Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

its text read: 'The Civilian Review Board must be stopped. Her life, your life,may depend on it."119 Another poster showed a riot-torn street, cluttered withrubble and lined with damaged storefronts. The caption stated: 'This is theaftermath of a riot in a city that had a civilian review board."120 An August 18,1966, Reporter editorial titled "Ucense to Riot" worked from the same theme:"Did you see the pictures of those Cleveland riots, of Negro thieves runningwild, in and out of wrecked establishments, arms loaded? And did you see thecops standing by, idly watching the debauchery? That was the result of a PoliceReview Board."l2lAs the November election approached, police tactics became more brazen.The PBA and their supporters packed a meeting about the review board,chaired by Councilman Theodore S. Weiss. Former FBI agent William Turnerdescribed the scene:Thousands of off-duty policemen in uniform, with service revolvers strappedon and wearing PBA buttons (the buttons were later removed at the requestof the police commissioner) tightly ringed City Hall and packed its corridors.Many carried signs with such slogans as "What About Civil Rights For Cops,"[and] "Don't Let The Reds Frame The Police." Adding to the spectacle weredozens of American nazis and] ohn Birch Society members toting Americanflags and shouting encouragement to the police.122The New York review board was defeated by a two-to-one margin-1,313,161to 765,468.12.1 Elsewhere during the same period, similar battles were fought morequietly, with police associations convincing city councils or mayors to refuse proposals for review boards-sometimes even dismantling existing boards. Suchwas the story in Los Angeles, Denver, Cincinnati, Seattle, Detroit, Newark, SanDiego, Hartford, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.124But it is worth noting that the police were not univocal in their oppositionto civilian review. In many cases, associations of Black officers openly favoredthe review proposalsY5 In New York, when one such group, the Guardians,released a statement expressing their support of the mayor's proposal, a PBAspokesman protested, "they put their color before their duties and their oathas policemen."12G It seems that the PBA saw its own political agenda as determiningthe scope and content of official police duty.Ibis view was given a fuller expression in August 1968, when PBA presidentJohn Cassese issued his own orders concerning police behavior during demonstrations.Cassese instructed PBA members, "If a superior tells a man to ignore aviolation of the law, the policeman will take action notwithstanding that order."127When the PBA finally published its full guidelines they turned out to be morebark than bite, as they mostly just paraphrased existing laws and policies, but theepisode demonstrated something of the PBA's aimS.128 In particular, it suggestedan emerging system of dual-power within police agencies, with commandersand union-leaders sometimes sharing and sometimes competing for control.Ibis situation was a natural outgrowth of earlier struggles for departmentalautonomy, like that against the Civilian Review Board.In the course of these conflicts, the political ambitions of police became moreaggressive: they not only sought to insulate themselves from all outside control,but also wanted to exercise control over other areas of the government and public135