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 oward
Safir was police commissioner of New York City up until a year ago,
serving under Mayor Giuliani, an old friend and confederate. His
reputation was that of an enormously resourceful manager. It hadn't
mattered in the least, when Giuliani offered him the job, that he
had never served in any police department (his career had been in
fire and drugs). Things like that don't bother professionals: If
you are omnicompetent, you can handle anything. And Safir did, presiding
over a crime reduction at a higher rate than anywhere in the country.
He implemented the idea of specifying anti-criminal procedures with
reference to local circumstances. So why, the visitor asked, are
we getting this front-page news that urban police jobs are unwanted
and that recruiting is down drastically? His answer was characteristically
unambiguous: "You've got to be brain dead if you don't know."
The brainy caller pleaded innocent, and Mr. Safir, now an executive
with ChoicePoint, a corporate security firm, explained. Policemen,
he said, do not feel that they are esteemed members of the community.
What is the primary reason for this? Their treatment by the press,
he said.
Obviously it isn't that entirely. The mood out there, particularly
in the black community, is skeptical and not objective. Safir spoke
of addressing a meeting of the Urban League three years ago--"they're
African-American professionals, doctors, lawyers, accountants. One
member got up and said that his advice to his son, if ever accosted
by a policeman, was to raise his hands up on the nearest wall, lean
forward, and let the policeman do whatever he wants to do." Safir
found it astonishing that most of those attending the meeting nodded
in agreement.
The problem of the urban black and law enforcement has much to do
with the nature and frequency of encounters with the police. "I
spoke to one group of 300 black kids and asked how many had had
an encounter with the police. About half of them raised their hands.
I asked those with hands raised, How had that encounter been? Half
of them were still sore. They walked away with a bad impression
of the police."
Howard Safir emphasized, as commissioner, the need for police doing
their duty to — his word — "apologize" when relevant.
"Look, if there is a robbery and somebody is spotted, and the witness
says it was a young black guy, or a Hispanic, about five feet ten,
you go out and talk to a lot of people in the area." Those who were
picked up and later released should be apologized to, said Safir,
who encouraged the practice. But making headway when the media want
to complain about race profiling and when Al Sharpton is sitting
there--that's difficult. "Al Sharpton. Yes, I disagreed with my
boss on that one. He just refused to talk to Sharpton. I'd have
done it."
"Would that have done any good?"
"No. But he wouldn't have been able to go on saying that the New
York City brass wouldn't talk to him."
Recruitment of police officers is down 50 percent and more. Efforts
to recruit black policemen in New York City haven't raised the number
on the force. Yes, wages are less than corresponding wages in the
suburbs. And yes, in Los Angeles there are the scandals, and a reluctance
of many senior officers to solicit or accept promotion, which is
an invitation to head-on encounters with the media.
But mostly, says Safir, big-city police officers need to feel that
the media are on their side. The story in that morning's New
York Times ("City Police Work Losing Its Appeal and Its Veterans")
told of an off-duty police chief in Seattle who, when jogging, spotted
a woman in distress. He gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and,
delivering her to the hospital, was given hepatitis B shots. The
police-news event in the evening paper was of a pedestrian injured
after a police car- chase.
Well, off-duty policemen should be expected at the least to be good
citizens, but if they want to live free of the emanations of Al
Sharpton, they'll have to pack off, past Vieques, even.
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