A Few Bad Apples Are On Administrative Leave So The Barrel's Fine People
The expression isn’t, “a few bad apples are tragic, but don't affect the whole barrel.”
It’s not, “A few bad apples have been placed on administrative leave, so the barrel’s fine, nothing to see here.”
It’s NOT, “A few bad apples will be effectively retrained by the rest of the barrel, no need to involve outside barrel inspections.”
The expression is “a few bad apples ROT THE WHOLE BARREL,” and we've got a shitload of rotten apples on our hands.
When was the last time you saw a police officer prevent another police officer from committing an act of brutality?
We live in the age of cameraphones, and lord knows the news cycle loves nothing more than a feel-good cop story. Remember when that cop caught the woman shoplifting on Thanksgiving day, and instead of arresting her he went back to the store and paid for the food and then drove her to her tent so she didn't get hurt in traffic? We all saw that body cam footage. Wasn't that nice?
(She was white, by the way.)
So where are all the videos of the good apples, the cops who prevent their rotten barrelmates from committing murder and trauma? Where are the reports from officers who witness brutality and run it up the flag pole to protect people from their armed and dangerous co-workers? Where are the supervisors who act on those reports?
Where are the police officers who see their friends and colleagues pointing guns at children, and put their bodies in front of those kids? You know, to serve and protect?
Where are all the videos of police officers marching for an end to brutality and state-sanctioned murder? Where are the videos of them being pepper-sprayed and beaten while kneeling in the street?
I'm not talking about the videos of cops last summer kneeling with protestors or marching for half a mile before strapping on their riot gear and brutalizing the protestors they'd just hugged for the cameras.
Where is the police demand for oversight? Where is the police-led petition to demilitarize themselves? Why don't we see police officers standing under signs that say "Police killings are gun violence," and where is the union leadership facilitating a strike until ironclad accountability measures are in place?
Where the fuck are you in all this, good apples?
Because I've got news for you. If you think you're a good apple but you don't understand the urgency, the panic, the heartbreak, and the justified terror behind "abolish the police," then you need to take a closer look at yourself.
There's a part of you that's snuggled up to those bad apples, part of you that's been softened by them, part of you that you want to turn away from friends and guests, out of embarrassment, out of shame.
And look, I get it!
The first time I heard "abolish the police," I thought woah woah woah let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water! YES, we should be reforming police departments so they have accountability, but get rid of them altogether?? I’m getting a strong clench reaction on that one, chief.
Who will I call if someone breaks into my house? Who will I call if I come across a car accident and people need help? How does a society maintain boundaries of safety without enforcement of those boundaries?
Well, now I know the statistics on solving burglaries. Now I know that fire departments do the vast majority of emergency medical care. And now I know how common it is for police to retraumatize victims over the course of rape and assault investigations that almost never even process the rape kits, much less lead to convictions.
Sooooo… yeah. I’m here now. Abolish the police.
I grew up thinking that police officers were good guys. The only warning I ever got about police officers was that if a plainclothes officer in an unmarked vehicle ever tried to pull me over, I should pull over, crack my window, keep my doors locked, and request a marked car. Not because a plainclothes officer could hurt me, but because a bad guy disguised as a plainclothes officer could.
When I got in an accident at 16, the cops comforted me as if I were their own daughter. On some level I knew that I was being coddled because I was a young woman; now I know it was also because I was white, but at the time I wasn’t aware of my race in the context of my interactions with law enforcement.
As a young adult, I learned to expect state violence as legislative, not individually punitive. Politicians would try to vote my body out from under me, but a cop would have my back in a dark parking lot.
I knew “the government” would sell me out, but I didn’t see police officers as an extension of the government. I saw them as apolitical, and frankly, interchangeable—a peacekeeping force of Ken dolls. I always felt a jolt when I looked into an actual police officer’s face and saw acne scars, wobbly cheeks, a heavy brow... Oh! He’s… a real person.
