Officer A. Cab has written a powerful autobiographical article at Medium confessing and repenting of his 10 years as a cop.
He describes, from the inside, why police “reform” will never work. He also makes the argument for why “defunding” (though that word is misleading and unhelpful) the police is essential if we hope to see real change.
I hope you will read the entire piece. I have excerpted select sections below. You can find the entire article here. It is worth your time.
I was a police officer for nearly ten years and I was a bastard. We all were.
This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt.
——
While every cop’s individual biases come into play, it’s the profession itself that is toxic, and it starts from day 1 of training.
Every police academy is different but all of them share certain features: taught by old cops, run like a paramilitary bootcamp, strong emphasis on protecting yourself more than anyone else. The majority of my time in the academy was spent doing aggressive physical training and watching video after video after video of police officers being murdered on duty.
——-
Once police training has – through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle – promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you.
——
The question is this: did I need a gun and sweeping police powers to help the average person on the average night? The answer is no. When I was doing my best work as a cop, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker.
——
Police officers do not protect and serve people, they protect and serve the status quo, “polite society”, and private property. Using the incremental mechanisms of the status quo will never reform the police because the status quo relies on police violence to exist.
