- by Rana Lau
On February 26, 2013, Trayvon Martin, a seventeen year old black teenager visiting his father in Florida was shot to death. George Zimmerman, who was a volunteer neighborhood watch leader of the gated community where Martin’s father lived, was on patrol because of recent home burglaries that had been occurring. Zimmerman saw Martin on his way home from purchasing some snacks and immediately called 911 to report Martin as a “suspicious” person. The dispatcher instructed Zimmerman to wait for officers to arrive and not to approach Martin. By the time the police arrived, Zimmerman and Martin had gotten into a fight that resulted in Zimmerman shooting Martin in the chest which led to his death. Initially, Zimmerman was not arrested as he claimed he had shot Martin in self-defense but was eventually charged with second-degree murder and later acquitted in court.
This case shows how community policing and community participation may not always work as we would hope it would. We’ve discussed the different roles of citizens and the idea of who is really in charge in terms of policing. In this case, Zimmerman performed his role as citizen and made the call to inform law enforcement, however, he took matters into his own hands and stepped out of his “role” when he continued to follow Martin, which led to an altercation and Martin’s death (it is still unclear how Martin and Zimmerman came into contact with each other). In audio recordings of Zimmerman’s call with the 911 dispatcher, he is heard saying, “they always get away”, as if questioning the law enforcement’s ability to capture suspects or arrive in a timely manner. Zimmerman showed a lack of trust in law enforcement, when in fact the neighborhood watch group should be working alongside the police. Zimmerman wanted to be the crime-fighting hero. Had Zimmerman kept his distance from Martin as instructed, a death may have been prevented. Zimmerman chose to defy the dispatcher’s instructions not to follow Martin, which essentially contradicts the purpose of calling for law enforcement. If you’re not going to follow their instructions, why bother calling them at all? I think it’s ironic, the neighborhood watch group is a result of community (soft) policing, yet Zimmerman has hard policing ideals. We discussed how many veteran officers are unwilling to become these “soft” officers and are more inclined to be the “hard” aggressive cops, yet here is a community member who has also chosen the aggressive path and has lack of faith in law enforcement. How can we expect law enforcement to turn to “softer” strategies when we ourselves are unwilling to cooperate?
Sources:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trayvon-martin-shooting-a-timeline-of-events/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/parents-demand-answers-after-neighborhood-watch-captain-allegedly-kills-teen-trayvon-martin/
I find it interesting how you compare soft and hard policing at the end of your response. I see these two as not a dichotomous relationship but more of a spectrum, as although Zimmerman was in a traditionally soft policing role, he took on many aspects and attributes of hard policing at the same time. The way Zimmerman conducted himself reminds me of the Movie we saw a few weeks back, Law and Disorder in Johannesburg. The vigilante style actions which resulted in Martin’s death are very similar to the lawlessness and anarchy which were portrayed throughout the film, which further shows how surveillance is such an important issue due to both its potential safety and potential harmful effects.
ReplyDeleteJonathan Berry-Smith
Interesting post Rana! I also enjoyed your comparison of soft policing and hard policing. The case involving Zimmerman and Martin does provides a unique example of community policing gone wrong. Regardless of the verdict, it is clear that Zimmerman took on the role of the aggressor (hard) policing in this instance and was neglectful of the instructions provided by the "real police." Zimmerman neglecting these instructions appears to be the cause for Martin's death. Therefore, this article may suggest that community policing may prove to be more harmful then helpful. I wonder if Professional Policing would use this case as an example for encouraging their platform. Overall, I enjoyed reading your post, and I feel you posed interesting/thought provoking questions.
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Sarah Hickman
I found this post very interesting for a couple of reasons. First, I like how you talk about different "roles" when it comes to community policing and community members versus law enforcement officers. I agree that Zimmerman took matters into his own hands and stepped out of his "role" by confronting Martin personally. I think that calling the police is the furthest step he should have taken and then he should have waited for the police to show up. By not following his "role," he put himself and Martin in a situation that could have been easily avoided. Second, I like how you talk about "soft" versus "hard" policing. I think as humans we tend to react with violence when we are in fearful or dangerous situations. This, however, is a problem when it comes to community policing. I agree that for the police to take a "soft" policing approach, citizens need to take the same approach or at least cooperate with it. Overall, I enjoyed reading this post and think you did a great job talking about the problems with community policing. -Brooke Arthur
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that if Zimmerman wasn't going to follow instructions then why did he even call for help from law enforcement. He obviously should have followed instructions and waited for the police instead of trying to be a "hero." Zimmermans move led to this teens death so, from this it is clear that community police can actually be dangerous. I agree that the police shouldn't be hard and aggressive because that influences the citizens to be aggressive as well. I really enjoyed reading your post.
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to read how Zimmerman was playing the roll of a "soft" policing role/watch leader and then jumped to the aggressive "hard" policing role. In a previous legal studies class, we spoke about the Zimmerman case and what legitimacy he had in killing Trayvon Martin. After the acquittal of the Zimmerman case, a lot of debate occurred on whether or not it was fair for Zimmerman to be carrying a concealed weapon and firing upon a person that looked "suspicious" after an encounter that occurred minutes after law enforcement arrived. The idea of not waiting for uniformed law enforcement and taking matters into your own hands challenges law enforcement as a whole. It makes people wonder if community policing if at all is effective.
ReplyDelete- Jordan Ho
Great post. It made me wonder why do we even have roles if the boundaries are so blurred? Furthermore, why follow the rules of a "soft" community watchman when you can get away with performing the duties (or abusing the power) of a "hard" legitimate police officer. We've discussed the loss of legitimacy within the professional policing realm and now I can foresee a loss of legitimacy within community policing as well. What is so ironic to me is that the main distinction between the two is supposed to be their legitimacy, but instead, it has turned into a privilege or power that both styles of policing share. I never thought I'd see police brutality or the abuse of power that I associate with professional "hard" policing bleed (literally) over into "soft" community policing. If "soft", fake, community police now have the power to kill innocent, harmless citizens and claim self-defense, what does that say about the future of "hard", real, professional policing?
