Law is For Protection of the People

I couldn't resist the Kristofferson refererence; it's a funny song if you've never heard itAnyway, the flap over the Gates arrest continues. Today the police are hitting back. The most remarkable thing in the article is this quote from David Holloway the President of the International Brotherhood of police officers, "What we don't need is public safety officials across the country second-guessing themselves." I imagine this sounded good to Holloway when he said it but it's one of the stupidest things I've ever read from someone who's the president of anything. Do we really not want men with guns giving a second thought to the matter before they decide to light us up? I would say that precisely what we do want and need is for "public safety officials" to at least think things through before acting.
This whole case has gotten extremely muddled. It seems that most people think it stands and falls on whether Sgt. James Crowley is a racist, and beyond that the whole question of whether the Cambridge Police Department is guilty of racial profiling hangs on this case. We ought to put both aside. I don't think Crowley is a racist, and I don't know enough about Cambridge to make any judgment about racial profiling there. Step back from that and just consider this: A man was arrested in his own home, and his offense was basically mouthing off to the officer in question. It's not like he was hanging off the hood of the cop car or even physically threatening the cop. Even if we believe every word Crowley says and nothing Gates says, Gates "crime" was basically being a jerk. And this is the best interpretation you can put on Crowley's actions. To arrest someone for being a jerk to you is simply outrageous. It's nothing more than a power trip on the part of the officer.
If policemen really are professionals they need to show some restraint. If someone were to show up to my office hours waving around a graded paper he or she wasn't happy with and accusing me of some kind of bias in grading, the last thing I would do would be to flip out. If I did, I'd be in deep trouble and I'd deserve it. Being a professional, heck being a grown up, means that sometimes people say nasty things to you and you have to sit there and take it. Most of us have to as part of our jobs and we know it. Most of us have to as part of our private lives unless we want to step outside. But of course we all know that if we annoy the police we can get arrested (What does disorderly conduct even mean? The translation is basically what Prez said in "The Wire" after cold cocking a kid: "He was pissing me off.") Calling Crowley a rogue cop is pure histrionics; we're not talking about the Bad Lieutenant here, and calling him a racist is unwarranted too. But that doesn't let him off the hook. He abused his power to get back at someone who was annoying him. Shouldn't we be outraged by that?
The funny thing is that I have a harder time seeing this happening in Germany than I do in the supposedly freedom loving U.S. I'm tired of this line that the police are somehow above criticism because they have dangerous jobs. Yes they are professionals and yes they do have important jobs, but that's exactly why they need to think things through and why we should hold them to a high standard. The cops really do work for us, and there's two sides to that. If they do a good job we should be grateful, but they also have a responsibility to us. We do pay their salaries after all. Whether as a matter of fact it is or not, the law should be for the protection of the people.