“Get up get up get down. 911’s a joke in your town.” — Public Enemy

The political, social, and sports world collided on Friday morning when Masters champion Scottie Scheffler was arrested and charged with second degree assault of a police officer. This came about because he didn’t follow instructions when they asked him not to pull into the parking lot at Valhalla (where the PGA Championship is taking place). Scheffler says it was blown out of proportion. The detective says he was dragged and had his 80 dollar pants ruined.

Thus we have the conundrum of the modern age. Are police generally good guys with tough jobs that have been trodden upon by an unappreciative public or are they dangerous to certain communities and abusive of their own power? I know where I cast my lot, but that is based on personal experience.

About three or four years ago I was picking up my daughter at the skating rink. The officer on duty politely asked me if I noticed anyone in the parking lot looking inside cars. I said no and went inside to look for my daughter. A couple of minutes later he confronted me and asked me why I was looking inside of cars.

I explained that I was just there to pick up my daughter and go home. He yanked me by the arm and drug me out of the premises. This happened in front of my daughter. He obviously discovered that I was there to pick her up and not vandalize cars, but he couldn’t leave well enough alone. He decided I must be drunk.

I offered to take a breathalyzer test, but he said none was unavailable. Instead I went through a field sobriety test. I am diabetic and have horrible balance. I couldn’t pass one under any circumstances. He refused to let my daughter come home with me. So, I called my wife (who had been drinking) to come and drive her. He finally admitted that he could not hold me, so he let me drive on my own “if I felt safe to do so.”

A half hour ordeal could have gone much worse under a few circumstances. He could have tried to bust me for driving under the influence on absolutely zero evidence outside of a field sobriety test. I had not had anything to drink that day, but that didn’t seem to matter. I suppose he could have put handcuffs on me on suspicion of vandalism on zero evidence.

We had a teacher this year that resigned following a DUI arrest. It boggles the mind how close I could have come to career ruin based on the actions of an overzealous cop. I did complain to his department, but I didn’t keep up with the case. I’m guessing he and his supervisors laughed it off as just one of those things to happen on the job. They certainly didn’t think about what it must of have been like for my daughter to see her father yanked out of a skating rink like some criminal.

Those who defend police will say they have a difficult job. They absolutely have a difficult job. They will say there are just a few bad apples. I think there is more to it than that. There are some systemic issues we see everywhere and that is particularly true when dealing with minority communities.

Do we back the blue or are we one of those communists that want to defund the police? Progressives don’t do themselves any favors with these labels, but policing does need to be revamped. There are just too many personal and national stories for it to be a few bad apples. It is a training issue. It is an issue of how they seem themselves within the community. It is an issue of how they view disparate communities. It also is a case of a job that attracts people with certain personalities that lend itself to this sort of thing. Scheffler might have done something wrong, but I seriously doubt that all of this needed to happen. Now, imagine if he were black, Hispanic, or obviously lower class.