Shoutout to the only male officer in my former department who was openly a liberal.
I wonder if he knows how much safer his outspokenness made me feel, the only woman in a sea of armed, conservative-leaning men.
He was vocal about it, which was highly out of the ordinary. He’d always be made fun of for the compassion with which he’d handle calls: softie, snowflake… You know how they do. Surely similar was said about me when I wasn’t being accused of sleeping around.
I studied criminal justice in college, but my actual awareness of the ways politics affects communities smacked me in the face when I got on field training.
I’d only just graduated from the academy when Trump was elected. A college friend who’d gone on to law school called, drunk and sobbing, the night of the election.
Every week, we were hearing crazy shit about what Trump wanted law enforcement to do. He claimed he was going to weaponize us, sic us on already oppressed citizens we were supposed to be protecting.
My anger boiled at his treatment of women, the queer community I still denied belonging to, the intentionally underresourced communities of color we were so often unjustly called on to harass.
Our assistant chief had a bust of Trump in his office.
In his and other officers’ eyes, this was the new model of acceptable treatment. Any thin illusions of community care were paved over with this precedent.
I remember there was one particular time somebody had said something about one of his new, one of his latest atrocities, as though it was a good thing, in roll call, and me and this officer just looked at each other, and we were like, wide-eyed emoji.
It was... I don't know. I don't know where that popped into my head.
Interesting to look back on, the people I surround myself with now versus back then. And... having recently spoken with them. It's, like, really weird to, like, have these kinds of overlapping memories.
Because I feel like we're getting to the part... I guess it's that part of the year, too, where this is coming up on my trauma anniversary, and, uh...
I guess it's hitting in a weird way, especially this year, where things are so dire, but it also just like harkens back to like 4 or 5 years ago. And how scary and bad things were then.
Both personally and on a global level. Things were crazy. Are crazy.
But... I don't know, I also feel like there's hope there. When I think about liberal police officers, people who are fighting back.
It's just nice to see good people trying their best.