Cop Writes Washington Post Op-Ed Defending Police Brutality

“Here is the bottom line: if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you.”

Ferguson, Missouri? 

Try the Washington Post.

The advice comes from a veteran police officer, writing on the Post’s PostEverything site, which since its launch been a reliable bucket of patently offensive takes on issues that are consuming the rest of the internet (recently, two university professors wrote on PostEverything that marriage is the best antidote to domestic violence). Los Angeles Police Department officer Sunil Dutta takes up the question of how to avoid running afoul of the police,  Michael Brown, the 18-year-old shot at least six times and killed August 8 by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson. 

“Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names,” Dutta writes. “Don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge.”

In other words, shut up and take it, because even the slightest bit of intransigence is grounds for the cops to unleash a world of hurt. If you’ve got complaints, shelve them for later, Dutta says.

“Do what the officer tells you to and it will end safely for both of you,” he writes. “We have a justice system in which you are presumed innocent; if a cop can do his or her job unmolested, that system can run its course. Later, you can ask for a supervisor, lodge a complaint or contact civil rights organizations if you believe your rights were violated.” Or, wait for your complaint to get buried under mountains of paperwork and or dismissed outright. In DC, for instance, only 66 of the 358 complaints filed last year against Metropolitan Police Department officers were sustained, according to figures released this week.

Dutta admits that he, like nearly every other observer in this case, doesn’t know exactly what transpired before Wilson fired his gun, but Dutta’s take on the Ferguson situation is dosed with enough experience—in addition to spending 17 years with the LAPD, he also moonlights as a college instructor in Colorado—to make his points at least appear logical. But to say that putting up a verbal argument warrants bringing out the billy clubs, stun guns, or actual guns only stokes what’s been seen coming out of Ferguson in the past week—images of peaceful demonstrators being met with a lines of officers rigged with military-grade equipment, marchers being fogged with canisters of tear gas, and people being slugged with rubber bullets after not moving quickly enough.

Dutta tries to generate some sympathy for the cops, writing, “An average person cannot comprehend the risks and has no true understanding of a cop’s job.” Neither does Dutta, however, if he thinks encounters with police officers can only end with immediate submission or the deployment of overwhelming force. 

That’s the argument by New York Police Department Sergeant Jon Murad, another scholar-cop who wrote on his blog over the weekend that even if Brown did physically engage the officer who shot him, if he signaled his surrender, Wilson’s gun should have remained holstered.

“Shooting someone trying to take your gun is lawful, especially if he’s a significant physical threat; shooting someone surrendering with their hands up is not, even when it’s the same guy and mere seconds separate the events,” Murad writes.

Murad assessment is more sober, though far less click-baiting than something that screams “I’m the police! Do as I say or else!”

Benjamin Freed

Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.