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I Wish I Could Trust You

Can you imagine what it would be like to have faith in the authorities?

Last year, in sixth grade, Sandy made a new best friend. The superlative, of course, means nothing—kids have lots of best friends now. This one was her new-middle-school best friend, and we’ll call her Cassandra1. The two of them spent a lot of time together after school, wandering around our Brooklyn neighborhood, buying candy, hanging out at Atlantic Terminal. The usual stuff 11- and 12-year-olds do.

We never really saw much of Cassandra. Sandy’s a pretty private person, and she doesn’t talk that much about her social life—she’ll generally just refer to someone as “my friend,” and we have to pry the actual name out of her. So Cassandra remained a bit of a mystery: We knew she lived in Dumbo, we knew her grandmother often picked her up from school and would shepherd these mall trips, and we learned one more thing—a detail that made me question whether this entire relationship was appropriate: We learned that Cassandra’s dad was a cop.

Now, I’m being a little facetious here. We weren’t really going to tell Sandy she couldn’t be friendly with a cop’s kid—that’s ridiculous. (Right?) At the same time, what would this friendship mean long-term? As parents, we tend to like socializing, at least once in a while, with the parents of our kids’ friends. Would this be awkward? How could we integrate them into our broader social circle of commies and criminals? Maybe this was premature; maybe Cassandra’s dad was in one of the less-problematic NYPD divisions, like IT enforcement, internal affairs, or collaborative policing. Maybe he was that rarest of unicorns: a good cop.

Still, all my instincts told me to keep our distance, a reaction that is built into my soul at this point. From the age of 12 to the age of 19, I was constantly on the lookout for—and often on the run from—the police. I was a skateboarder, therefore a trespasser and a disturber of the peace, not to mention a smart-ass, and I quickly developed a keen sense for the presence of security guards, rent-a-cops, and actual police. When I heard them coming, I was outta there.

More recently, my wariness has been based in, you know, the actual news. You don’t need me to rehash every single police abuse of this still-new millennium, do you? And even though such abuse is typically targeted at a demographic to which this middle-aged white man does not belong, the lesson still stands: Avoid interaction with the police at all costs. Don’t talk to them, don’t make eye contact, don’t joke around with them, don’t watch them being amusing on TikTok and think they might be okay. Pretend they’re not there (except they are), unless you see them while you’re driving on the highway, and then you slow down. Stay out of situations where police might need to be called, and only call them yourself as an absolute last resort—when life is on the line.

It’s not so much that I worry that I might become their target. It’s that I fundamentally can’t trust them to put my interests—my safety, my life—ahead of their own. They will always, always choose their side not just over my side but over any other side—and over the right side. I get that to a degree. In any organization, especially a quasi-military one like the police, you want to have that unifying camaraderie. If cops can’t trust other cops to stand by them, especially in life-threatening moments, that’s a shitty situation for the cops.

But it’s an even shittier situation for us civilians. We who have no power simply have to hope that Officer Schmo is a good guy, having a good day with a good partner, and that they will remain professional whatever comes to pass. Most of the time, maybe they will. But not all of the time. And we never know when that will be. So I stay alert, and I stay away.

I hate thinking this way. It’s depressing. I don’t want to live with a core of distrust in my soul. I prefer to believe people are good, and to act as if goodness, kindness, peace, and generosity are the default state of anyone I encounter. Usually, they are, and approaching new people and new situations with this attitude may even make it so. But with this one group of people—this very large group, who number 36,000 in my city alone—I just can’t do it.

But man, how I wish I could! I want to trust the police. I want to trust the authorities in general, from beat cops on up to, I don’t know, maybe the president? I want to be able to relax, to know they’ve got my back, that they’re acting not just on my behalf but on behalf of all the citizens and residents of this city and this country. That they will choose the side of righteousness, even if it means going against their comrades and colleagues, because they have a duty to do so. That they will realize there are bigger things at stake than their own careers and lives, that their actions have broad and often unforeseeable consequences that will echo for decades after they’ve retired or left office. That our being able to trust them may actually be the most important thing there is, and that if they lose that, they’ve lost everything, and so have we.

Can you imagine what it would be like to live in such a place? Maybe you already do. Maybe there’s one country, or a handful of countries, where authorities do take their promise to the public seriously, and citizens can just chill the fuck out and get on with their lives without this perpetual anxiety. If you do live there, or know of a place like that, please let me know—I might even consider moving. One question first, though: How’s the street food?

Until then, I’m here, comedically paranoid about my kids’ friends’ parents and glancing over my shoulder at anyone in blue. I’m here side-eyeing every public statement from every quasi-corrupt, low-ambition pol. I’m here crossing every finger and toe I possess in the hope that my family and friends and I will skate through this mess, and the messes to follow, relatively unscathed (if still subtly traumatized). I’m here because there’s nowhere else to go.

I tend to think, as you may have noticed, in chunks of 1,500 words, which doesn’t easily fit on the kind of placard you’d bring to a protest march. My opinions have gradations, my caveats caveats, and I’m never sure how serious I am about anything I say. But if and when the protests erupt again, early next year, I think I may finally haul my ass out there, hoisting a sign that says—simply, directly, and with all the earnestness I can muster—I WISH I COULD TRUST YOU. The people it’s intended for probably won’t even notice it, and likely won’t understand it anyway. But you will.

Notes
  1. I’m always gonna go with a meaningful Greek pseudonym.

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