Rosa Brooks - Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City

How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything:Tales from the Pentagon

Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (knife)Complainant advised that Suspect came knocking on his door looking for his girlfriend to fight her. Complainant stated that when he did not let Suspect in she pulled out a knife and stated Ill cut you. At which time Suspect cut Complainant on the right side of his chest. Causing a severe laceration. Complainant [was] transported to [the] hospital for treatment. Suspect would not advise [police] what happened she just stated yall didnt help me I hate the police.

MPD Joint Strategic and Tactical Analysis Command Center, Daily Report

Everyone you meet here would be happy to kill you, Murphy told me.

His eyes were scanning out the window as he drove, and he was punching keys on the patrol cars mobile computer with his right hand while he maneuvered the steering wheel with his left. Cop multitasking. Thats what you have to remember. These people hate you. They would dance around your dead body.

It was my first night as a patrol officer, and Murphy was showing me the ropes. We were driving down Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Washington, DCs Seventh Police District. Sandwiched between the Anacostia River to the west and the Maryland state line to the east, 7D is the poorest, saddest, most crime-ridden part of the nations capital. Gunshots are a common sound, and 7D regularly produces the lions share of DC homicides.

Still. Everyone? You think even the little old ladies here want to kill me? I asked.

Murphy gave me a tight smile. All right, almost everyone. But you have to watch out for some of these old ladies. Im telling you, people here are different from you and me. You and me, we dont want to get in trouble or get hurt or go to jail. Like, it would be a big deal to us. These people? Theyre so used to it, they just dont care.

We drove past a group of men with hoodies drawn up over their heads, hands in pockets. Murphy gave them a long, hard look, but their expressions remained scrupulously blank as our patrol car cruised by.

See that guy? Murphy asked, pointing to a gaunt man in a dirty Redskins sweatshirt. That guy, I must have picked him up five times for one thing or another. You know, stupid shit. He hits his girlfriend. He steals a candy bar from the 7-Eleven. Hes fighting with some other asshole. Hes selling K2 in front of the fucking middle school. Then he gets fucking shot, like, a month ago. Im first on the scene, hes lying there bleeding and Im saying to him, Man, who did this to you? Help me get him. And hes like, Oh, I think it must have just been an accident. Hes lying there bleeding, but he wouldnt fucking tell me anything. He almost died. Now hes back at the same corner with the same assholes. You want to explain that to me?

He shook his head. These fucking people.

In my forties, with two children, a spouse, a dog, a mortgage, and a full-time job as a tenured law professor, I decided to become a cop.

I could give you any number of plausible-sounding reasons for this. Im an academic with a long-standing interest in laws troubled relationship with violence and thought that learning about policing firsthand would lead to new scholarly insights. I had just finished writing a book about the changing role of the US military, and believed that becoming a police officer would allow me to better understand the blurring lines between war fighting and policing. I was dismayed by the statistics on police shootings and by the racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and wanted the insider experience that would enable me to become a credible and effective advocate for change. I was a onetime anthropology student, and considered participant observation the best way to understand cultures that might otherwise appear alien and incomprehensible.

All these were perfectly worthy and legitimate reasons for embarking on an otherwise unusual experiment, and they make decent retroactive justifications. But I had other, less noble impulses as well. I was restless, and not quite ready to subside into tenured comfort. I wanted something different and challenging, something nothing at all like a faculty meeting. I had probably read too much crime fiction.

I wasnt completely mad. I didnt quit my day job. Instead, I applied to become a reserve police officer with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).