ReplyDeleteTiarra Pittman
I think your point about community policing working AGAINST law enforcement is extremely interesting. I do agree that at the end of the day, we all share the same goals. You essentially ask if everyone is fighting for the same team, why are there cooperation issues? To answer this question, I would argue that a large part of this is a tactics discrepancy. Zimmerman felt that "hard" policing was a better strategy in this scenario, while law enforcement preferred to take the "softer" route. I disagree that "we ourselves" are unwilling to cooperate with these softer strategies because this was a case that received a lot of media attention and scrutiny. As a whole, I feel that the community was primarily more upset with Zimmerman than with public law enforcement (although there were a fair share of exceptions). That being said, there are certain instances that require soft policing and others that require hard policing. If the wrong tactic is used in a given situation, it can prove to be extremely problematic.
ReplyDelete-Kim Newton
Great post about the Zimmerman case. I remember reading a lot of material last semester about this case in LS100 and distinctly recall listening to audio of the phone conversation between Zimmerman and the dispatcher. From the way he sounded within the phone call it seemed that Zimmerman's words and actions did not match the "anxiety" he felt as he pursued Martin and instead were intended as a legal smokescreen to protect himself from possible consequences for his actions. I don't think we can expect law enforcement officers to really turn to a "softer" policing style if overall our public and mass media have ingrained expectations of a "hard" policing style from our officers. Often officers of the law can't win and have to walk a dangerous line between being too soft on crime or demonized by the public for being too harsh on suspected criminals.
ReplyDelete-Michael Wu
To this day the incident between Martin and Zimmerman brings an emotional reaction out of me. There were a lot of great points made in this post but the most interesting point to me was about the irony of community policing with the 'softer' methods and how the leader of the neighborhood watch used deadly force on an unarmed teenager. The idea is that when the police are working and cooperating with the 'leaders' of the community it should yield positive effects. Not only was an unarmed teenager killed, but it came at the hands of the community leader/neighborhood watch and not the police, who most would expect it to be.
ReplyDelete-Alex Logan
I thought bringing up the Zimmerman case in connection with the topics of law enforcement and policing in general was a great idea! Though, in my opinion, I don't know if we really want to look at this Zimmerman case with the question on what strategies local law enforcement should use. We may argue whether if law enforcement should use a "softer" or a "hard" policing style in terms of local policing, but I feel like this case was more on the question of whether one can be authorized to be in charge of policing from the first place. When we, as the members of society or the citizens of the state, agree to have law enforcement to be authorized to do certain policing, do we also agree to have those individuals of our community to be empowered? Or do we just want to have some extra manpower to watch our community? Then it reaches to the argument where if he was completely on purpose of self-protection or he used excessive power. So, I think that this Zimmerman case itself is not really about the policing style but more about who can be authorized and how do we determine who to be authorized to do what.
ReplyDeleteHi Rana, I liked the distinction you made in Zimmerman's actions between hard and soft policing. From your post, I understood that soft-policing gave Zimmerman some type of authority to be the neighborhood watchmen. His actions, however, seem very hard-policing as he used racial profiling to target Martin. Although Zimmerman is not an actual police officer, I think his actions highlight the drawbacks of both community and professional policing. His role in the situation was vague and focused too directly on crime suppression. Had Zimmerman been given a clearer role on how to identify and question individuals he thought suspicious, it is unlikely this tragedy would have occurred.
ReplyDelete-Victoria Rodriguez
Rana your post was great! I liked how you touched on Zimmerman's actions, comparing them to the concepts of soft and hard policing. It was not surprising that once the line between soft and hard policing was crossed, that the actions would be a national controversy. I agree with many others in regards to the fact that had Zimmerman had a little more faith in law enforcement, this whole ordeal could have been avoided.
ReplyDelete-Alejandro Castellano
Wonder article . I like the fact the you compared and contrasted the aspect of community and professional policing. This whole situation stems from racial stereotypes and what can came from them. Ironically the only thing suspicious on that night was a grown man following a minor home in a strange vehicle. Nonetheless, professional policing should have trumped community policing, as police asked Zimmerman not pursue martin. In brief , this is what can happen when stereotypes become prominent, minorities die.
ReplyDelete- Jarred Boone
In my opinion, there's no doubts that community policing could be beneficial in so many ways, people keep an eye on the community, police communicate with people, the relationship between police and citizens are closer compare to other types of policing. However, when the citizens are used to this style they might often don't take police as seriously as they should, they think they have equal power and equal judgement which is not true.
ReplyDeleteWarinya Rojanasuwan
I also liked your blog. I agree with the Berkeley Police officer who said Community policing is good policing. Who knows the area better than the people who live there and know when something is up or suspicious because they know normal routines that happen around them. I think Stand Your Ground should be taken away because this case with Martin and Zimmerman is an example of it going way wrong and the gun being in the wrong hands and using it as an excuse to kill someone. All because he blames the victim who has no voice to dispute his story for causing him to use the gun. Zimmerman also does not like to be told what to do. All these factors add up to why Stand Your Ground should not be allowed. Even today, Zimmerman is in the news for gun incidents and this shows he got away with murder. A similar case with guns is the Oscar Pistorius case, he killed his girlfriend and claims it was an accident. However, all these people who were involved with him in the past are coming back with stories about all these gun incidents he had before the murder. I hope Oscar is convicted and karma will get Zimmerman because he is just asking to be thrown into jail for a long time. ~Shari Gray~
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