Friday, October 22, 2021

On the Weakening of the Rule of Law in the United States

When law enforcement (i.e., police) conveniently exclude themselves from obeying law, the contradiction should, I submit, be sufficient for the perpetrators to be fired. It is not enough for their boss to chastise or even suspend the hypocrites, for they are inherently unfit for law enforcement, and should instead be treated as actual or potential criminals. What about when such a sordid mentality comes to proliferate through a police department, especially if it lies beyond the competence of a city government to hold even such a department accountable? What if a local political “law and order” culture tacitly exempts police and goes on to look the other way as the latter render the locality into a police state? I contend that the Phoenix metropolitan area, including the suburbs surrounding Phoenix itself, furnishes us with a case in point.

In a subway station in New York City in October, 2021, two cops shoved a passenger out of the station because he had asked them why they were not wearing masks, which federal law at the time required be worn on subways, light rail, street cars, buses, and indoor subway stations. The alpha male policeman lied in declaring to the passenger that he was “a disturbance,” and subsequently shouted. Sounds like a bully to me. Not exactly a fitting persona for people who can legally kill others, yet how many police departments willow out such misfits?

Whereas the bully component can be dramatic enough to grab headlines in the news, the presumptuous decision made by police employees—and this is what “officers” really are—that the law does not apply to them is noxious in its arrogance. As NYC mayor de Blasio said after viewing the video of the subway incident, “if you’re going to be in law enforcement, you actually have to participate in following the law.”[1] The mayor noted that the police had been given the mask-requirement instructions “a thousand times.” It was not as if the two police employees did not know that they were breaking the rule—and violating a federal regulation!—when they aggressively turned on the passenger who was motivated to see that the law was enforced. Janno Lieber, CEO of the MTA (the metro transit authority) put it well in saying, “I don’t want to see [passengers] being pushed out of the system by people who are not complying with the rules that the federal government sets. Come on, enough.”[2] 

Unfortunately, “Come on, enough” could be said of the Phoenix (Arizona) police department, which the U.S. Justice Department had found guilty of lying to the department about having denied police-accountability protesters their constitutional right of political protest. To knowingly intimidate protesters with excessive shows of guns, police employees and vehicles, and low-flying helicopters reveals an immaturity and lack of judgment on proportionality that de facto de-legitimate a police department even if such qualities are salient in the local culture.

In Phoenix, self-exemption from having to obey federal law had become overwhelmingly salient in the local culture, given the proportion of light-rail and bus passengers who did not wear masks—or wore them only covering their respective chins! Even a significant number of bus drivers had self-exempted themselves from the signs on the buses: “As Per Federal Law, Masks Must be Worn on the Bus.” Calling the mass transit authority (Metro Valley) to report some of the drivers who were disobeying company policy and violating federal law, I was stunned to hear, “Our drivers don’t have to wear masks. Don’t pay attention to the signs on the buses.” A manager of TransDev, one of the bus-operations sub-contractor, left a voicemail informing me that even though masks were required by federal law, the company had no such policy.” Interesting. Company policy trumps federal law. Welcome to Arizona.

In October, 2021, with passengers passing by to pay, this bus driver was violating federal law by refusing to wear a mask. I reminded her that masks are required on city buses. After I took my seat, she made a general announcement that if any (paying) customer on the bus feels unsafe, he can get off and catch the next bus. Notice that the driver had lowered the plexiglass "window" pane and thus was being unsafe (and thus inconsiderate). Her passive aggression in her hostile announcement added insult to injury even though she felt convinced that she was entitled to break federal law. This sense of entitlement backed up by passive (and active) aggression is salient in the local culture. I called in a complaint to the regional transit authority (Metro Valley) against that driver. 

