Police-Public Encounters: It is all about the Ninth Commandment

It was not long after I arrived in the United States as an international student in the Spring of 1970 that I happened to witness a quirk in our justice system. A friend was summoned to the local court for a traffic violation – not stopping at a stop sign. He had decided to take his chance in the court instead of paying a fine. It was my first presence in any court of law to observe a hearing. What happened in the next few minutes took me aback.

The judge heard from the policeman and then addressed the defendant, my friend, in this case. He basically asked my friend if he thought the policemen’s description was accurate, adding the policemen “had no reason to lie.”. I remember telling myself why we were here if the policeman had no reason to lie. The case was already decided in favor of the one whom the judge had declared to be not lying.

A half century later, I recollect that courtroom encounter as indicative of what may be wrong with our justice system – the propensity to lie. Let’s delve into this a little bit.

There is no dearth of well researched evidence that in any police-public encounter, the tendency of the individual policeman – and the police establishment – is to lie. That is why the body camera movement caught everyone’s fancy and is now a routine requirement. That’s why the police report on Breonna Taylor’s death says there was no injury, implying perhaps Taylor died of supernatural causes, not of wounds traceable to police guns. Clearly the police know the truth but lies are more to their advantage. Our political leadership does not help a whole lot, when the President says he went to the White House bunker just to inspect it and the Secret Service says the President was rushed to the bunker due to protest across from the White House. A culture of lying permeates our institutions.

How would it help if police were to decide to tell the truth? 

It would be easier to hold to account the bad apples who dishonor the vast number of good police officers, but more importantly it will make it much easier to handle the tensions between police and affected citizens. The police – and the public – just needs to observe the ninth Commandment, and not bear false witness.