department to
take such a counter-claim seriously and even use an accusation-tone with the
victim of the disturbing loud noise may suggest (just a suggestion!) that the
police employees are habituated to blaming the victim or even viewing every
call as a dispute rather than a complaint.
In my conversations with the
policewoman at Safeways and her supervisor later by phone, neither person wanted
to talk about the aggression against me. They were both accusatory throughout. Even
though I had both the store requirement and that in the governor’s executive
order backing me up (as well as even my video of the incident), the strategy of
the police was to undermine me at every point—too keep the focus on me—even accusing
me of physical assault and disorderly conduct. The store manager had suggested
that I let her call the police, and I concluded after the police herd had left
that I could no longer trust the police to even focus on aggressors. Such
passive aggression, moreover, is a glaring indication of a dysfunctional
department culture.
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
Nathaniel Meyersohn, “This
Is the Most Dangerous Place in the Grocery Store,” CNNbusiness, May 1, 2020
(accessed same day).