A few weeks later, I witnessed the same driver again not wearing a mask. At least she had the plexiglass window pane up, though the federal regulation requires masks be worn by operators even behind plexiglass. I had heard back from TransDev, a subcontractor bus-operating company, telling me on my voicemail that the company policy allows drivers to go maskless, even in spite of the federal regulation. Metro Valley customer service had a week earlier informed me similarly that passengers can board the buses even though the company's signs on the buses forbit it as "per federal law." Such entitlement! Such willfulness! Such passive aggression! Such ignorance! A company policy does not outweigh a federal law or regulation. 

Seeing a managerial-level Phoenix policeman walking from his "Supervisor" car to the police substation on Central Ave near Arizona State University’s downtown Phoenix campus, I told him that I had encountered: bus drivers (and light rail security guards) refusing to wear masks and even allowing passengers to ride without wearing masks. I added that the regional transit authority and one of its sub-contractors arrogantly and ignorantly declaring that such passengers can ride and bus drivers need not wear masks.

To my profound, jaw-dropping astonishment, the police patrol manager informed me that “the only real law is Arizona law,” and my governor told us that we don’t have to follow that federal mandate.” Every law and regulation mandates, I said to correct for the man’s ignorant belief that a mandate is optional and does not have the force of law. I pointed out that state governments cannot constitutionally nullify federal law; South Carolina had learned this lesson in 1832. I also cited the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. “Where did you learn that?” the policeman asked, “At Yale?” I had told him that I had studied political theory (as well as theology) at Yale. The man’s disdain for higher education was just as salient as was his sordid ignorance, and of course he presumed that he could not be wrong. Unfortunately, the local workforce in general was saturated by unbelievable ignorance that would presume itself to be infallible and lash out as if in getting even.

I reported my conversation as well as the messages from the regional transit authority and its TransDev subcontractor to the office manager of the Phoenix mayor’s office. I even called the city manager’s office and asked for a managerial level employee to return my call. Instead, a misleading intern called me. Meanwhile, nothing changed in the mass transit system. Given the decadence in the local culture, I would have been surprised had anything changed. I was most concerned that the city government would not pounce on such outrageous statements by a police manager concerning federal law. Such utter corruption and an inert local government could produce a toxic, perfect storm beyond the reach of the U.S. Justice Department to counter, for the local police department and regional transit authority (and its two operations sub-contractors) had become infused with the local culture. 

Specifically, I am referring here to the sense of entitlement that laws can be ignored or simply dismissed if they are inconvenient, and the defense mechanism of hostility in the face of having the bloated, self-serving sense of entitlement questioned or contradicted outright. For instance, I called the police non-emergency number in 2021 to report loud bass from cars at a self-serve carwash near where I was living at the time. The offender was still present when the police arrived. To my utter shock, one of the two patrol police employees claimed that no law prohibits loud noise in a residential neighborhood. "The business owner has posted signs--right over there--citing the Arizona statues and the local ordinance number (2-22). Would you take a look?," I countered in a calm voice that belied my real objection to his ignorance. "No, I won't," he objected like a child. So the man-child would not even go to the offending pick-up truck to speak with the young men. While I was waiting for the business owner to call me back, the man-child slowly followed me as if I were a suspect rather than witness reporting an ongoing, almost daily crime that the local police had failed utterly to stamp out. The man-child's sense of entitlement was evident not only in his lying about the law, but also his abject refusal to drive or walk over to one of the signs. He assumed himself infallibly to be on solid ground, from which he then tried to intimidate me (hostility). Getting back at me for what? What sort of sordid mentality invents retribution out of thin air? A week after I had reported the man-child's behavior to his department, I received a call from a patrol supervisor, who was intent on arguing with me by insisting that the sign read "No Trespassing." "I don't doubt that such a sign exists there, but that's not the signs that I was referring to when I said that the signs read 'No loud noise, no revving engines, ...' and at the laws are cited at the bottoms of the signs--one posted at each post." The woman hung up on me. There would be no accountability within that woefully stubborn and corrupt police department, which had lied to the FBI concerning another matter: intimidating protestors who were protesting against police brutality in 2020.  A dysfunctional culture, whether of a locality or an organization, is extremely difficult to cure. 



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