For a long time I couldn’t understand that jolt. Why I felt afraid when I saw police officers as real people. But now I think I get it.
Like all people, police officers bring themselves to work every day. They bring a lifetime of experiences, opinions, biases, bad habits, weird predilections, flawed coping mechanisms, shitty breakups, parent-inflicted damage, irrational fears, and emotional triggers to work with them every day.
Then they put on a gun.
Time and time again we see police officers seek the shelter of their humanity after they act with inhumanity. “I’m only human, I made a mistake” is the go-to defense, when it should be the decision-making driver. “I’m human. They’re human. We will all need to live with what happens next.”
There’s something uniquely ghoulish about a murderer retreating behind the cover of compassion after they’ve annihilated someone, and the entire universe of love that surrounded them, with a total lack of the same. Oh, NOW you’re human! Before, when you were the one holding the gun, you were Zeus almighty, or Mars, the God of war. But now that you’re the one staring down the barrel of an angry mob, you’re just mommy’s little boy again. Now you’re the one crying, please don’t hurt me. But I volunteer at the animal shelter. But I read to my kids every night. But I’m human.
Sure, now you’re human. Now, after you’ve done what can never be undone. After you made a horrible, preventable mistake you should never have been in a position to make.
You should not be in a position to shoot a young man in the chest during a routine traffic stop. Shooting shouldn’t be on the menu. Shooting shouldn’t be possible.
You should not be in a position to shoot a child in the chest, when his empty hands are in the air. You should not have a gun in your hands, along with that lifetime of experiences, opinions, biases, bad habits, weird predilections, flawed coping mechanisms, shitty breakups, parent-inflicted damage, irrational fears, emotional triggers when you are facing a thirteen-year-old boy with his hands in the air.
So where are the cops demanding to be taken OUT OF THAT POSITION?
Where are the cops screaming “THIS SHIT ISN’T WORKING FOR US EITHER, please train me to do something besides charge money and murder.”
Where are the cops demanding their departments sell their tanks to pay for drug treatment outreach, mental health interventions, domestic violence interventions, trained de-escalation personnel, shelters and advocates, non-punitive resources?
In a society where one party holds the power, and another bears the responsibility, one party will act with impunity and the other will be punished for those actions. That's not justice. That's not peace. That's law enforcement. That's violence. That's terrorism.
That’s an epidemic of rot. And it feels like we’d all rather keep turning those rotten apples so all we can see is the pristine, uninfected flesh. We keep turning them until all the flesh is infected, and then we look at rotten apples and have nothing to compare them to, so we begin to believe that’s just what apples look like.
If you don’t believe me, do this experiment.
Put a bowl of apples on your table and add one rotten apple.
Wait two weeks.
Invite your mother-in-law over for lunch.
What do you want to do with those mushy, fly-speckled apples? Wash them? Turn them? Rearrange them in the bowl? Maybe if you put them in a new bowl… maybe if you cover them with a cloth…
At some point, the rot is screaming.
At some point, you become embarrassed that you were used to living with it. That you didn’t find it unacceptable.
At some point, there’s only one thing you can do.
The question that only you can answer is this: what is that point for you?
Is it when a mother or father gets shot? We’re there.
Is it when a pretty young person gets shot? We’re there.
Is it when a child gets shot? Because we’re there. We’ve been there.
Is it when a child who looks like your child gets shot?
Is it when a child you know gets shot?
Is it when your own…
It flushes my body with terror to think about it. Not just to think about that phone call and how badly I’d wish for my own death from that phone call on, but to think about needing to wait to that point, that point of firsthand annihilation, to say enough is enough.
To think about how many more names I’d need to learn. How many more?
Rest in peace, Daunte. Rest in peace, Adam.
If you liked this post, please donate to The Loveland Foundation, an organization that provides mental health support to Black women and girls.
These tragedies wound far more than the people who lose loved ones. They terrorize and traumatize entire communities. Which is exactly the point.